Now Playing: Vanquish

Vanquish is your fairly standard, cover based third person shooter. As you’d expect from such a title, you must advance through a series of linear environments, tackling set waves of enemies before waiting for the next checkpoint to trigger. This is followed by a plot progressing cut-scene. Boss fights are sprinkled throughout, some of which are repeated with the addition of a challenging twist.

The core gameplay consists of a cover based system, allowing you to blind fire or snap out of cover and aim. You can also vault over cover and roll to avoid fire. There’s a ‘slow-motion’ mechanic which you can manually activate, but which will also automatically activate at low health. You can carry three weapons in addition to two grenade types. You also have a basic melee attack.

So far, so generic, right? But Vanquish isn’t your typical cover based third person shooter. No. It’s a Platinum Games cover based third person shooter. And what does that mean? It means that whilst many of the elements of Vanquish are exactly as you’d expect for this genre, all of it is dialled up to 11. No, make that 12.

Many games tend to ease the player in. They build pace as they go. Not Vanquish. Vanquish is balls to the wall from the moment you begin and it never lets up. It’s a hard game to pull yourself away from. There’s very little to no downtime or ‘quiet’ moments during or between combat sections. Vanquish isn’t the longest game – only 4-5 hours on the default difficulty – but every single second is pretty damn fantastic.

The action is fast and frenetic. Cover is actually rarely used, as mobility is key. Whereas many similar cover based shooters tend to be more of a slow plod from point A to B, Vanquish is a mad dash with rocket boots. You can perform a powered ‘slide’ across the environments, during which you can shoot and activate your slow-motion ability.

Your boosting and slow-motion does have a cost, however, and its energy reserve must recharge. It can also overheat through over-use, leaving you vulnerable. It’s important to manage the use of this energy and use it to your advantage at the appropriate time. This is where a little strategy and timing becomes involved on the battlefield.

But the more you become accustomed to using the boost and slow-motion abilities and their associated cost, the more effective you’ll become, zipping about the battle and taking down multiple foes without taking so much as a scratch. It may sound easy, but on higher difficulties Vanquish will give you a run for your money – you really have to manage your energy usage efficiently if you want to survive.

Being a Platinum Games title, Vanquish has the kind of ridiculous, over the top story and characters you’d expect. You play as Sam Gideon, a special operative of DARPA on a mission to stop an evil Russian guy from firing a giant laser and destroying New York City. It’s silly, forgettable nonsense, but it will make you smile.

There’s a decent selection of weapons ranging from the standard assault rifle, shotgun and sniper rifle, to the more advanced lock-on laser and LFE gun. All of these can be improved by collecting various upgrades, and all feel satisfying to use thanks to some excellent audio and visual feedback.

Vanquish is looking a little rough around the edges these days, but it’s still a very nice looking game, with some great enemy design and variety. You’re mostly fighting robots which come in all shapes and sizes. The environments are fairly small and linear, but they do allow a degree of freedom to flank behind an enemy position. And the game certainly pushes itself (and the framerate) to the limit at times as hundreds of missiles blast through the air, or giant lasers rip their way through the scenery. Despite being a cover based shooter, you’ll never want to sit in one place for too long and it’s actually rather dangerous to do so.

There’s not much more I can say about Vanquish. It may be somewhat short and limited in terms of content, and it’s true that the gameplay never really evolves beyond ‘go really fast and shoot a lot’, but what more does it need? I suppose you could argue a few changes of pace wouldn’t have been so bad, although it does regularly introduce new enemy types and weapons, which helps keep you on your toes.

The ending feels a little abrupt, and the final level and boss fight isn’t quite the exciting climax you might hope for. I would have also preferred some mixing up of the gameplay in terms of environments. There’s a great rotating zero gravity section for example, and I would have liked a few more unique situations like this.

I wouldn’t say Vanquish is a title with a great deal of depth, although playing on the harder settings does require a little more thought and strategy, particularly in terms of managing your energy expenditure. It’s a game which is a fun rush to play, and I don’t think it’s really trying to be much more.

If I had to compare it to another Platinum title in terms of gameplay, I’d say Metal Gear Rising offers a combat system with more depth and scope to master. Vanquish may be a little simpler, arguably more shallow, but certainly no less ridiculously fun. Fun! Remember that?

7/10