Vanquish

Rating: T

Score: 8.5/10

Sega is at it again. When they aren't frankensteining their beloved hedgehog hero to death multiple times every year, Sega does manage to release a new game every now and again. Here's another one, which has flown low on the marketing radar (odd for Sega). Is this game a hidden gem, or should it stay under the radar? This game is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

You are Sam, a man in futuristic robot armor which allows you fast manoeuvring and strong fighting capabilities. You are sent with a resistance group to stop an evil terrorist from destroying America. Shall I point out all the clichés? The story goes into horribly boring detail about the BLADE technology within your ARS (Augmentation Reaction Suit) which you got from D.A.R.P.A. (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) which is the only thing that they can use against Victor Zaitsev who leads these group of robots who- it just goes on forever. Considering the gameplay, this doesn't seem like it's going to appeal to the business men who stress details.

And let's consider gameplay, because this game is certainly plentiful there. It plays like a normal third-person shooting game until you start using your suit as a weapon in and of itself. Your suit can thrust rapidly into action and go into slow motion. Combine the two, and you get some very nice action-movie-esque stunts. For example, you can go from behind cover, slide over to an enemy (still on your legs) using your thrusters, jump, bicycle kick the robot, and shoot him up with your assault rifle in mid-air (and in slow-mo). Of course, your suit will overheat, and quite a bit I might add. Even using melee attacks drains your suit completely.

You'll spend your time fighting robots of all sizes, from human size to walking tower size. I hope you like missiles, the robots certain do! The bigger the robot, the more missiles it shoots simultaneously, which becomes...nerve-racking, but very intense. Bosses are intense as well, but the same ones repeat. In the later levels, they throw more bosses at once, which makes it hard to keep track of everyone and everything. Imagine, one giant spider shooting missiles, one giant golem shooting missiles, and a dozen or so small robots at once.

The game uses the typical health-generation system, but pulls a fast one every now and again with instant-death attacks. These are extra dirty when you find out almost all instant-death attacks ALSO go through cover. It adds the fact you should always be moving into the game, which suits, but it also adds the punch-in-the-face of deaths based on trial and error rather than skill.

You can upgrade your weapons by picking up the same weapon multiple times or randomly killing an enemy that happens to carry an upgrade box. These upgrades do nothing alone, but add up to give fire rate bonuses, damage bonuses, and often capacity bonuses. Having a dozen more rounds to fire off only sounds nice when you know how rare some ammo can be to find. Dying is the only reliable way to stock up again.

Look past corny lines and a terribly boring story, and there's an adrenaline-filled rush of a game. It's a thrill to play because of its unique gameplay, but it's also a pain to listen to. The good certainly outweighs the bad.