Vanquish

[turbojet]

Agreed with Remz.

Off-topic: Is that Kid Cudi in your sig? If so, holy shit.

[SuperStingray]

Alright, I just completed the campaign. My verdict? Glorious, fast-paced, hyperactive, fluid, but somehow... ultimately unfulfiling. It's really fun and provided pretty much everything I expected, but it's probably the worst of Platinum's previous releases. One of the reasons I love Platinum, who're probably my favorite Japanese third-party development team, is that they take stereotypical western idiosyncrosies and liven it up with a Japanese twist (except for Okami where it's kind of the other way round.) And frankly, Vanquish takes a bit too much of the western and not enough of the Japanese. As I said before, the dialogue itself is good and there are a lot of funny wise cracks, but a lot of the time, it becomes what it's trying to parody. As I said before, I'm not even sure if it wants to be serious or not. One moment, you're infiltrating a large, walking bastion and the next, dancing robots.

But as for the story itself, I'm honestly surprised. Platinum is pretty much all about putting large chunks of narrative in where it doesn't even feel needed, but the plot in Vanquish is so thin, one of the the main characters actually has more development and lines of dialogue in the tutorial than the game itself, and no, that is not an exaggeration. There really isn't much going on storywise between the first and last act; most of the exposition is told in little walls of text during loading screens which you can't really read anyway since it loads too fast. And by the end of the game it pretends that they triumphantly completed a daring mission when virtually nothing was accomplished. You saved New York City, I guess, but the game seems to drop that part of the mission about as soon as it comes up. Oh, and there's a cliff hanger ending, as if anything that would be in a sequel couldn't have been accomplished in whatever chance to have a plot this game DIDN'T take advantage of. I normally wouldn't throw this big a fit about a storyline, but frankly, it's just really counterintuitive that a game trying to be ahead of other shooters in pacing would have a plot that moves forward so slowly.

The gameplay, of course, is its strong point. The sheer flow and energy of the game makes up for almost every one of its downfalls. There's no more awesome feeling to be had in a TPS than sniping an enemy in slo-mo while in mid-air or boosting. Sliding around enemy cover while shooting them to pieces is also extremely gratifying. Like many other reviewers seem to say, the difficulty curve is almost exponential. While I said that OHKO hits are easy to avoid, it does hold true that there ARE a bit too many of them. And since your manuveurs almost always depend on it, I think the energy bar should be much larger. Since melee attacks drain your entire bar in one shot, there's really no fair chance to make a clean getaway afterward. If anything, casual mode should be normal mode, normal mode should be hard mode, hard mode should be god hard mode and god hard mode should be suicide mode. But if the gameplay has any true downfall, it's the lack of bosses. There are really about 4 unique bosses which are recycled CONSTANTLY through the course of the game.

Everything else aside, Vanquish's presentation is virtually flawless. The archetecture, atmosphere, art style- it's all very clean, futuristic and grand, like it's telling you "just go for it" which couldn't fit the game any better. The music is godly awesome too- the pumping bass is very fitting and thrilling.

Overall, I guess the most simple way I can put it is that Vanquish is essentially Dark Void, except in the future rather than the past and with rockets on your feet instead of your back. It's original and takes advantage of the gameplay concept it's tied to but doesn't really provide much more than that. Definately a rental at the very least, but if you want to buy it, I'd wait till the price falls.

Edited October 21, 2010 by SuperStingray

[Badnik Mechanic]

So my Bayonetta Vanquish double pack just came through the post. YAY! Also for those wondering, the Vanquish Bayonetta double pack is not a special edition box or anything, it's quite literally two seperate games, but thats good because now I can trade in/sell a sealed up copy of bayonetta WOO!

However, the cover has a rather nice hollogram on it, ah shiny...

Really looking forward to playing this one

[Sega DogTagz]

Just got mine in the mail, but I've kinda committed myself to actually finishing FF13 before I touch this. Now its just sitting there on my shelf, taunting me with its obvious superiority.

[turbojet]

Just got mine in the mail, but I've kinda committed myself to actually finishing FF13 before I touch this. Now its just sitting there on my shelf, taunting me with its obvious superiority.

You think you have it bad? I literally sleep right next to mine because my dorm room is small. I don't have my PS3 with me and I was planning on playing it today once I get back home, but NOOOOOOO, homework and tests made me its bitch. Dammit!

Edited October 23, 2010 by turbojet

[Remy]

Agreed with Remz.

Off-topic: Is that Kid Cudi in your sig? If so, holy shit.

Sure is, love me some Cudi. hope the new album rules.

and re: Vanquish, I'm basically in the can't play it yet phase as well- I have exams just around the corner, so i'm trying to avoid all game purchases for the next while till they're all over.

[SuperStingray]

I gotta know- is it a coincidence that Sam Gideon's voice actor is named Gideon?

EDIT 10/25: Tried God Hard mode. I want you to know how tough this shit is: According to the leaderboard, only ONE person has beaten it so far, and even he had a -400000 score. That's right- NEGATIVE 400000. It took me more attempts to BEAT the demo level than I played it ON the demo (which was a lot). I'm only just past the tunnel now after about 5 hours of playing. We are looking at the IWBTG of shooters here, that is no exageration.

Edited October 26, 2010 by SuperStingray

[Badnik Mechanic]

I finally got around to playing it today, I love the campaign mode so far, and I tried to beat the challenges earlier... they're a bit... too hard. Does anyone else find the challenges a bit too hard?

[Phos]

I usually have a hard time with the first challenge, but I dealt with 2 and 3 pretty well. That's all the ones I've tried yet, though.

[SuperStingray]

I'm starting to like this game more the more that I play it. I don't know what it is, it just gets so addicting when you realize how awesome the thing you just did is.

[turbojet]

Got the chance to play it today and goddamn, it was awesome and hard. It takes some getting used to. I usually breeze through these kind of things and beat it within a day, but this game takes skill. Lots of skill. Can't wait to play it again.

[Remy]

Yeah, seriously. this game was absolutely kicking my ass on Hard through Act 1 and 2 first time I played, but now I'm in four I'm kicking it's. Vanquish is incredibly fun to play, I love it.

there's this one room during the Kreon assault which is pretty much the best thing ever. Anyone else know what i'm talking about? Such an amazing scene ahahahaha.

also: the soldier's that roll with you seem to all have pun names, at the moment I'm with D. Grassi and before I had the man S. Mikami himself.

[SuperStingray]

there's this one room during the Kreon assault which is pretty much the best thing ever. Anyone else know what i'm talking about? Such an amazing scene ahahahaha.

I just stood there for about 5 minutes just looking at them. I felt bad breaking it up.

[Remy]

Seriously! I did the same thing.

What happens after that was pretty cool too. Talk about lowering my guard.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Is that the room which involves 4 robots just before the 2nd time you fight the orb boss thing?

If so, yes... Greatest room ever. Also what's the music? I thought it was a remix of one of the Bayonetta tracks at first.

[Remy]

If so, yes... Greatest room ever. Also what's the music? I thought it was a remix of one of the Bayonetta tracks at first.

Mmm I recognizeed but couldn't place it as well. Maybe an old SEGA tune?

[Phos]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcCS8AK6csg, unfortunately.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So then... the challenges... BLOODY HELL! Those things are brutal, it took me 2 days just to beat Challenge 6! The difficulty on these things will really test your patience and ability. They just don't let up or give you a break, if you mess up or make a mistake, thats it you're dead!

If you've not done them yet, challenge 4 and 6 can potentially make you hate the game, so do them before you get the other trophies if you're going for 100%, Its so satisfying when you do beat them though, theres a point where you think "I'M GONNA DO THIS!" So long as you don't mess up the feeling is great.

Doing the campaign on hard right now, with the stuff I've learnt in the challenges, it's a lot more fun and I'm taking a lot more risks which is very rewarding when it pays off.

[Swiss]

So I decided to rent this the other day, and it's fucking amazing. I dived straight into Hard Mode and I love the challenge. Since I only had it for 2 days I only managed to get to Act 2( Mission 3 I think?) with the 2 giant robots and it got so difficult...still, I'll more than likely be renting it again next week if I don't buy it before then.

Edit: Anyone fancy buying it with Bayonetta for this lovely price?

Edited November 17, 2010 by Super Meat Swiss

[Swiss]

Sorry for the double post, but this is too good...

Could they get sued for this? The similarities are uncanny.

[Agent York]

Given the story of Vanquish, the fact that the developers of Deep Black, 505 Games, are Russian is a bit ironic.

[SuperStingray]

Looks like a mix of Vanquish with Hydrophobia.

[SuperStingray]

Big bump here, but I've been replaying this game and it's somehow clicked with me like it couldn't before. I just spent the past week playing the last boss again and again and finally beat it with the 59th best score on God Hard on Earth. For the record that difficulty is somewhere between Halo on Mythic and Battletoads. Anyway, I have to redact my opinion on the last page because I never fully appreciated this game's elegance and graphics. It's beyond me how those explosions and particle effects were so photorealistic and how much could be going on without a single drop in framerate. And how one move just flowed into the next just made the gameplay so immerssive. It's a pity Mikami left because I really want to see a sequel.