Vanquish

Initial Vanquish reviews had me very concerned about the game's length, indicating something on the order of four hours. I guess those reviewers are just way better at video games than me (or were playing on easy auto-aim mode), because my final score screen said about six hours, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't include cutscenes. At any rate, it seemed very much like a standard shooter campaign length; other than said cutscenes, and a few brief exposition segments, the experience doesn't have any downtime.

That being said, I think I would have preferred that the game was shorter. I played the demo repeatedly, until I got bored of the demo level; and I got the same feeling at many points throughout the full campaign. The hectic rocket-sliding gameplay is a blast at first, but so many levels are built in the same way, it doesn't take long for them to become very tedious. Some levels mix it up with some genuinely interesting set pieces, but in general it's corridors, or stairs, or corridors next to stairs.

There's a healthy variety of enemies, and a nice arrangement of weapons (even if the disk launcher is a disappointment, and the upgrade system doesn't work as well as it should). But Vanquish is stretched just a little too thin over the full campaign's length. Good thing the excellent audio/visual presentation keeps things interesting, because the dumb-as-doornails story sure doesn't.

Vanquish presents some exciting new ideas for a third-person shooter, but doesn't take them far enough. It sets the stage for a sequel, but given the IP ownership situation between Sega and Platinum, it's hard to say if a Vanquish 2 will push the formula far enough either.

Better than: Bionic Commando
Not as good as: Resident Evil 4
Has great lines like: "Thank God I'm an atheist!"

Progress: Finished on Normal