From the same developers that went on to release Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising comes Vanquish, a strange mix of character action games and “spectacle shooters”. Using a prototype suit designed by DARPA, you’re able to slide around at high speed and slow down time, both individually and simultaneously. These are both skills you will need in order to survive, as you have a rather realistic amount of regenerating health.

Once you get the controls and movement quirks under your belt, it feels rather satisfying to skate around the battlefields blasting anything that moves. Playing with a mouse and keyboard is not very bad at all, and was actually my preferred way to play. But where Vanquish really stands out are the boss fights; If you thought Platinum making Metal Gear RAY the tutorial boss in Revengeance was original, you clearly haven’t seen what’s in this one. Weapon variety is also incredibly good, although realistically speaking there are several weapons that seem like they only lend themselves well to self-imposed challenges, and it can be hard to find ammo for the rarer ones. Weapons also upgrade when you either fill them up and pick up ammo or find an upgrade kit, providing a somewhat-novel method of power creep without exactly reinventing the wheel.

Like with any Platinum game, the storyline is one of Vanquish’s weak points. It’s so corny that it might as well be set in Kansas instead of on a space station, and while that’s excusable, it’s just hard to take things seriously, and a rather important plot point feels like it was supposed to be written far more seriously with how jarring the shift in tone was. I also found the game to be rather hard, but that could be because I finished it before the patch that made running at 60 FPS not also double your received damage while halving your ARS gauge timer. At any rate, be prepared to die quite a bit until you either get good with the game or overcome whatever adversity you’re facing. Finally, it’s quite short (I’d guess about 4-5 hours), so if you don’t like replaying levels to get better scores or execute things more stylishly, maybe wait until a sale. With all that in mind, it certainly still gets a thumbs-up.

From the same developers that went on to release Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising comes Vanquish, a strange mix of character action games and “spectacle shooters”. Using a prototype suit designed by DARPA, you’re able to slide around at high speed and slow down time, both individually and simultaneously. These are both skills you will need in order to survive, as you have a rather realistic amount of regenerating health. Once you get the controls and movement quirks under your belt, it feels rather satisfying to skate around the battlefields blasting anything that moves. Playing with a mouse and keyboard is not very bad at all, and was actually my preferred way to play. But where Vanquish really stands out are the boss fights; If you thought Platinum making Metal Gear RAY the tutorial boss in Revengeance was original, you clearly haven’t seen what’s in this one. Weapon variety is also incredibly good, although realistically speaking there are several weapons that seem like they only lend themselves well to self-imposed challenges, and it can be hard to find ammo for the rarer ones. Weapons also upgrade when you either fill them up and pick up ammo or find an upgrade kit, providing a somewhat-novel method of power creep without exactly reinventing the wheel. Like with any Platinum game, the storyline is one of Vanquish’s weak points. It’s so corny that it might as well be set in Kansas instead of on a space station, and while that’s excusable, it’s just hard to take things seriously, and a rather important plot point feels like it was supposed to be written far more seriously with how jarring the shift in tone was. I also found the game to be rather hard, but that could be because I finished it before the patch that made running at 60 FPS not also double your received damage while halving your ARS gauge timer. At any rate, be prepared to die quite a bit until you either get good with the game or overcome whatever adversity you’re facing. Finally, it’s quite short (I’d guess about 4-5 hours), so if you don’t like replaying levels to get better scores or execute things more stylishly, maybe wait until a sale. With all that in mind, it certainly still gets a thumbs-up.