Vanquish Review

In the past few years, third-person shooter games have become more and more common, the most iconic of these being Gears of War with it’s innovative cover system. Can Vanquish make a name for itself in this already saturated market?

Vanquish takes place not too far into the future where we see a world with a capacity of over 10 billion and in turn, the world’s natural resources have been depleted. The Americans have launched a space station which harnesses solar power to try and deal with this issue but a Russian extremest group under the name “Order of the Russian Star” hi-jack the space station and divert the stored power in a blast wave that obliterates San Fransisco.

Victor Zaitsev, the leader of the extremists is threatening the US with doing the same to New York if they do not unconditionally surrender. This is where you come in. You play as Sam Gideon. Sam works for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and has been equipped with an ARS (Augmented Reaction Suit).

The ARS has four boosters, each of which is placed upon the arms and legs of Gideon. This allows you to boost across the floor in short bursts. Along with this, you are given an experimental weapon called BLADE, a device which can scan any weapon and create a perfect replica for you to use. Now, this suit is one hell of a lot of fun. Using all of the abilities given to you, you are let loose on an army of Russian robots (you heard me; robots) whilst being assisted by the US military.

You are given a fair few weapons to use to assist you in your mission including a shotgun, assault rifle, heavy machine gun, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, a disk launcher, a lock-on laser and a LFD (low-frequency device). You may only carry three at a time though which can get frustrating when trying to decide if you would rather hold a precise sniper or a devastating rocket launcher, but I found that this system worked rather well. There are crates scattered around the levels along with weapon racks which will usually have weapons that are important for the next section.

There is also a very simple upgrading system for these weapons. Killing certain enemies will drop a large green cube which when picked up, upgrades your active weapon (usually allowing more ammo to be carried). You can also upgrade a weapon by picking up several of the same gun a few times. Simples.

You may be happy to hear that you can melee in this game. It’s as easy as running up to any old robot enemy and violently tapping a button. This will then (usually) turn whatever robot was in front of you into a smoldering pile of mechanical parts and dust. I found it quite suspicious though that I could use this on some of the harder enemies and it also worked. But don’t get too happy about this because it works both ways. That’s right, the enemy has melee too and let me tell you, they don’t half pack a punch.

You are also able to take control of certain enemy defenses such as turrets and a walker that looks like it’s been taken straight out of Star Wars. These can really turn a battle around in your favor if used correctly.

The cover system in this is also simple and easy to use. When you get close to a piece of cover whether that be a wall, vehicle or plant pot, you press a single button and Sam will dive behind this and out of the way of enemy fire. But alas, you’re not always safe when behind cover. Certain objects such as plant pots or sandbags can be destroyed leaving you naked and open to fire. As well as this, certain enemies (mostly just bosses) can fire types of missiles which can work their way around cover and hit you square between the eyes. This cover system is a vital aspect to surviving whilst on Providence.

The campaign itself can be completed in around eight hours so it’s not fantastically long but whilst playing it, I didn’t really notice the time passing and for me, that’s a sign of a good game. To accompany the campaign there are challenge levels, which should add another couple of hours of gameplay. These challenge levels consist of killing hordes of enemies trying to achieve the highest score possible.

Sadly, I must now turn to the bad points of the game. The main point I need to bring up is the narrative in this game. This voice-overs, although good are barely audible over the effects and soundtrack. Even after turning the music and effects down very low, I still had trouble hearing the voices, even in cut-scenes. In the end, I had to turn on subtitles (which are not on by default).

Another down point for me was that there was no multiplayer. Yes, there are leaderboards where your scores from missions are placed as well as the challenge levels but there is no sign of co-op or player vs player. I really think that this game could have been perfect if co-op had been added, as it’s nearly always more fun to fight with a friend than it is alone.

So all in all, Vanquish is a very good game. It manages to stand on its own in an already saturated market and I personally never lost interest whilst playing through the campaign. If this had some form of co-op integrated, I think it could have been a truly fantastic game.