Forum Overview :: I Can't Afford a XBL Gold Membership :: "We've got eight hours to stop New York from becoming the next San Francisco."

[quote name="Jerry Whorebach"]After playing the first act of Vanquish, I can only assume the reason this didn't come out until three years after Mass Effect is because that's how long it took Shinji Mikami to stop laughing. It's basically the exact same game, except everything that one did miserably, this one does to perfection. And since Mass Effect did just about everything miserably, that makes Vanquish pretty incredible. The cover shooting is top-drawer (it plays like Gears of War, if you replaced husky man-truck Marcus Phoenix with one of the Virtuaroids from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vi5KKWRCt0">Virtual-On</a>) and the dialogue is all in the finest Capcom tradition (I started jotting down some of the more quotable lines, but stopped when I realized I was just transcribing every cutscene). The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Three">O'Neill cylinder</a> where the game takes place and the default flashlight-headed robot enemies are both kind of plain-looking, which I suspect was a deliberate decision made to try and appeal to Western tastes (probably accompanied by some kind of jerking-off motion), but the characters rise above their essential space marine and earpiece-girl nature (the hard-charging lieutenant-colonel whose unit you're attached to is like a cross between Resident Evil's Jack Krauser and Avatar's Stephen Lang, filtered through a prism of Super Nintendo Contra). I'm not sure yet how I feel about the weapon upgrade system, which seems to favour whichever guns you <i>aren't</i> using, but it's possible I just haven't figured out how to game it properly. The fact that I spent two hours with Vanquish this morning and I still feel like I'm just getting started learning how to make use of the tools it's given me might be the most ringing endorsement I can offer. <b>Preliminary Verdict:</b> I can think of no reason why every video game shouldn't have a BOOST button. Positive![/quote]