Vanquish (PS3)
Graphics-9 Sound-7.5 Control-8 Challenge-8 Story-5
Level Design-8 Frustration-7.5 Fun-8 Originality-6
Overall Score-8
+ Very fast paced and intense, great bosses, interesting mechanics, fun weapons (disk launcher, homing laser with lock-on, plasma ball, EMP and frag grenades), decent variation, great set pieces, difficulty options (very easy to hard), unlockable game modes/missions, decent ranking system, good check point system (you lose points toward ranking per death), the falling bridge and twin rail battle levels (+ the upwards trek to the huge cannon), optional ways to take down bosses, destructible environment (you and the bosses), ride walkers and man gun turrets
+/- Ridiculous plot and dialogue (USA vs. the Russians with the player being a renegade who gets the girl in the end, mostly tongue in cheek though), quick time events (some trial & error moments that can lead to your death, others are pretty fun such as the melee finishers), 1 player only, ~8 hours long on normal (fine for this type of game)
- Sometimes poor allied AI (teammates often get in the way, sometimes they gang up and stop doing anything at all if you don’t proceed at some points, they can’t shoot for shit of course), can’t turn off AR mode at will when taking a critical hit (this can get frustrating since it is auto-activated regardless of your suit's temperature) - can lead to overheating, can’t melee while overheated (and melee drains the gauge like everything else), some trial & error (jump past a corner in slow mo, kill a couple enemies, go out of slow mo then Boom! Get hit in the side by a rocket, instant kill attacks, boss patterns, falling bridge, enemy ambushes, quick time events), sometimes hard to read texts beside weapons, pointless uncontrollable walking sections (made to look cool?), cover system not consistent (you can take cover under 50 cm of rubble but not behind a huge walker corpse, you can play like crap and still make it since your health regenerates (unless the enemy uses instant kill attacks), lacklustre mission briefings (the escort mission will catch you off guard with the walking bomb enemies), too many cutscenes break up the action (showing cool scenes that you might’ve wanted to play yourself – flying sequences for instance), movement is pretty limited (you can’t jump over anything you want - such as a 1m tall fence, or jump down from a platform, or climb up to a platform without a ladder on it), odd upgrade system (seems random at first but the unequipped weapon with full ammo will get the upgrade), a few dull sections (stealth part, slow train/platform ride sections), same button for taking cover and opening boxes, quite few different bosses (and only 3 really large ones)
Level Design-8 Frustration-7.5 Fun-8 Originality-6
Overall Score-8
+ Very fast paced and intense, great bosses, interesting mechanics, fun weapons (disk launcher, homing laser with lock-on, plasma ball, EMP and frag grenades), decent variation, great set pieces, difficulty options (very easy to hard), unlockable game modes/missions, decent ranking system, good check point system (you lose points toward ranking per death), the falling bridge and twin rail battle levels (+ the upwards trek to the huge cannon), optional ways to take down bosses, destructible environment (you and the bosses), ride walkers and man gun turrets
+/- Ridiculous plot and dialogue (USA vs. the Russians with the player being a renegade who gets the girl in the end, mostly tongue in cheek though), quick time events (some trial & error moments that can lead to your death, others are pretty fun such as the melee finishers), 1 player only, ~8 hours long on normal (fine for this type of game)
- Sometimes poor allied AI (teammates often get in the way, sometimes they gang up and stop doing anything at all if you don’t proceed at some points, they can’t shoot for shit of course), can’t turn off AR mode at will when taking a critical hit (this can get frustrating since it is auto-activated regardless of your suit's temperature) - can lead to overheating, can’t melee while overheated (and melee drains the gauge like everything else), some trial & error (jump past a corner in slow mo, kill a couple enemies, go out of slow mo then Boom! Get hit in the side by a rocket, instant kill attacks, boss patterns, falling bridge, enemy ambushes, quick time events), sometimes hard to read texts beside weapons, pointless uncontrollable walking sections (made to look cool?), cover system not consistent (you can take cover under 50 cm of rubble but not behind a huge walker corpse, you can play like crap and still make it since your health regenerates (unless the enemy uses instant kill attacks), lacklustre mission briefings (the escort mission will catch you off guard with the walking bomb enemies), too many cutscenes break up the action (showing cool scenes that you might’ve wanted to play yourself – flying sequences for instance), movement is pretty limited (you can’t jump over anything you want - such as a 1m tall fence, or jump down from a platform, or climb up to a platform without a ladder on it), odd upgrade system (seems random at first but the unequipped weapon with full ammo will get the upgrade), a few dull sections (stealth part, slow train/platform ride sections), same button for taking cover and opening boxes, quite few different bosses (and only 3 really large ones)