Vanquish

This game is written by a 12 y/o who just learned what curse words are and saw the Micheal Bay Transformers movies for the first time and I mean this in the best way possible. Every 4 seconds a character valiantly sacrifices themselves in the coolest way and then is completely fine because of course they are. The characters in this game will go “finally we get a break looks all clear” after every fight and then yell something like “F**K DAMMIT” as 1,000 evil robots show up for the 6th time on this mission. The main character uses the highest form of technological achievement in history to store his Malboros because he’s just that cool. Shooting your own allies and blowing them apart is completely acceptable to all parties present. Platinum has done it again.

Vanquish — це шутер для тих, хто любить стиль, швидкість і не думає про сюжет. Ковзати на колінах у слоу-мо та розстрілювати роботів — це той досвід, за який гру пам’ятають. Не ідеально, не дуже довго, але екшен тут настільки насичений, що встигнеш добряче накайфувати за один присіст. Графіка і артдизайн Для свого часу виглядала круто, і навіть сьогодні не виглядає зовсім старою. Сірий на сірому, метал на металі, робот на роботі — справжній парад індустріального мінімалізму. Артдизайн доволі однотипний, але коли ти ковзаєш на колінах зі швидкістю ракети, не дуже є час милуватися текстурами. Атмосфера Тут головна атмосфера — постійний екшен і вибухи. Якщо хочеш глибокої драми, то це не сюди. Якщо хочеш, щоб екран світився червоним від кількості роботів, що вибухають, — ласкаво просимо. Геймплей Найсильніша сторона гри. Тут усе про стиль і швидкість. Слайди на колінах — кайф, уповільнення часу — кайф, перестрілки — кайф. Геймплей буквально штовхає тебе вперед. Проблема тільки в тому, що за 5–6 годин усе це починає трошки повторюватися. Сюжет і персонажі Сюжет рівня бойовика 2010-х: є погані, є ще гірші, є головний герой у броні з сигаретою, і він усіх рятує. Персонажі — суцільні кліше, але вони й не претендують на більше. Тут усе подано з таким пафосом, що це навіть весело. Саунддизайн і музика Музика драйвова, під неї хочеться бігати і все розносити. Звуки зброї і вибухів зроблені соковито — стріляти приємно.

This is the coolest third-person shooter ever made, in theory. That "in theory" makes all the difference. You're going to have an amazing time if you play with a bunch of self-imposed restrictions, read or watch a bunch of guides about all the sick strats the game itself doesn’t bother explaining, and do a learning run or two. Do all that - and this is an action game of the millennium. Meanwhile, the boring cover-shooter approach is right there from minute one, and it’s the easiest way to play. No wonder the average Joe didn’t understand what the fuss was about. Say what you want, but I think it’s kinda a game’s responsibility to actually make the player utilize all the great features it offers, and Vanquish is a cautionary tale about what happens when it doesn’t. Oh, and the abysmal and absolutely charmless story doesn’t help either.

16 years later and this game still kicks tits. The method of dodging from cover, activating slow motion, shooting and evading is some of the most beautifully choreographed gameplay that is still super fun to play. If you enjoy third person shooters definitely play this. Just don't play it like a standard TPS. Miss these kinds of games.

Taking cover was never about surviving. It was just the pause before the next burst forward.

Що можна сказати про гру? Якщо в інших шутерах ти ховаєшся за укриттям, то тут укриття потрібне лише для того, щоб красиво вилетіти з нього на реактивній дупі прямо в натовп роботів. Плюси: Швидкий та веселий геймплей. Боси влаштовують справжній екзамен на міцність нервів. Епічність викручена на максимум. Мінуси: Гра дуже коротка. Сюжет існує для галочки.

[h2]Overall: 8.5/10[/h2] [h3]Story:[/h3] Honestly, I think the overall quality of the narrative is mediocre, but calling it "bad" feels a little too dramatic. The biggest problem isn't really that the story is full of catastrophic plot holes or anything, it's that the writing is just kinda underdeveloped, tonally inconsistent, and more interested in moving from one action sequence to the next rather than building a convincing plot around them. Furthermore, while I [i]do[/i] like the badass premise of having to retake an orbital space colony through a military operation, there's still a lot of plot contrivances and underexplained logic. Like, I can accept a cool action story at face value if it obviously expects you to accept a lot of its worldbuilding without examining it too closely, like a B-movie action film, but there are moments where the tone makes it difficult to tell whether this game wants you to take its events seriously or view them as exaggerated parody. It results in some major developments within the plot happening and passing over so quickly that you don't even really have time to emotionally process the information, like [spoiler]Burns sudden betrayal/sacrifice or Zaitsev revealing that President Winters was involved in the attack.[/spoiler] It just feels like the game repeatedly says, "actually, there's more going on than you thought!" but then immediately moves on without diving deeper. So, generally speaking, it's not a fundamentally broken narrative. It's just unfortunately executed poorly. The plot is too thin, the characters are shallow, the pacing leaves very little room for development/growth, and the serious political sci-fi premise constantly clashes with the ridiculous, almost parody-like action-movie dialogue/presentation. All that said though and despite my wishing the plot extended beyond spectacle, I personally [i]did[/i] enjoy it as a "junk-food story" once I just turned my brain off and accepted the ride, but whether [b]YOU[/b] see the cliche-ridden, over-the-top plot as a flaw or part of the game's charm will probably determine how much you like the atmosphere/gameplay. [h3]Gameplay:[/h3] Speaking of the gameplay, I love it, and it's literally the biggest reason I'm rating this game as high as I am despite the various other flaws. There just really isn't another game out there quite like Vanquish. You can find individual games that share aspects of it, but the specific combination of mechanics here is unusually unique and very fun. At its most basic level, this is a third-person cover shooter, but the "ARS suit" turns that familiar foundation into something completely off-the-wall in the best way. You can activate rocket-powered slides to dash across open areas at extreme speed, slow down time while aiming, and use a versatile weapon system that lets you quickly adapt to all the different situations thrown at you. The result is a shooter where, yeah, cover is technically important, but staying behind it for too long feels almost like playing the game wrong. Which leads to my next point: Sliding isn't just a dodging/traversal ability, it's literally the heart of the combat, and the movement is easily one of my favorite aspects of the gameplay. You can slide directly toward enemies and through open areas that would normally be dangerous, into melee attacks, or toward another piece of cover if you're under fire. It's almost like you flow through the arena-style areas you're fighting in rather than slowly advancing between defensive positions like you do in other cover-based shooters from around the same time, like Gears or Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, I love traditional cover shooters, but the movement mechanics in this game give it a surprising amount of replayabilty because most of the areas you're actually fighting enemies in are pretty open, and also have a variety of random weapons laying around in chests that can be opened up. Lastly, I think the enemy variety is great, and it's another reason the combat stays fresh all the way through the experience despite the game's relatively short length. The enemies aren't just visually different robots with bigger health bars; some pressure you out of cover or punish you for staying in one place too long, while others are better dealt with by changing your position, targeting weak points, or simply switching weapons. It's really cool since the variety doesn't only give you different things to shoot, but actively urges you to interact with the movement mechanics and weapons differently. [h3]World:[/h3] The world/level design is linear from beginning to end, and every act is essentially a collection of hallways that lead to purpose-built combat spaces/set pieces, so you're probably not going to stop, smell the roses, and appreciate the environmental design a lot. Regardless, said individual arenas and set pieces do enough mechanically to keep the journey from becoming repetitive, in my opinion. Visually though, the first three chapters are pretty weak, and mainly because of how the space colony's pale, sterile, washed-out architecture that reeks of the 7th gen aesthetic limitations start to blend together. Act 4 and 5 introduce more distinct sections by placing you in a forest/park and then a zero-gravity cylindrical environment, and it certainly gives the game some much-needed visual variety after several hours of fighting through what feels like one long industrial complex, but they're honesty as linear as every other act. It becomes clear very quick that the core purpose of the level design is to support the combat, not to create a world you explore or navigate. So, the environments are all completely straightforward and mainly exist to funnel you toward the next encounter, but the arenas themselves at least give you enough room to take advantage of the ARS suit's movement. [h3]Visuals:[/h3] The visuals are an area I have slightly mixed feelings about. On one hand, this game looks great in-game and runs at high frame rates with zero issues. On the other hand, all the cutscenes are prerendered at 720p and 30fps, there's no native ultrawide support, and the art direction doesn't hold up well. First off, pre-rendered cutscenes never age well. Computers+consoles will always be more powerful than their predecessors, and going from modern, high-frame-rate gameplay to a fixed 30fps VIDEO makes the cinematics feel noticeably more stuttery, while the lower-resolution pre-rendering make them appear jarringly blurry at times. Then, while there's no in-game ultrawide support, you can still thankfully remove the black bars from the sides of your screen by typing "-unlockaspectratio" in the launch options section of the game's properties, so at least you don't have to [i]download[/i] anything to fix the aspect ratio, but it's still worth mentioning. And lastly, as I partially mentioned in the previous section, the art direction isn't great. The biggest issue is the 100% color palette too. Most of the colony is dominated by white/gray concrete and metallic surfaces, with a lot of grime and ps3-era post-processing layered over them. It's not the most egregious example from that era, but it's rarely ever interesting either. [h3]Music/Sound Design:[/h3] I really like this area of the game, however, it's also generally pretty dated in regards to quality/compression. Ignoring that though, both the sound and the music were clearly designed to support the combat rather than grab your attention, but the OST is the real highlight since it's pretty unique for a third-person shooter from the 7th gen era. The developers completely side-stepped the corny, overly proud action music that dominated this genre in the early 2010's, and the game is a lot better because of it. Sure, it may not have the depth of more modern sound mixes, but my experience was fresh throughout the entire game because the electronic-based music consistently matched the chaotic, up-beat vibes of the gameplay.

I grew up during the peak Gears of War craze and let me tell you 100% objective truth: [h1]THIS IS THE BEST THIRD PERSON SHOOTER OF ALL TIMES!!![/h1]

First of all excellent port. Native 4K support. No crashes or major glitches. Works on modern PCs without issue. Combat is amazing. Action is present from the begging till the end. They manage to mix cover shooter and fast paced maneuvers and it actually works. Story is short but after finishing it for the first time you unlock tactical missions and new difficulty options so there is replay value. All in all absolute banger. I can see from where Jetstream Sam got inspiration.