Reviews// Vanquish

Similarly, the pace of Vanquish is insane. Once you're in a firefight, flak comes from every possible angle and doesn't let up until you've wiped the map clean. The Russian space robots you're up against will throw all manner of crap at you and, at times, the bullet time feels like a necessity. I'm sure some crazy bored kid from Missouri will complete the whole game on hard without ever using it about ten minutes after this review goes live, but for us mere mortals it feels like a gift, if not a sparklingly thoughtful one.

When you combine both special moves together, though, something a bit magic happens. Well, something extremely cool, anyway. Zipping along the floor at breakneck speeds while popping off headshots at the baddies around you produces just the right kind of 'wow, that's awesome!' feeling that a game like this should.

None of the above is without its faults, though. Using the slow-down effect on its own makes Sam's movements so slow that it can be pointless. Because you activate it with a 'Tactical Evade' – basically a forward roll – you're fairly low down when everything slows down around you. That's fine if you're in the open, but if you're behind cover then that cover is in your way, and you can't move so it isn't in your way unless you come out of slow-motion mode. Annoying.

The control set-up can feel a little overwhelming, too. During the demo I felt like I was flailing around and concentrating so much on what I was meant to press that I couldn't focus on the robots I was trying to shoot to bits. Happily, though, after switching to the alternate set-up and taking a bit of time to ease myself in, it all started to feel a lot more straightforward.

Apart from Sam's intensely annoying need to periodically throw a grenade without me touching a single thing. That's a really annoying glitch that I hope they hammer out in a post-launch patch.

Robots vs Cheese

Yes, Vanquish at times plays a bit like Chesney Hawkes during freshers week, but it does it with a twinkle in its eye. Sure, Sam's plucky, borderline rebellious persona feels like it was borrowed from Nolan North, but it feels like Platinum's giving you a knowing nod rather than taking the piss out of you for buying their product that they couldn't be arsed writing properly. When you stumble across four robots ******* ******* ********** (edited for spoilers) it's funny and bemusing rather than plain old ridiculous.

It helps, of course, that it all looks great – that everything's smooth and polished and the environments are varied and inventive. It helps that some of the cutscenes are actually kind of exciting to watch.

The absence of multiplayer will be a problem for some people. Platinum has thrown in a challenge mode (basically, 'kill all these enemies as quickly as possible' mode) that might add a few more hours of play if you're that way inclined, but it doesn't keep you interested in the same way a hefty multiplayer mode would. Personally, I can live with that. The campaign's enjoyable and meaty enough that I feel satisfied, but the lack of multiplayer might be a deal breaker for some.

Conclusion

Vanquish doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does make the wheel really, really fun – it, you know, adds it to rollerskates or monster-trucks or some such thing. Platinum has succeeded in taking a tried, tested and done-to-death genre and adding a couple of new features that open the game right up. It's a winning formula that I'm struggling not to call 'rip-roaring'. Vanquish is a tight, slick package with ridiculous amounts of robot-immolating goodness stuffed into it. Recommended.

SPOnG Score: 91%