Vanquish

Vanquish for PC, X360 and PS3 is a futuristic third-person shooter developed by a Japanese studio, PlatinumGames, creators of many games, including the critically acclaimed slasher Bayonetta. Shinji Mikami, father of game series like Resident Evil or Dino Crisis, is one of the game’s producers. Vanquish was first released in autumn 2010 on the seventh generation consoles. Seven years later, a slightly improved version of the game was released on PC. In both cases we get the same game, but when it comes to technical aspects, the PC version turned out a lot better.

The Plot

Story in Vanquish for PC, X360 and PS3 is sent in a distant future where the Earth’s natural resources are running low and two main world powers fight for what precious little is left. As a part of this peculiar energy race, United States of America build an advanced space station, a skyward city that can harvest the energy of the sun. However, Russian infiltrators manage to take over the station and turn the harvested solar energy into a powerful weapon that completely destroys the city of San Francisco. By doing so, Russia wants to force USA to complete and unconditional capitulation.

United States sends their military a as a response to the Russian attack in order to stop them before they manage to destroy their next target, the city of New York. We play as Sam, an agent that works for the US government and is a part of the United States Marine Corps unit that was sent to take back the station. Equipped with a state-of-the-art Augmented Reaction Suit that gives him superhuman strength and speed, he has to fend off the enemy forces.

Mechanics

In terms of mechanics, Vanquish for PC, X360 and PS3 is an extremely dynamic and eye-catching third-person shooter where gameplay is based on eliminating the Russian military forces. As we play, we can interact with various objects, open doors, start up elevators and other mechanisms. Our hero can carry three pieces of weapons grenades, and explosives with him.

The game’s cover system comes in handy when we are in combat. Walls, vehicles, and other bigger objects can serve us as a natural cover (although some of them can be destroyed when under fire for too long). Additionally, the game uses the automatically regenerating health mechanics known from games like Call of Duty. When Sam is heavily damaged, bullet-time commences automatically and gives him a chance to eliminate his enemies or run for cover in order to regenerate health points.

Game Modes

Developers from PlatinumGames decided that the game would come only with single player campaign, completely abandoning any sort of multiplayer modes.

Technical Aspects

Vanquish for PC, X360 and PS3 has eye-catchng, 3D visuals and uses many modern filters and graphical effects. Due to the technological restrictions of the seventh generation consoles, gameplay on those platforms had a way worse ‘feel’ to it than the PC version of the game released seven years later. Vanquish on PC has no limitations when it comes to visual effects, thus can be played in resolutions higher than 4K @ 200 frames per second. This version comes with Steam achievements and cards, the possibility of saving the game in cloud, and with all DLCs released on consoles.

Last updated on 15 May 2017