Vanquish doesn't exactly get off on the right foot. Oh sure the graphics are awesome, the gameplay is frantic as hell and everything is almost ridiculously responsive but almost as soon as you turn the game on you start dying. Vanquish is a very hard game that doesn't exactly ease newcomers into the experience plus there are numerous quirks with the gameplay itself that take a whole lot of warming up. But once you get into it Vanquish is an incredibly good game with some exciting set pieces that ranks right up there with the other titles that clearly inspired it.

While it might come as a surprise, Vanquish actually does have a plot amidst all the madness. Much like the rest of the game it's fairly overblown and makes only a little bit of sense until the very end. It's actually fairly dramatic but that doesn't really set in until the games almost done. Until that point this is a fairly typical "Russia attacks United States, United States attacks back." scenario. Except in this case the Russians set a pretty horrific tone for the game by literally boiling San Francisco alive with a microwave laser thing. It's quite graphic as well as disturbing for those sensitive types out there.

Heck this game wouldn't be quite as impressive to behold if not for the high quality graphics and stellar animation. If you've played P.N. 03 then you know what this game looks like but for those who haven't expect a lot of bright, white sterile environments. As the game takes place on a space station it's all very clean and high tech looking. Enemies and environments alike have a very smooth, metallic look to them that gives the game a fairly uniform appearance. But the animations of your character as he slides, leaps, rolls and shoots his various weapons are just a thing of beauty.

But you didn't come to a game like this to hear about silly things like "Plot" or "Story" or a discussion of how good it looks. You're here to shoot some robots in their stupid robot faces and Vanquish gives you that in spades. Ah, the good times to be had slaughtering hundreds of robots...

On the surface Vanquish controls just like any other third person shooter – you've got cover you hide behind, the ability to roll around to evade enemy gunfire as well as the aiming and shooting mechanics that are so familiar to these games. Playing the game is incredibly easy as the controls are super responsive, allowing you to escape from just about any situation. At first it doesn't feel like anything special but then you have Boost. That's where the fun times begin.

Your Boost ability allows you to perform the superhuman feats the game will be so well known for. Using the basic Boost button you can slide along the floor at high speed; dashing across an arena in record time, sliding into cover or evading dozens of missiles trying to bombard you all at once. Hell you can even shoot while sliding, slowing time down while you move so that you can more accurately hit enemy weak points. In addition you can activate this time dilation, called Advanced Reflexes or A.R. here, by simply diving forward or leaping over cover, before activating your boost. This allows you to carefully aim your shots while stopping enemies from being able to really fight back.

Really it almost becomes like a ballet at times. You boost away from cover, evading a power laser that penetrates your cover, before leaping to the side and slowing time down so you can literally shoot down the enemy's incoming missiles and grenades. It's incredibly exciting to know that you have so much control over the battlefield thanks to your abilities.

Of course no system is without its own flaws and this boost system is no different. For an ability that controls the best, most important of your offensive abilities, your ability to use it is severely limited for 99% of the game. Not only does this one meter control how far / often you can slide around or use Advanced Reflexes but it's also your emergency meter. If you take too much damage your AR kicks in automatically, letting your whole bar drain away. This means that if you take too much damage then your bar empties leaving you with no offensive abilities afterwards.