For The Mag: Club 360 – Vanquish

[Dante3000]

It's important to mention that the main guy has a nice ARS

Do blokes in cybernetic rocket suits float your boat Dante?

Just the ARS, Marb. I only have eyes for the ARS.

[Dynamite Dan]

I thought it was a really refreshing shooter. It's was ridiculous, over the top and so much fun. You didn't need to rely on cover and pop out at the right moments, it was all about keeping momentum going and dancing around like a lunatic while blasting everything you see. Though, that doesn't mean it lacks depth - all the weapons are very different and can be upgraded and even though you don't need to take cover some of the more difficult parts do require some thought.

[Havantgottaclue]

I still haven't finished Vanquish, and it has been deleted from my hard drive long ago so the chances of me settling down to finish it any time in the near future are so remote. My aging reflexes aren't really up to twitch gaming any more, so playing Vanquish became an exercise in patience for me as I continued to die, half the time without really cottoning on to what got me. I might have persevered had the narrative and characters appealed, but I have my doubts.

I'm quite willing to acknowledge that it does what it sets out to do very well indeed - it's just not really my cup of tea. I should've realised that from the demo really and not bothered buying it - but I was swayed by the (on the whole) positive critical reception and thought that it would probably be alright once I got used to it. I never really did ...

[ClownTrousers]

Vanquish had a supersolidier in ridiculous metal armour, a script full of cussin an swearin, giant robot baddies you took apart piece by piece, ludicrous Russian enemy overlords and a hero that slid around at high speed on his knees while toting massive weapons and smoking endless tabs. It was everything that a teenager thinks is "cool". Which of course is what makes it cool.

[biron_w]

I read all the rave reviews for this game so tried the demo and thought it was shite. But then I saw this game for cheap,bought it and thought it was awesome. Utterly bonkers and with some very over the top voice acting but still awesome.

[360_Mag_Dave]

To be fair, it is a shooter that takes a while to fully understand just what's going on and how to exploit your characters moves and abilities. It's hard to do this because if you look at the screen for too long your eyes melt.

[nojdanzig]

But Bayonetta managed to do it well without eye melting scenarios happening. Eye popping? Yeah that happened more with Mrs B

[Tom909]

Having started playing Gears 3 recently and putting the pad down about a third of the way in because although there was the satisfaction of a good cover and combat system which enabled me to pop loads of bullets in the heads of bad guys I was also bored. Bored of the big hollywood style set pieces, generic yankee gung-ho space marine premise and bollocks storyline.

That's when I realised why I loved Vanquish so much. It did away with any storyline instead replacing it with babble, its space marines took being bad ass and turned it to 11 allowing sliding and super-human acrobatics and it took set pieces and made them over the top to the realms of silly.

It still allowed me to pop millions of bullets into bad guys heads with a good cover and combat system but it did away with the exact same, standard formula seen in everything since Gears 1; instead using it as a base which to expanded, applying innovation which gave players what felt like a roller coaster ride whilst shooting.

Vanquish was a straight up, full on action TPS which didn't give a sh1t about giving you anything but a lovingly crafted, eye bleedingly fast and technically brilliant gaming experience and I respect that.

[Dynamite Dan]

This is the best third person shooter of the generation hands down. Every other TPS these days is all about sticking in cover and popping out when the time is right and while this does work well enough, Vanquish takes the genre to a new level. It's incredibly fast, smooth and completely different to the other shooters out there.

It's utterly ridiculous too with some fantastic over the top enemies, weapons and set pieces but this works in it's favour. I can't really fault it at all, it's a bit short but this actually works in it's favour, providing a shorter, more intense experience rather than a long but less exciting one.