“There’s one thing I should tell you before we start: this is not PN03”. Shinji Mikami, the man who created Devil May Cry and masterminded a winning overhaul of Resident Evil 4, is in a playful mood. Standing in front of a screen the size of a small van on the 52nd floor of the Roppongi Hills skyscraper, which looms over central Tokyo, he’s about to show off the first gameplay of his latest project.
So, if it isn’t the much maligned, similarly sterile sci-fi shooter PN03, what is Vanquish? To us, it feels like Gears of War meets Devil May Cry - a brutal blend of traditional third-person shooting and meaty melee attacks, all done 100mph faster than its nearest competitor. At first it feels a little underwhelming.
We’ve waited four years since Mikami’s last game, and as the load screen fades and the in-game engine kicks in our hero Sam Gideon lines up with his squad mates behind a giant cargo door on what we’re told is a space station. We see generic space marines, a pretty but cliched sci-fi world with obvious clumps of cover and choke points, ready to be fought over.
Mikami then takes his avatar through the doors, and immediately the troupe is met with a pocket of resistance in the form of Soviet battle robots. The fire fight is fast, but by no means intense, and when the final enemies drop to the floor and explode in an impressive shower of sparks we’re left feeling a little flat. For some reason we expected more. Mikami pauses the action and apologises for his poor performance, suggesting that another member of his team takes over to really show off what Vanquish is about. It’s a well-rehearsed tag-move.
Another member of the team takes the stage and the controller is handed over. And that’s when Vanquish starts to show its true potential… The next mission takes place further into the first level. Sam and his buddies have pushed through to a circular area inside the space station, and already the enemies are bearing down on their invading party. Sam snaps to cover, and as his squad mates rush forward, he leaps over the barrier in a smooth motion and boosts into the fight using his Augmented Reality Suit. Now the action gets intense.
We’ve waited four years since Mikami’s last game, and as the load screen fades and the in-game engine kicks in our hero Sam Gideon lines up with his squad mates behind a giant cargo door on what we’re told is a space station. We see generic space marines, a pretty but cliched sci-fi world with obvious clumps of cover and choke points, ready to be fought over.
Another member of the team takes the stage and the controller is handed over. And that’s when Vanquish starts to show its true potential… The next mission takes place further into the first level. Sam and his buddies have pushed through to a circular area inside the space station, and already the enemies are bearing down on their invading party. Sam snaps to cover, and as his squad mates rush forward, he leaps over the barrier in a smooth motion and boosts into the fight using his Augmented Reality Suit. Now the action gets intense.
Sam charges the nearest bot and smashes it into the sky with a brutal uppercut before snapping to a nearby wall and opening fire on another huddled group as the shrapnel from his first kill rains back down to earth. Friendlies start to drop all around him, tracer fire rips through the air, and things seem to be exploding everywhere. There are loads of things happening on screen at once and, crucially, the action stays lag-free. In fact, it gets faster. Sam lobs a grenade into a huddle of robots cowering behind a low wall and they light up, spreading their metal parts over the battlefield. Then the pace picks up again.
Sam is charged by robots riding mechs, targeted by fixed guns, and constantly assailed by grenades. He boosts from cover to cover, and uses the suit’s other power – slow motion – to pop off a few shotgun blasts, dispatching more foes in what seems like a futile attempt to even the odds. It’s third-person shooting, but done at the pace of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. It makes even the twitchiest of gunning games look painfully slow. Now we’re seeing the golden touch of Mikami.
With Vanquish it seems Platinum are both embracing and reinventing the third-person shooter. It’s a trick they’ve already pulled off with Bayonetta, which sets new standards for the hack’n’slash genre. However, from this brief demo it’s obvious the developer has learned lessons from its last game and come up against new challenges. The third-person shooter genre is popular all over the world, and the sci-fi setting is a massive draw to Western gamers. That’s handy, because as brilliant as Bayonetta was, the majority of mainstream gamers didn’t get it.
However, by introducing space marines and a reasonably bland lead, Platinum have sacrificed character for potential mainstream success. Plot details are scarce right now, so we can’t tell how Sam will develop, but he’s unlikely to be a face you remember years after Vanquish has shipped. What we do know is that America seems to be at war with the Russians, in space. Sam Gideon is a DARPA scientist (with a Snake-style habit of lighting up a smoke if you leave him alone for too long) who has invented a combat suit made out of a super-light, super durable carbon nano-tube textile. It’s cliched, but a solid enough back-drop for hours of trigger-ruining gunplay.
Which takes us nicely back to the demo. In time-honoured shooter tradition, Sam and his remaining squad mates now take a breather before it’s their time to defend the area against attack. He’s fed information over the radio by a sexy tech lady called Elena – it’s all very Raiden/Rose from MGS2. Turns out, Elena is the bearer of bad news. There’s an even bigger Russian mech on the way, and it’s pissed off.
The ground shakes, and metal limbs burst through: the Argus boss has arrived. Its first salvo immediately downs some of Sam’s squad mates, so he races over to heal them with a quick stab of a syringe. It’s all done smoothly, designed to fit in with the fast-paced combat. The revived grunt is grateful and leaves Sam a gift – a nice touch that should encourage lone-wolves to try and keep their AI mates alive. Next he concentrates fire on the boss's mandatory ‘glowing orange weakspots’, and removes several of the mech’s limbs sending it crashing to the ground and opening up another weakspot. That’s when it gets angry, firing off a salvo of bullets that fill the screen like a hardcore, side-scrolling shooter. Explosions, screaming; the flash of Sam desperately boosting to cover.
The robot then sprouts more limbs and transforms from mechanical spider to a humanoid form. Time for round two. Sam makes short work of another arm and climbs onto the mech’s body to get a better shot at that glowing core. As he spins through the air towards his target (in slow motion) he dodges two rockets using Quick Time prompts before grabbing the third and ramming it into the launcher from which it was shot. It feels cool – a DMC/Bayonetta moment.
The boss fight has lasted roughly three minutes, and it feels perfectly pitched. This method of feeding the player short, but concentrated, bursts of combat worked well for DMC and Bayonetta and seems to serve Vanquish nicely too. It’s linear and, to a large extent, cliched. Crucially, though, it’s exciting. This is a game that, like some of the most successful Japanese titles, puts pure, arcade-style action at the forefront and polishes that single aspect to perfection. Mikami appears to be taking this focused Eastern approach to gaming and applying it to a genre traditionally dominated by Western devs. It’s an obvious approach – a seeming no-brainer – but judging by our brief first-taste of Vanquish, we think it just might work…
Mar 26, 2010 (gamesradar.com)
However, by introducing space marines and a reasonably bland lead, Platinum have sacrificed character for potential mainstream success. Plot details are scarce right now, so we can’t tell how Sam will develop, but he’s unlikely to be a face you remember years after Vanquish has shipped. What we do know is that America seems to be at war with the Russians, in space. Sam Gideon is a DARPA scientist (with a Snake-style habit of lighting up a smoke if you leave him alone for too long) who has invented a combat suit made out of a super-light, super durable carbon nano-tube textile. It’s cliched, but a solid enough back-drop for hours of trigger-ruining gunplay.
The ground shakes, and metal limbs burst through: the Argus boss has arrived. Its first salvo immediately downs some of Sam’s squad mates, so he races over to heal them with a quick stab of a syringe. It’s all done smoothly, designed to fit in with the fast-paced combat. The revived grunt is grateful and leaves Sam a gift – a nice touch that should encourage lone-wolves to try and keep their AI mates alive. Next he concentrates fire on the boss's mandatory ‘glowing orange weakspots’, and removes several of the mech’s limbs sending it crashing to the ground and opening up another weakspot. That’s when it gets angry, firing off a salvo of bullets that fill the screen like a hardcore, side-scrolling shooter. Explosions, screaming; the flash of Sam desperately boosting to cover.
The robot then sprouts more limbs and transforms from mechanical spider to a humanoid form. Time for round two. Sam makes short work of another arm and climbs onto the mech’s body to get a better shot at that glowing core. As he spins through the air towards his target (in slow motion) he dodges two rockets using Quick Time prompts before grabbing the third and ramming it into the launcher from which it was shot. It feels cool – a DMC/Bayonetta moment.
Mar 26, 2010 (gamesradar.com)
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