Vanquish

MadWorld was a fun, if insubstantial, experiment; Bayonetta did nothing for me. So the Platinum Games pedigree didn't necessarily endear Vanquish to me. But the demo is, uh, pretty impressive.

At first blush, you might think that a shooter combined with a twitch action game would just be one of those at its core, with slight influences of the other. But Vanquish really feels like a legitimate hybrid of two powerful genres. I can take cover behind blockades, and speed-boost out to take pot-shots. I can slow down time, Viewtiful Joe style, to shoot missiles out of the air. And I have a shotgun! Nice.

The bright effects and sci-fi aesthetic really help, too. Despite the (intentionally?) cheesy dialog, the Vanquish demo totally succeeded in making me take it seriously. As long as the full game doesn't grant/restrict character upgrades based on a performance score, I'll be pretty excited about it.

Progress: Finished the demo