I liked you better when I thought you were dead.

Nearly a decade later, the PC re-release of Vanquish is a little more underwhelming (less whelming?) than I expected.

I remembered the story being throwaway and stupid, and that memory was spot-on. Although it's a surprise how recent geopolitical players are reflected in the plot -- kudos to the writer who said "Vanquish is based on an extension of our current world into the future." Surprisingly insightful! At any rate, the story wasn't a good reason to play Vanquish in 2010, and it's even less of one now.

The action holds up okay, but doesn't feel as fresh or exciting as it used to. That's pretty much what I expected; a victory, in a way, that the controls hold up as well as they do. The speed of Vanquish, the "hectic rocket-sliding" that I remember, is no longer impressive in the current era of high-framerate action games.

The level design hasn't held up well, as it ping-pongs between rote shoot-outs, recycled boss encounters, and low-action sections of just walking down a corridor. Excluding the final boss fight, the end of the game feels like they really ran out of ideas for enemies.

I'm more upset by Vanquish's weapon-upgrade system than I was before. It's just illogical; if you have weapon X equipped, and it's at full ammo, then picking up another copy of weapon X will upgrade it. Meaning that if you use weapon X, then you'll just refill its ammo instead of upgrading it. Meaning that to upgrade a weapon, you have to not use it. Considering that later battles essentially require upgraded weapons (or else you'd run out of bullets!), the system is just dumb and broken.

But all of that is in-line with my expectations of a seven-years-later re-release. What I was disappointed by was the graphical fidelity. Although the PC version is higher-resolution than the original, and its art has been updated somewhat, it still doesn't look as good as a current-day 1080p game should; more upscaled than remastered. The UI, in particular, looks unnecessarily blocky and interlaced.

Vanquish was a visual spectacle back in 2010, so it's a bit of a shame that the re-release doesn't look awesome.

Stripped of that previously-bombastic graphical prowess, Vanquish is just a score-chasing action game with some slightly-crufty design and writing baggage. Which is fine, I guess.

Better than: MadWorld
Not as good as: Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered
Oh yeah... Vanquish reminds me: that I still need to get back to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Progress: Finished on Normal.