Years past its PlayStation3 debut, Vanquish is still the highest realization of third person shooters videogames. It implements the easy, familiar and stale cover mechanics made mainstream by Gears of War, Uncharted and Mass Effect, then shatters them by evolving the system to new and still today unreached heights. Cover mechanics are usually built to make the players feel protected during gunfights, safe spots that restrict movements, making the game akin to a less explicit tower defence; they feel derivative and rarely rewarding since, aside adding maybe different weapons thorough the playthrough or forcing incentives to move from one cover to another, once you played a cover shooter the general gameplay will always be identical.
Then along came Platinum Games, they decided that staying put picking out enemies from safe spots was slow and bollocks and crafted an eight-hour long joyride in outer space, with augmented movesets, faster combats in larger arenas and their signature excessive aesthetic of B-movie camp dialogues and relentless action. Vanquish major gameplay’s accomplishments are in its implementation of the Augmented Reaction (AR) suit and its versatility: this AR suit allows the utilization of boosters to rapidly traverse the game areas, ram into enemies, change covers, as a vast and more powerful sprint mechanic. Not so rare for cover shooters is also the dedicated dodge button, but unlike other more – tentatively – ‘realistic’ videogames, in Vanquish there is no input or animation delay, the dodge is omnidirectional and with immediate, if none, recovery time, thus guaranteeing quick means of evasion and closing in on enemies.
Another Platinum’s well-known gadget is the AR mode, a device to slow time, reminiscent of Bayonetta’s Witch Time, that enhances precise aim and favours more calculated movements. AR mode however has to be triggered via players’ movement of the character, be it a dodge, a boost sprint, a drop kick against an enemy, vaulting out of cover, thus incentivising the players to actively leave covers and experiment with the versatile combat. Alternatively, receiving too much damage and being put in critical condition will automatically trigger the AR mode, yet also deplete its charge completely, as would an abuse of boost and AR mode. The ingenious thing is, once the AR suit is overheating and the players temporarily lose the ability too boost and slow time, it doesn’t immediately equate to a death sentence, there always is the safe having of taking cover and letting both the suit and health points regenerate: meaning, the game’s ‘punishment’ for lacking resources management is to play a standard cover shooter. How lovely.
Vanquish though failed to find strong public recognition in its lifetime, because aside from its revolutionary, immensely fun and hard to master gameplay, and for the high-quality production in cutscenes and graphic, the rest of the package is rather bland. Sound design does its job, but there is nothing impressive in both soundtrack and gunplay, which are hardly distinguishable from other products of the same genre. Enemies design lack variety and interesting mechanic to counter, will all of them, small and big, playing the same with annoying long-range distractions and close quarter devastating one-hit kills. Visually speaking there also isn’t much to look at, even bosses are devoid of the usual Platinum’s intentionally grandiose scale, with intricated mechanical designs and diverse battles, as they were, for example, in Binary Domain.
Speaking of Binary Domain, the screenwriter could’ve also used some more inspiration from better science-fiction sources. While the latter videogame could offer a compelling narrative, with clear developed characters, in Vanquish things seem to happen mostly just because: the story’s premise revolves around a terror attack and a war declaration to the US from a Russian space colony, which is promptly invaded and made theatre of mayhem. All in all there are about five or six recurring characters and none of them seems to have strong motivations to achieve anything; there is a mission to accomplish, but it is as empty as generic as the quest mark on the minimap, with no personal struggle in between nor certainly any social commentary about terrorism and the dark side of politics. Most of the time something happens just so stuff can blow up, a la Michael Bay but with even less pretence of seriousness.
It is a mess, but indeed a beautiful mess to look at, and even more beautiful and engaging to play.
Then along came Platinum Games, they decided that staying put picking out enemies from safe spots was slow and bollocks and crafted an eight-hour long joyride in outer space, with augmented movesets, faster combats in larger arenas and their signature excessive aesthetic of B-movie camp dialogues and relentless action. Vanquish major gameplay’s accomplishments are in its implementation of the Augmented Reaction (AR) suit and its versatility: this AR suit allows the utilization of boosters to rapidly traverse the game areas, ram into enemies, change covers, as a vast and more powerful sprint mechanic. Not so rare for cover shooters is also the dedicated dodge button, but unlike other more – tentatively – ‘realistic’ videogames, in Vanquish there is no input or animation delay, the dodge is omnidirectional and with immediate, if none, recovery time, thus guaranteeing quick means of evasion and closing in on enemies.
Another Platinum’s well-known gadget is the AR mode, a device to slow time, reminiscent of Bayonetta’s Witch Time, that enhances precise aim and favours more calculated movements. AR mode however has to be triggered via players’ movement of the character, be it a dodge, a boost sprint, a drop kick against an enemy, vaulting out of cover, thus incentivising the players to actively leave covers and experiment with the versatile combat. Alternatively, receiving too much damage and being put in critical condition will automatically trigger the AR mode, yet also deplete its charge completely, as would an abuse of boost and AR mode. The ingenious thing is, once the AR suit is overheating and the players temporarily lose the ability too boost and slow time, it doesn’t immediately equate to a death sentence, there always is the safe having of taking cover and letting both the suit and health points regenerate: meaning, the game’s ‘punishment’ for lacking resources management is to play a standard cover shooter. How lovely.
Vanquish though failed to find strong public recognition in its lifetime, because aside from its revolutionary, immensely fun and hard to master gameplay, and for the high-quality production in cutscenes and graphic, the rest of the package is rather bland. Sound design does its job, but there is nothing impressive in both soundtrack and gunplay, which are hardly distinguishable from other products of the same genre. Enemies design lack variety and interesting mechanic to counter, will all of them, small and big, playing the same with annoying long-range distractions and close quarter devastating one-hit kills. Visually speaking there also isn’t much to look at, even bosses are devoid of the usual Platinum’s intentionally grandiose scale, with intricated mechanical designs and diverse battles, as they were, for example, in Binary Domain.
Speaking of Binary Domain, the screenwriter could’ve also used some more inspiration from better science-fiction sources. While the latter videogame could offer a compelling narrative, with clear developed characters, in Vanquish things seem to happen mostly just because: the story’s premise revolves around a terror attack and a war declaration to the US from a Russian space colony, which is promptly invaded and made theatre of mayhem. All in all there are about five or six recurring characters and none of them seems to have strong motivations to achieve anything; there is a mission to accomplish, but it is as empty as generic as the quest mark on the minimap, with no personal struggle in between nor certainly any social commentary about terrorism and the dark side of politics. Most of the time something happens just so stuff can blow up, a la Michael Bay but with even less pretence of seriousness.
It is a mess, but indeed a beautiful mess to look at, and even more beautiful and engaging to play.