Vanquish - 1/1 - Henry Arrambide
Gears of War meets Bayonetta? I'm in.
I love Mega Man. There’s like fiftysomething Mega Man games, right? Well, the mechanics of Mega Man are so arcadey and simple yet so open to different play styles that it just makes the game so replayable. Removed from just one game and placed into say the X series or the Zero series or some other franchise, it still works because it’s still the same great mechanics, just with new level layouts and challenges demanding your knowledge of the mechanics. DooM works in the very same manner; Final DooM and DooM 2 are very much the same mechanics in new levels. Gears of War operates on a similar level, which is why Horde is so engrossing. Tetris may be the leanest example of this idea: screw pretty paintjobs and “new” areas, levels, or some bullshit story to string you along. You’re here to stack blocks and so let’s get right to it.
Vanquish is what you get when you add jetpacks to Gears of War. Yet that seems superficial to say. It’s so much more than that – a simple few tweaks to what appears to be yet another Gears clone and you have…an entirely new set of mechanics. Effin’ great ones at that. As a Mr. Tim Rogers discussed somewhere else on the internet, Gears is an American kind of football (let’s just say Handegg from here on out, it’s really fun to), Vanquish is well, Soccer (football from here on out). It’s immediately observable: Gears is slow, defensive, about slowly gaining yards and eventually scoring. Vanquish is about zipping all over the field finding the best way to destroy that giant goddamn robot.
Vanquish is what you get when you add jetpacks to Gears of War. Yet that seems superficial to say. It’s so much more than that – a simple few tweaks to what appears to be yet another Gears clone and you have…an entirely new set of mechanics. Effin’ great ones at that. As a Mr. Tim Rogers discussed somewhere else on the internet, Gears is an American kind of football (let’s just say Handegg from here on out, it’s really fun to), Vanquish is well, Soccer (football from here on out). It’s immediately observable: Gears is slow, defensive, about slowly gaining yards and eventually scoring. Vanquish is about zipping all over the field finding the best way to destroy that giant goddamn robot.
One of the many giant goddamn robots.
…and holy crap destroying those giant goddamn robots is fun as shit. So many games try to be ‘epic’ or somesuch nonsense and think making you shoot big things contributes to that feeling of awesome, but if the mechanics feel disconnected from the player (pull the trigger, cardboard falls, wash, repeat) then nothing feels accomplished. There’s a weight and scale and heft to the player and his whizzing jetpack and to the giant decepticons (no really, Megatron and Blackout and Lazerbeak and effin’ Ravage are in here), combined with the right amount of difficulty in taking them down, that everything feels awesome when it falls into place and you down the bastards. It’s really just mechanical bliss, whizzing around in slow motion shotgunning Russian Rival You as bullets fly all around and the fate of the world hangs in the balance of space.
Yeah, that’s the story. You’re some super high tech soldier tagging along with Marines to save a scientist and stop the Russians on board some seriously huge satellite space colony. The scale of the thing and sense of geography the game gives you while on board said station is amazing, but the rest of the story? Means to an end (who thought building a giant microwave cannon was sensible?). In fact, it’s almost like Metal Gear Solid Lite, with betrayals and scientists and super weapons and some plot twist involving the President and such. But really, who cares? It’s padding and excuses, reason for the game to shovel more and more Russian Space Robots and Decepticons at you. There’s betrayal and death and suspense, but none of it affects you really. Just keep shooting shit.
Yeah, that’s the story. You’re some super high tech soldier tagging along with Marines to save a scientist and stop the Russians on board some seriously huge satellite space colony. The scale of the thing and sense of geography the game gives you while on board said station is amazing, but the rest of the story? Means to an end (who thought building a giant microwave cannon was sensible?). In fact, it’s almost like Metal Gear Solid Lite, with betrayals and scientists and super weapons and some plot twist involving the President and such. But really, who cares? It’s padding and excuses, reason for the game to shovel more and more Russian Space Robots and Decepticons at you. There’s betrayal and death and suspense, but none of it affects you really. Just keep shooting shit.
In the real world those saws would just be cumbersome and impractical as shit.
And with that minor complaint I must delve into the only major complaint in sight. Games like DooM and Gears of War and Mega Man (Hell even Final Fantasies and Shooty-McManly War 3) tend to embrace their mechanics, and in time progressively grow more self-involved until something like say, Mega Man X6 or DooM 64 comes out. These iterations of a series tend to be natural evolutions which long time fans can jump into instantly and play – but first timers beware. Accessibility to these parts of the series are for the hardcore only because the mechanics have just been taken that far out there. These are games where you're thrown into a speeding Ferrari and asked to navigate your way to a part of town you are totally unfamiliar with, no navigation tools in hand, and without dropping under eighty miles per hour.
My complaint, and my only real complaint with Vanquish (sure the story is ass but in a cheesy campy excusable way), is that it feels too restrained at times. Yes, there are huge robots, and you fight The Silver Surfer and Junkbots (oh how fun those are to down), and the last boss is absolutely kickass and one of the most perfectly weighed challenges I’ve faced in recent gaming memory, but the parts inbetween…meh. There’s an awesome monorail level where the enemy cart at one point flips over and is flying directly overhead which will make your eyes pop as you remember “Oh shit I’m in space.” Which is seriously captivating, there’s a really neat yet short Zero G sequence, and as I said before robots, robots everywhere. Yet in equal amounts are sequences where…you just shoot standard enemies from cover. You can tell which sections these are when playing on Hard because you go from creatively using the jetpack mechanics to just sort of cover-shoot-cover-run routines. Yeah, they’re solid third person shooting segments and you’re still fighting robots, but when you’ve just had your mind blown fighting Laser Junkbots in Zero-G it just seems so painfully plain and filler. At it’s worst, early on, is a tunnel escort mission ripped straight from Gears of War 2 (at least it’s not ripping off something bad). At it’s best, it’s indescribable. As is, the game is like driving a Ferrari to that Seven-Eleven a few blocks over. I mean, you hardly even get to leave suburbia!
My complaint, and my only real complaint with Vanquish (sure the story is ass but in a cheesy campy excusable way), is that it feels too restrained at times. Yes, there are huge robots, and you fight The Silver Surfer and Junkbots (oh how fun those are to down), and the last boss is absolutely kickass and one of the most perfectly weighed challenges I’ve faced in recent gaming memory, but the parts inbetween…meh. There’s an awesome monorail level where the enemy cart at one point flips over and is flying directly overhead which will make your eyes pop as you remember “Oh shit I’m in space.” Which is seriously captivating, there’s a really neat yet short Zero G sequence, and as I said before robots, robots everywhere. Yet in equal amounts are sequences where…you just shoot standard enemies from cover. You can tell which sections these are when playing on Hard because you go from creatively using the jetpack mechanics to just sort of cover-shoot-cover-run routines. Yeah, they’re solid third person shooting segments and you’re still fighting robots, but when you’ve just had your mind blown fighting Laser Junkbots in Zero-G it just seems so painfully plain and filler. At it’s worst, early on, is a tunnel escort mission ripped straight from Gears of War 2 (at least it’s not ripping off something bad). At it’s best, it’s indescribable. As is, the game is like driving a Ferrari to that Seven-Eleven a few blocks over. I mean, you hardly even get to leave suburbia!
But hey, it's a hell of a few blocks.
So yeah…the ending definitely calls for a sequel (although come on, no one was paying attention to the story), and hey, maybe it will get made. Maybe the formula will be taken a step further and the game will be perfect. Resident Evil 2 sure as hell improved the formula. DooM 2 too. See, sequels aren’t bad at all. Vanquish was a fun as hell game, even at it’s most bland it was still strong, and for that, I say play it.
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