Probably dead on arrival
(Almost a dozen playthroughs on both Xbox 360 and PC before this Deck run, including 2 on Hard, the second highest difficulty. 3 hours, 4 minutes and 9 seconds to get through on Causal, the second lowest difficulty, according to kill screen.)
Poor Golden Gate Bridge. After the awful event on September, 11th, 2001, it seems like every Tom, Dick, Harry and their non-male counterparts have to move their “destroying American landmark in fiction for shock value” business to the West Coast. The red bridge near the old gold mines usually gets got. In recent to earlier order, a “Tom” here is Warner’s Monsterverse with regular and health releases: Monarch on Apple TV reminds people that their Godzllia walked through the city’s famous bridge before it ran amok in San Fransico. A “Dick” here is Pacific Rim, a series with an impressive debut but no after boast, something big just smash the bridge in the beginning of that first movie. A “Harry”, or rather the hairy one dead on arrival is the subject of this review, Vanquish.
Even though Platinum’s second polygonal extravaganza was a work for hire as far as its director Shinji Mikami was concerned, his greasy, or rather gory finger prints can be seen since the opening cut scenes. Golden Gate Bridge and its host the city of San Fransico are attacked by a giant space laser. Contrast to the 2 aforementioned PG-13 affairs’ focus on the bloodless bigger picture, this game loves to show you how the people there “vaporized” into bloody mess in ways one cannot help but stand up, clap and say “From the creator of Resident Evil, ladies, gents and the rest”. Content warning for body horror and what not.
Of course, yours truly did not see it for this Deck run. I was keener on seeing how Verified the game actually is. The main menu is promising, but how would things be when the game gets really busy. The good news is that the framerate holds up all the way through, the bad news is that yours truly starts to think that the game was dead on arrival for good reasons. This is not my first rodeo with Vanquish, that would be the one on Xbox 360 soon after its launch, but I am also not the twenty something who thought the game deserves a sequel. Platinum products’ inherent vices layered with ill-considered design choices to “please” a wider audience cannot escape this video game critic wannabe’s wrath.
Pricing issue
To summarize Vanquish’s story would be a fool’s errand. Its makers treated that aspect as an afterthought, so consumers should go in with exception adjust accordingly. Vanquish is just a decent score attack arcade game eager to join the over-the-shoulder orthodoxy. I would say that the 60 bucks price tag back in 2010 was not its cardinal sin, but locking that bloody useful pistol behind DLC pay wall was. Then of course one can get the game much cheaper on Steam nowadays. Still the game is not a full package in many ways.
“Full package”, or maybe “complete package” was a phrase game reviewers used a lot in fall 2010. It described both Halo Reach and Call of Duty Black Ops: completed with story campaign, competitive multi-player and an “endless” mode for solo or co-op. Vanquish would seem like a piece of solo-only meat thrown to the wolves like that back then, yet its story with cliffhanger end is even worse than the plots of both Reach and Black Ops. Those 2 shooters do not have capital g and capital s Good Stories, but at least they both have beginnings, middles and ends plus some interesting twists or turns. Vanquish could not even tell its story with those.
No button dedicated to Augmented Reaction among other things
In Vanquish, one plays as Sam Gideon, a Solid Snake looking test pilot of DARPA. During an operation to retake a big US space station with giant space laser from evil Russian robots, Sam, wearing Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS for short), is deployed along with the marines. His suit of shinny white armor comes with transforming fire system (which allow one to switch among up to 3 kinds of weapons at one time with D-pad), augmented reaction time (just the slow motion) and a pair of rocket pants. Strangely no on/off switch for its namesake.
One can see the game’s attempt to imitate John Woo flicks’ shoot while dolphin dive moves but had to settle for something else instead. After Sam does a commando roll with down face button, vaults over a cover with left face button or activates his rocket pants to slide by holding left bumper, a pull of left trigger will, er, trigger slow motion known as Augmented Reaction (Wonder if Take-Two renewed the trademark of “Bullet Time” back then with Rockstar making Max Payne 3.). The same slow motion would be triggered automatically if the game decides that Sam’s life is low enough. This is when no manual switch really flips over the apple cart, because when the juice runs out automatically Sam would be more exposed than the slow motion triggering pinch he was in.
Speak of juice, oh too many things are tied to this one single energy source: the rocket pants, the slow motion, that DLC laser cannon I never used and, horror of horrors, melee. The game’s melee is interesting as in different weapon allow one different move, like equipping assault rifle allow one to live out the Fist of North Star/JoJo Part 3 fantasy of really go-to-town on some schmuck while switching to shotgun allows a powerful strike from the back of the hand. But once connected, all juice, no matter how much remains, runs out, exposing the player character to more danger.
And it would not be a Platinum product without some camera fuckery, would it? Ah yes, even under the helm of Shinji “patron saint of over-the-shoulder shooting” Mikami, those “geniuses” at the Platinum managed to find ways to foul things up in a frigging over-the-shoulder shooter. The most obvious ways being the slow motion after commando roll, a baffling occasion where the camera would not pull in towards player character much. And staying back can really fuck the flow up! More than once, I eyed a target in cover, rolled out of cover, aimed and some jarhead’s ass just obscured my line of sight towards that target. What a waste of slow motion juice! Oh, those fuckers sure had their heel turn way before your mission became shooting them in the penultimate chapter.
Then of course there are quick-time event, Especially, that final one where the trick of exit to title menu would not work, it had been a bane to my pursue of that “not dead once” achievement twice now, first time on Xbox 360, now on Deck when I was sitting on the Lou. Oh well, time to get off that Lou and this “Vanquish deserves a sequel” train now.
Parting gift from a legend
As its founder back in 2010, Shinji Mikami left Tango Game Works in early 2023. His departure came shortly after the studio shipped Hi-fi Rush, a game released to undeniable critical acclaim and what Microsoft insists is commercial success. Yours truly cannot help but wonder, did Mikami stock around just to see that mental not-to-do list he made after Vanquish paid off with John Johnas at the helm.
While both are games inspired by cartoons, Vanquish went for something closer to photo real with ill advise while Hi-fi Rush embraced cartoon fully. Vanquish charged more for less compared to Hi-fi Rush charged less but provided more. Vanquish cheapened out on the boss front by having recurring bullet sponges while Hi-fi Rush went hard on bespoke rogue gallery members. Vanquish ended on cliffhanger while Hi-fi Rush told a complete story. Vanquish offered non-stop action while Hi-fi Rush saw value in the down time…The list goes on and obviously paid off,
Now think back on the game I could not have loved it too much, it gave me an appetite and yet nothing to satisfy that appetite. I had to buy a copy of Bayonetta, a game I did not found interest in when it launched outside English speaking regions, just to have a sense of closure and that Capcom console games' “war feeds itself” itch scratched back in late 2010. Oh, damn you, Kevin VanOrd! You cast a spell on me to mislead me into thinking that I liked Vanquish, while in fact I was, am and will always be a harsh critic to it.