In 2010, a Japanese game studio by the name of PlatinumGames made and put out two energetic third person action titles. These were some of the earliest games they ever made and one of them would help boost them to fame. That being Bayonetta, a stylish hack and slash adventure similar in vein to the Devil May Cry series and was even directed by Hideki Kamiya the director of the original Devil May Cry himself. The game faced some controversy surrounding its overly sexy protagonist, but Bayonetta had a certain charm to it that separated it from other action games at the time. Bayonetta is a game that attempts to achieve as much as possible during a ten or so hour runtime. One second you could be facing the forces of heaven and the next you’re fighting a colossal beast which you summon a giant demon to devour. There’s a section where you ride a rocket to a Los Angeles-esque city, and at the end you send the final boss crashing through arrays of asteroids. Much like the protagonist, Bayonetta was a hip game full of personality. There are some flaws, but overall it’s great. Easy to understand why it boosted Platinum to success.
Then there’s the other 2010 action game Platinum put out a few months after Bayonetta released in the United States. A game that didn’t blow up in the same bombastic way Bayonetta did, but is considered by many as one of the developer’s most underrated outings. Vanquish, a high speed third person shooter where you rocket around arenas and blast your way through waves of crazy machinery. Makes sense for PlatinumGames to give a crack at shooters since the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 era was a hot time for shooters. With Halo and Call of Duty ruling the market as well as other series such as Uncharted, Gears of War, Battlefield, BioShock, and so on. It made sense to capitalize on what was hot, but Platinum wanted their shooter to be unique. So serving as lead director was Shinji Makami who if you don’t know was the one responsible for the all time hit Resident Evil 4. This was his last game before he departed to found Tango Gameworks, and then a few years later left the studio he helped found. Vanquish was a wild experiment for both Makami and PlatinumGames. First game Makami made since leaving Capcom, and first shooter Platinum would dabble into. There was high risk, but in the end it paid off.Â
Vanquish, despite not selling very well, was received positively among critics. The combat loop was addicting, the game’s story was fast paced, and there were a lot of action set pieces that push console hardware to its limit. Vanquish alongside Bayonetta was an outstanding start for the dev team and they would go on to make several other games. However, it’s easy to see why between the two titles Bayonetta was the one that got the sequel. Like I said, Bayonetta had personality & all Vanquish really wants to do is compete with the several other griddy shooters in the market. It’s a game that screams for the 2010s, but there’s a reason why the market has moved on since then and hasn’t taken a look back. I’m gonna get a lot of flack for saying this, but I actually don’t really like that time period of shooters. They lacked finesse and the only three shooter series that I’d say actually stood out were Halo, BioShock, and Uncharted. Three series that were willing to evolve or go to interesting places. Vanquish is another 2010 shooter with a griddy tone, and that doesn’t really stand out in my opinion. I gave it a chance recently hoping it would blow my mind in the same way it has done for others, and in the end I ended up coming out thinking it was just fine. It's fine and there’s some neat ideas, but there’s a lot that’s holding Vanquish back compared to other games they've made like Metal Gear Rising or Nier: Automata. Today we’re talking about Vanquish and why it didn’t leave a very strong impression on me.
Story
The game takes place in the far off future where mankind has managed to advance immensely in technology and high tech weapons have been manufactured for war. People are minding their own business until suddenly a giant laser comes down from the sky. Nobody knows what it does until everything starts exploding, eroding, and people exploding into blood themselves. Turns out that Russia has a giant orbital colony in space and they have a laser pointing down on the USA. They want the United States to give up their freedom to Russia or else they’ll continue firing on other cities in the US. The president of the United States decides not to surrender and begins sending well armed troopers to attack the colony and stop whomever is on board from sending another strike. One of many high tech soldiers they send is Sam Gideon, a DARPA agent given a high tech suit built to withstand harsh conditions and jet around like a bullet. He’ll be leading the operation alongside Colonel Robert Burns. This hulking human being given steel plating, and a chaingun outfitted with a thick iron shield. Getting into the colony was tricky. Ships were firing on all sides, but thankfully Sam’s ship managed to survive a crash and get aboard. Now it’s up to Sam and Robert to storm the colony, blast anything that stands in their way, defeat whatever sick Russian operative stands in their way, and save the United States from total destruction.
Gameplay
Vanquish almost plays like your ordinary third person shooter. You move from cover to cover, try to avoid enemy fire, shoot back at them, kill any enemy that stands in your way, and try to make your way to the objective. What separates Vanquish from the rest of them though is that you are equipped with rocket boots. You are able to zip from one side of an arena within seconds and can outmaneuver your opponents easily. You can even slow down time if you try to shoot while you rocket around. However, rocketing around consumes energy. You have a little energy bar at the bottom right side of the screen and it’s used in various ways. It can be used to trigger time slows when you dodge to the side while aiming. To perform powerful melee kills, or slow down time when your shields have been depleted. Allowing you to get the edge and quickly run over to safety. When the energy meter is out you are defenseless. You can’t use any of these abilities and you are extremely weak to attacks. It’s high risk and high reward, and must be used wisely to get the edge on your foes. You can carry up to 3 weapons at a time as well as two different kinds of hand grenades.
Guns come in a variety of flavors. There’s a standard machine gun, heavy machine gun, and fast firing machine gun. There’s a shotgun, pistol, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and some unique guns like a buzzsaw launcher and cannon to fire a slow moving energy ball. Along your journey the foes you kill will occasionally drop upgrades. These upgrades can be picked up to increase either the power or ammo capacity of the gun you are currently using. Try to pick these up whenever you see them, because if you die before you get them they are gone for good. Enemies can range from being simple ground troopers, medium sized players whom you want to prioritize, and bosses who’ll stomp around the arena. Learning who to kill first will allow you to survive longer as you don’t want more annoying enemies to nail you from afar. Everytime you die you get kicked back to a checkpoint and lose a thousand points from the scoreboard. You’ll gain more points the more stylishly you kill your enemies and by dying less. What does this score board do? Well we will get to that later. Other than that there’s nothing more to Vanquish. It’s a pretty straightforward game with unique gimmicks, and it’ll find interesting ways to challenge you later on. Hopefully you can stop the Russians, save America, and come home a glorious hero. I guess.
Thoughts
Normally I really love games with unique ideas and mechanics. Vanquish was right up my ally, and it should’ve been a slam dunk. You zoom around an arena with rocket boots. There’s enough room for variety and expression during combat. The story is chaotic as hell and isn’t afraid to do some really weird things like other Platinum titles. Vanquish is certainly unique, but as a whole it doesn’t manage to stick together. I understand why people consider this game underrated. It was setting itself up for more, but there’s a reason why Platinum hasn’t followed it up. It’s probably because they didn’t know how to follow a game like Vanquish up seeing how bizarre it is. This is a kind of bizarre that is for the worst not the best. The rocket boots are a genuinely great idea and help add immediate reactions to gunfights. Why consider what cover to move to next when you can just zip around like a madman? Thing is though there weren’t a lot of scenarios in the game where it felt like I needed to utilize the rocket boots. No enemy attempts to push you out of cover and sometimes the environment isn’t destructive so you can just hug the same corner the whole time.The first few levels in the game I found really easy as I just played like an ordinary cover shooter. It wasn’t until late into the game when Vanquish started to push me to use the boots.
By that I mean to minimal effect. Some enemies like to get up in your face, but reacting to them is pretty simple. Zip away, find a new cover spot to hide behind, and just keep firing. The energy system also seems really imbalanced. You're not overpowered, but there’s more limitations than you think. Why are the rocket boots tied to the same meter my energy shield is? Why does time slow only activate when I dodge while aiming instead of being a press of a button? Why does the time slowly keep going when my shield is down instead of giving me full control of when it does or doesn’t activate? Why does a simple melee attack consume all my energy usually leading to instantaneous death? It doesn’t make the game feel unfair, but it leads to questions of why they chose to design it like that. Using a melee attack on an enemy should be something simple. There is no reason for a punch to have a cooldown. I also think it’s really stupid for grenades to take up a whole weapon slot seeing how you don’t use them half the time and they mostly miss. At that point just give me a fourth gun to carry because it feels like you have grenades for the sake of it.
Weapon variety is alright, but there’s certainly some tools that are better or worse than others. The buzzsaw weapon was a neat idea. Have a weapon that cuts through waves of foes, but seeing how enemies are always running around lining them up is tricky. I have no idea how the energy ball weapon works as it seems to deal little damage. I also don’t know why there are three types of machine guns. What is the difference between a boost machine gun and a normal one? The special energy pistol and rocket launcher are extremely overpowered and end up trivializing a lot of boss fights. Shotgun is pretty much useless, and laser cannon is a suicide tool later on. Earlier I brought up how there is a score system. You lose points when you die, and get more if you fight more stylishly during fights. What does this score system do? Nothing. No extra bonuses or cool unlocks if you do really well during a stage. You want to know why people replay Bayonetta and Devil May Cry so much. Not just to get better scores on a level, but to earn more currency to buy more upgrades. Moves and stats that improve the power of their characters. I feel like Vanquish could at least give you upgrade points if you did well or have a shop to buy them from. It gives a reason to aim for a high score or to do better during stressful situations. There was never a single moment in this game where I hated dying, because there were no consequences.
A lot of the environments are kind of the same. Lots of city streets and gray textures, but what annoys me the most about this game is how loud it is. I’ve played a lot of loud games, but this is a game that is loud because there is too much going on. Too many people screaming at you to do things. Too many explosions and bullets firing around. Too many enemies with their electronic screams, and it just gets repetitive after a while. It’s why by the end I was ready to be done with the combat, even though this is a five to six hour long game. Story isn’t very good either. Now I know a lot of people don’t Platinum titles for the plot, but I do think these guys know how to tell stories. Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, and Nier: Automata. That last one is a result of working with Yoko Taro, but the other ones still had depth and a lot to say. Vanquish has nothing to say. It wants to be this antiwar story about the lives lost during the fight. How people will use war for their own personal benefits, but not consider those caught in the crossfire. Thing is though is that everything you do in this game is either glorified or shown off as the coolest thing imaginable. What is with games trying to tell antiwar stories, but not sticking in tone whatsoever? It’s the exact reason why the new Wolfenstien saga and Call of Duty series haven't worked, because they keep having tonal clashes and not explore the horrors of war and the settings they take place in.
This game feels like the blueprint to something better. A sequel where the mechanics are more refined, the characters are actually likable, and the story makes sense. It’s a game that has a lot to express but ends up fumbling some part way through. However, that sequel will never happen. Not because of sales, but because following Vanquish up is difficult. Where do you go when the narrative is a mess and the mechanics, while unique, are quite simple. How do you expand on a game that is as shallow as this. What I don’t want you readers to think is that Vanquish is bad. I do think this game is good and a majority of people will like it. There’s a sturdy enough core gameplay loop, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and I will say I had fun overall. It’s certainly better than a majority of shooters at the time, but when I look at the people who made it and the other games they’ve made in the past I don’t see any reason to go back to this one. No reason to replay and have a refreshing new take on the second playthrough. No magic to be had once the first three hours had passed as it all fizzled out by the end. This is a fine game and your opinion of it will change depending on your stance with PlatinumGames and third person shooters. It’s fine in my book and that’s just alright with me. In the end I give I am going to give Vanquish a 7.5/10 for being just okay.
