Review : Vanquish

Well who would have thought Platinum Studios would make a good game? Anyone who played the other games made from Platinum that's who! Seriously Vanquish is a really good game and here's my review to back it up.

The story of Vanquish is another one of those ones that makes Russia the bad guy and America the hero... well that's what you'd think at first. A Russian group called Russian Star destroys San Francisco with a microwave laser. Sam Gideon of DARPA has been sent to the space colony Providence in the Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS) to rescue Professor Candide and help the marines stop the Russian Star's leader Victor Zaitsev from destroying New York.
The game is a 3rd person, cover-based shooter so you pretty much have a basic idea of how it plays. You'll spend the majority shooting robots from cover which sounds bland at first but what you can do and what you can fight make it more fun then you'd think. The games unique selling point is the boosting mechanic that is pretty cool because you can use it to zip around the stage and do a super powered melee attack and the game uses bullet time but it uses the same gauge as the boost. The combat can be pretty awesome thanks to the boosting and bullet time but one thing that's pretty cool to go with the bullet time is the fact that when your on low health it will auto activate if the gauge has energy in it to help you to find cover or even kills some enemies. The game has a few weapons and each gives you a different melee attack, some basic like the assault rifle and shotgun but some unique ones like the LFE Gun which launches a blastwave of energy in a circular shape and the Lock On launcher which can target multiple targets and you can upgrade you weapons in battle by picking up upgrades from enemies or picking up a duplicate weapon with full ammo. The game can be hectic at times and some of the stuff that can happen while playing are just awesome, whether your using bullet time to shoot missiles, fighting giant robots or trying to cross a collapsing bridge in one of the acts and the quick time events just look awesome. It's a fast paced game that has a lot happening most of the time and if fun, seriously fun. The game does last only 8 hours but that's about average today so that's not much of a draw back and on top of that there are challenges you can complete once you finish the game for those who are into that stuff. The game just manages to get everything done well with everything in the game. I'm not doing the game justice with my description.

Vanquish is just an awesome game to play because of how much happens on screen and the story isn't too bad but those voices the male lead characters have are just horrible. It's a fun game full of action and makes you feel like a super powered badass. I give it a 4/5 because it's a fun game and has an ok story that leaves an opening for a sequel. If you like Madworld and or Bayonetta you really should buy this.

Score 4/5