Platinum Games produced quite the surprise hit with Bayonetta earlier this year and with the help of game maker Shinji Mikami, is now set to offer us another potentially great title. The creative head behind the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series is directing an explosive third person action game.
Vanquish takes place in a universe where superpowers Russia and the USA are at war. What else is new right? That is where the stereotypes end however and unique gameplay begins. Russia has attacked the West Coast and the conflict peaks. Players take control of Sam, a researcher who created the feature rich and flashy armor he is wearing throughout the game. As said previously, the USA and Russia are at war and Sam is meeting heavy opposition in the form of robots and even bigger robots.
In the demo level I played I took control of Sam who, with the the help of a few ‘typical American’ stereotypes at his side, took on a few smaller robot soldiers climaxing in a massive boss battle at the end of the level.
The game is a third person shooter with a twist. Sam’s suit has two main abilities, boosted power-slides and slow-motion resembling bullet time. Combat in Vanquish is fast paced and has an arcade like level. Sam can take cover and pop out at blazing fast speeds, sliding across the battlefield while entering bullet time and taking out enemies ablaze. It is fun to play.
At the end of the level I took on a giant robot spider which had to be taken down by shooting its orange glowing weak spots similar to the monsters in Lost Planet 2. When I had finished off the boss, the downed spider transformed into an even larger scaling robot which needed to the destroyed by shooting its joints and ultimately destroy the red glowing core. At this point the demo ended. Time for a smoke. A notable feature in the demo was the revival ability. I was able to go around and revive downed teammates which seemed a bit unnecessary since I was able to take out the boss by myself. There were also some destructible environments which made just hiding from enemies a bit tougher but not unmanageable.
I really enjoyed playing through this demo level which is available on PSN and XBL right now for download. Vanquish certainly has a lot of Japanese features which can’t be mistaken but the attempt to make this game ‘feel’ like a western action game seems more successful than many others before it. Platinum and Mikami might have just pulled of another hit title. My impressions overall were good but in order to be a great game I will need to see some variety in mission structure and gameplay elements.
The game is set to release on October 19th on PS3 and Xbox 360 in the US.
