Vanquish is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride, best suited for the hardcore and meticulous action fan.
Platinum Games' latest action effort puts you in the role of Sam Gideon, an ex-football player who works for the US Goverment in a special-forces capacity. The United States (or at least this bizarre version of it) has been invaded by huge Russian Robots. And you have a prototype suit called the ARS, which basically makes a human a robot, so you are the United States last hope for defense and salvation against huge evil robots. See a theme here?
Pretty corny, huh? Well that's okay, because the plot in Vanquish is inconsequential, and thank god it is. In fact, the story is only a hinderance to the game -- and interruption to the flow of what this game does so brilliantly. Before you know it, you'll be flying around the battle field at a lightning fast rate on your knees, leaving a trail of blue sparks, and performing Kung-Fu on huge robots, all in glorious slow motion. Yes, Vanquish is a game that unabashedly is about being a crazy, fun, and intense experience. And it succeeds in it's mission, although there are a few hiccups along the way.
The biggest roadblock to accessiblity this game faces is it's incredibly steep learning curve. Within minutes of playing, you're forced into an extremely challenging boss battle, even before you get a good idea of how to do something basic, like shoot your weapon and leap to cover. If this was 1985, that would be fine -- but videogames have evolved beyond 2 button gameplay and become substantially more complex over the years, and Vanquish is the most technical, complex 3rd Person shooting game out there. The game does offer a brief, almost worthless tutorial, that does little else than to teach you what you already know -- aim, shoot, reload, repeat. But Vanquish's gameplay is saturated with minute details and abilities -- such as engaging your ARS booster after a melee attack for an extra 4 seconds of mid-air carnage. Abilities and actions like this are essential to play the game the way it was meant to be played; unfortunately, the player is basically left to figure these things out completely on their own.
The visuals in Vanquish are absolutely outstanding, but they are not the game's most esteemed technical merit. Vanquish is extremely chaotic and intense, intentionally overwhelming you at first with hundreds of bullets, rockets, and enemy robots charging at you from all directions. But even with all this mayhem, there is never, ever a frame-rate drop or hiccup in the action. In fact, when you engage your Battle Suit's ARS (basically bullet time, where everything slows down) you can literally see every single bullet, rocket, peice of debris, and even bits of dirt coming at you in explicit high-definittion glory. The action is always smooth, intense, and manageable, however hopeless it may seem at first.
The game's length has also been brought up repeatedly, and needlessly. The game will take an average player 7-8 hours of gametime to beat the first time around. But this does not include times that you die, and retry the game, which will likely put your first playthrough at around 8-12 hours. Of course it could've been longer, but the question remains as to whether that would've made Vanquish a better experience. Statements and rumors of this game's 4-hour length are completely false. I've beaten the game 3 times now, including the harder difficulties, and I doubt I could finish it in less than 5.
That being said, Vanquish is not for everyone. The learning curve will make casuals players weep softly in their cushioned Madcatz Game Chairs. But if you've got an appetite for destruction, and a steadfast finger-trigger, Vanquish is one of the most enjoyable shooters of this generation.