Introduction

Vanquish is a game that straps rockets to your legs, gives you the ability to slow down time, and then throws you up against hordes of robotic russian drones that have a pleasing tendency to colorfully explode. It is awesome.

Vanquish was released in late 2010 by Platinum studios and director by Shinji Mikami, of Resident Evil and God Hand fame. Despite a fair amount of hype and a barrage of positive reviews, the game has still sold less than a million copies. While not a commercial failure, when compared with RE4's cumulative sales of roughly 7 million, or Platinum's other flagship title, Bayonetta, which has sold 1.35 million copies, Vanquish was never quite the success that it deserved to be. Some attribute it's poor sales to the lack of a multiplayer component or it's short length, but the game's strength comes from it's focus on a refined singleplayer experience. It's a game that simply oozes style and polish on every conceivable level. The sheer attention to detail in the environments, models, and effects throughout the game is stunning, and the sheer chaos that is constantly erupting all over the screen in any given firefight is nothing short of a delight to behold. The gameplay is no less remarkable than the visuals, featuring a frenetic combination of breakneck speed and slow-motion that has become a trademark of both Platinum and Shinji Mikami's games.

Gameplay

You play as Sam Gideon, a DARPA researcher piloting the prototype of the ARS, or Augmented Reaction Suit, which is designed to grant it's pilot both extreme maneuvreability and dramatically improved combat reflexes on the battlefield. Basically, this means that you GO FAST and have SLOW-MO, and goddamn are they ever fun. The ARS suit is also eqipped with the BLADE weapon system, which is a pretty retarded acronym but what it essentially means is that at any time you can store 3 separate weapons, 2 grenade types, and have the ability to switch between them on the fly.

For this LP, I'll be going through the game on Normal. I consider myself fairly proficient at the game, but even so I'm not skilled enough to make for compelling viewing on hard - the sheer amount of edits I'd have to do to trim down the deaths would be obscene, and on normal you've got a great balance of speed and destruction. I'll also be throwing in a few bonus videos talking about the history and inspirations behind the game later on, as there's alot of neat details and background behind the game's development.

Episodes

Challenges