Vanquish is ACTION PACKED from beginning to end.
The gameplay and controls are really easy to learn and the button layout fits perfect with the game. The battles in Vanquish reminded me of what Mass Effect would be like on steriods. Like Mass Effect you duck and cover behind walls and shoot your weapons off picking off mechs and other crazy enemies. Except this game is way more fast paced and action packed. You'll be armed with 3 weapons at a time that you can switch out at weapon crates and a couple grenades. All the weapons pack a punch and if an enemy gets to close you can tape O and go literally ballistic with mele combo's. Your not in battle alone either, you have a whole army with you and they die just like in a real world war. If you see someone down you can revive them. All actions you do contribute to your end mission score.
The graphics and level designs are beautiful. There are lots of details in the levels and they are open but set up so it's linear. You usually start off at point A and go to point B but they are open very wide and usually there's enough room for you to use that unqiue skill slide for awhile before you even hit anything.
The boss battles deserve there own paragraph. Simply put they are awesome, I haven't had a good battle like these bosses in a long, long time. The bosses are usually huge mechs, I know that part isn't unusual in videogames these days. The difference between other games and this one is each boss doesn't go down that quick. That doesn't mean they are painfully difficult it just means you must keep moving around, firing, dodging, firing, picking up ammo and so on. Some bosses have weak points for example this giant mech that looked like a spider, you have to shoot a leg until it falls then the weak point on his face open's up and you can drain it's life. When he get's back up you are forced to shoot out another leg because the weak point in it's face is guarded until you do so. The boss battle's are just really fun and something missing from alot of video games.
Vanquish is a high action game in the same vein as bulletstorm and plays like Mass Effect except without the RPG elements. The game is short but thats what you can expect from this type of genre. If your looking to blow stuff up and kill a bunch of enemies this game is for you.