I have seen numerous games of PlatinumGames And I always came to the same conclusion: I don’t know why the community is so passionate about them. It is an absolutely respectable feeling, but what I was not able to find was a reason to immerse myself in his long career. Neither Bayonetta nor The Wonderful 101 had enough magnetism.
A matter of taste, after all, although I always had the handicap that my vision was based on not having played a single one of their titles. That is over once and for all. Vanquish has been my gateway to embrace the developer led by Hideki Kamiya -unless he blocks me on Twitter-.
Seriously, Mikami?
It was the first slap to the face after inserting the disc into my PS3. I had completely forgotten that shinji mikami, the famous father of Resident Evil, was the director behind the project sponsored by SEGA. Released in 2010, Vanquish It drinks from the projection towards action that the Japanese creative demonstrated with the brilliant Resident Evil 4.
Here the bet is to abandon any trace of puzzles and other mandangas to focus on a pure shooter. Not just any one, but one in the third person that differs from the bulk of the genre due to a freedom of movement and spectacularity that very few video games are capable of achieving. However, first of all, we must put into context why we got into shooting.
We control Sam Gideon, a government agent who is practically an army on his own. This is thanks to an augmented reaction suit, which allows him to enjoy superhuman speed and agility. That’s all we need to know, because from this point it doesn’t matter what Russia tries to end the world or that DARPA and the United States military get along like cat and dog.
The war atmosphere is absolutely great and is elevated thanks to the fact that the battlefield is in space, within the space colony SC-01 Providence. So much is the show that Mikami sought to create that the enemies are always robots, because their sole purpose is to end up in mincemeat and regardless of their identification plate. There is not a single moment for a thought to cross his mind other than to put a bullet in the head of the opponent in front.
Kill what you see
My only mistake when playing Vanquish It has been to do it on the console in which it was conceived. The work looks wonderful on PS3, but some jerk of frames has made me reflect on what the experience would have been like in the revamped version. This title should be enjoyed in a big way and any framerate below 60 automatically becomes a deadly sin.
The shootings are a hail of bullets without meaning, chaotic as I have rarely seen and in which you can pause and speed up the action thanks to the suit. It is tremendously fun to activate the thrusters to launch yourself at full speed -and with some poses that no chiropractor recommends-. Sam is very much on top of everything that happens around him and for him to position himself in such exaggerated ways to shoot shows that he is always in control of what happens.
And when not, just press a button while dodging and everything goes in slow motion. That’s when you unload a fair amount of shells on the back of the mech spawn on duty or throw a grenade at that clueless pile of junk. Melee may not have been my favorite mechanic, but I admit that a well-timed slap to a metal golem satisfies beautifully.
Of course, not as much as facing the numerous bosses that you find yourself kicking. It’s impressive, even in 2023, how a hulking spider bot phases in real-time into a Transformer of sorts that shoots death rays from its chest. They are challenging and the way to finish them is as brutal as it is a break with the laws of physics. This is what I came for and what I found.
What I did not expect was the Clever way of introducing weapon upgrades. The more you take of the same type, the more power, capacity or cadence you get with them. A masterful method for you to clean the scenes looking for that heavy submachine gun that you need so much. In my case, the shotgun, the assault rifle and the rocket launcher have been my most faithful companions throughout the game, but this system has encouraged me to try the entire arsenal. Bravo.
competitive frenzy
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Burns is your typical curmudgeon, the son of dozens of skirmishes and the father of six world wars who I would want to have by my side at all times. It is difficult to support his position that the end justifies the means, but he leaves us moments in which he supports Sam unconditionally. Of course, his battle is not the best of Vanquishprecisely.
What is brutal and what I celebrate towards PlatinumGames is the huge variety of situations what the title suggests. Whether it’s direct confrontations, breaking through enemy lines while everything is collapsing, planting explosives, defending drilling machines, fighting between rails on frenetic wagons, fighting in zero gravity and even becoming a silent sniper. The range is wide, it is interspersed very easily and shows that the versatility when creating crazy things was not a problem during development.
It is not that I have noticed the scores of what I was doing, but that arcade pique seems to me that it feels great to Vanquish. The levels cry out to heaven to be repeated, polishing the mastery to the maximum in each and every one of the acts. It wasn’t my goal this time around, although it’s a very obvious and fun claim for replay value. What have been funny have been several video game situations.
What is that about getting out of an elevator to run into some robots dancing to music? Why is the cigarette that Sam always smokes the size of his head? Furthermore, he decides that the vice must continue just before the final battle against Victor Zaitsev, as he hangs from the void. Frankly, I’ve laughed at the occasional scene and seeing that one of the soldiers who accompanied me is called Shinji Mikami makes it clear to me that joking is one of the flags of the studio.
At some point I will return to Vanquish to get the most out of the five extra challenges, because the four hours of departure are short. It is one of the complaints that has always orbited the title and a sequel would have suited him like a fable. At least we can be content with the cute end credits. PlatinumGames has achieved the most difficult thing, which is to change my mind, and maybe it’s time to visit the adventure of certain androids…
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