Vanquish | Remastered (PS4/XB1) - February 18, 2020

[Kyo]

Trailer just premiered on GTTV. Really hard to tell what it was from the trailer, but looks like an FPS.

[Caiyuo]

I was really hoping they'd get on top of Bayonetta: TITS OF BLOOD (the official sequel) right away. I liked that game so much it was to the point of feeling retarded about it. Pretty surprised they aren't taking advantage of the great action gameplay they set a precedent with though, honestly. Can't wait until they improve upon it. FPS just sounds completely fucking random. lol

[BRP]

Note before Bayonetta they made the rather lame MadWorld. I want to find out who is directing this before I get excited.

[Kyo]

Looks like Shinji Mikami. I loved P.N. 03, maybe this has some good potential.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177751

Trailer as well.

[Kiarax]

Funnily enough, the trailer made me think of P.N.03 immediately. Bright as hell white suit and then it cut to that one entirely white room. I was expecting some homo dat ass any second.

[Charismatic]

set a precedent with

lol

[AoE]

Looks like a storm trooper.

[Kyo]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/107/1073713p1.html

PS3/360.

[Qalbert]

from Kyo's link

Vanquish takes place in the near future and puts you up against robots rather than other humans. The story appears to be centered on a conflict between Russia and America.

You take control of a main character who wears a slim armor suit. Your gun transforms in real time to new forms.

Mikami describes the game's genre as "shooter." Based off the screens in the magazine, he seems to mean third person shooter.

But this isn't just a generic shooter. The game will have the speed and rhythm you get from playing an action game, he said. This will be particularly true of the boss battles.

Gameplay systems mentioned in the magazine include a boost system which lets you close the gap between enemies quickly, and some sort of bullet time system that lets you slow the action down.

[Kyo]

Yeah I was a little lazy with it, I didnt think there was much info to go on besides the platform announcement.

[Kyo]

Screenies.

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o...ket/Van5-1.jpg

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o...ucket/Van4.jpg

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o...ucket/Van3.jpg

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o...ucket/Van2.jpg

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o..._bucket/V1.jpg

[Hiryo]

Reminded me of a 3rd person version of
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jp-Y_pSujQ...video+game.jpg

[Cydewinder]

1up Preview

Just to make sure there would be no confusion, the developers at Platinum Games kicked off their recent Vanquish press conference with a bit of preemptive damage control.
"It's a brand new type of shooting game that's got incredibly high-paced action and is incredibly intense," began producer Atsushi Inaba. "Because of the intense action that we're going for with Vanquish, we're looking forward to focusing purely on the single-player experience."

Then director Shinji Mikami took the stage and proceeded to thank IGN for their God Hand review, denounce recent P.N.03/Vanquish comparisons, and joke about how there won't be Resident Evil-style tank controls in the game. Mix in a quote about his head being "firmly attached" in the press handouts, and I felt like I was watching a history lesson of Mikami's last seven years as a game director, as told through fun message board references.

Intentional or not, all this drove home the point that Mikami -- one of the most respected developers in the game industry -- has long been known for single-player titles. And while he's stepping out of his comfort zone with Vanquish, this being his first "shooter" in the traditional sense, he seems ready to do what he needs to in order to tackle the single-player shooter heavyweights head-on.

Looks like Gears, moves like God Hand

When Mikami picked up a controller and started playing on stage, it became immediately clear what his competitors will be: squad-based third-person cover-focused shooters.

You could make the argument that if Platinum's Bayonetta was taking on Devil May Cry, Vanquish is taking on Lost Planet (given the team's history of formerly working for Capcom); though checking my notes, I see more references to Gears of War. The cover system, the ability to roll between cover points, the 2D images that show up when you can interact with the environment, the bulky characters, the ability to revive downed allies, etc. Which is appropriate, since Epic's Cliff Bleszinki has often said Resident Evil 4 helped inspire Gears -- so in a roundabout way, this seems to be a case of Mikami taking inspiration from the game he inspired.

But as Mikami described it at the event, his main inspiration was actually to put a twist on the genre. "I wanted to make a shooter, but I didn't want to make the same shooter," he said. "I wanted to make something that was speedier and more acrobatic than the shooters you see in the market today."

As a result, Vanquish hero Sam -- thanks to his Augmented Reaction Suit -- can boost forward with his knees on the ground in a rockstar version of Gears' roadie run, perform quick melee attacks like an uppercut to knock enemies out of the way, and flip like a subtle breakdancer when transitioning between certain animations.

However, the game isn't all about moving quickly, as Mikami revealed by showing Vanquish's version of bullet time and a scene where Sam took control of a mech, both of which demonstrated that the game likes to slow things down almost as much as it likes to speed them up. Pacing seems like one of the key differences between Vanquish and similar shooters, in that high level players will need to sprint/slide between cover points, fire off shots as quickly as they can, and repeat, with the occasional grenade toss/slow-motion bullet shooting spree/mech turret free-for-all thrown in. And they'll be rewarded for doing so via a Mission Stats screen that concludes each level, which Mikami demonstrated by bringing out "the best player in [their] studio" to play for the second half of the presentation.

As you might expect, that made it look fantastic. I wasn't able to ask Mikami specifically about the game's difficulty, but from the looks of the presentation, I'm guessing it won't have any qualms about spamming you with incredibly difficult challenges. The most over-the-top scene shown on stage involved a not-quite-Lost Planet 2-tall-but-still-tall spider boss, where the player had to run up its arm, then play a button-pressing minigame sequence that included dodging missiles in midair, grabbing those missiles, and turning them around on the boss (similar to scenes from Secret Level's recent Iron Man game), before returning to the ground to break the spider's kneecaps.

East Meets West

One easy way to define Vanquish is to say it combines Eastern and Western design approaches, which in some ways applies to all modern shooters developed in Japan, but feels particularly appropriate in this case.

"You have everything that really works and sort of the fundamentals of a shooting game that you can find in any Western game, but then also you have the unique style -- the unique flare and take on it -- that only Japan can do," said Sega U.S. producer Keith Dwyer following the demonstration. "And that comes through both in the gameplay and the stylization of the character himself, the presentation, and the game world."

On the character side of that equation, that means Sam (a DARPA employee) and the Augmented Reality Suit he helped design (which for the record looks a lot less like Vanessa's outfit in P.N.03 in motion than it does in the debut trailer). When his visor lifts and you can see his face, he looks like any other generic white guy, but when the visor drops he looks almost robotic. Between weapon upgrades (I spotted one for "+10 Damage") and a gun that looks like a Transformer as it morphs between weapon choices (like a heavy machinegun and a shotgun), his toys seem to be a key focus.

The world -- where "the majority of the game takes place," according to Dwyer -- is a large space station housing a battle between the U.S. and Russian militaries. Sam leads a squad on the U.S. side, and gets information through a Metal Gear Codec-style communication window in the upper left corner of the screen. In the spirit of full disclosure, I might just be making the Metal Gear reference because one of the people Sam talks to sounds like Solid Snake, and since the game also features a "smoke cigarette" option. But the communication setup seems well designed, and Sam's main contact is another DARPA staff member named Elena, a blonde girl who wouldn't look out of place in a Parasite Eve game. "For Japanese people, she's really cute," joked Mikami.

Normal is the New Weird

Regardless of where the game was made or who it's targeting, it looks great. It seems quite a bit less ridiculous than what we've seen from Platinum thus far, with games like MadWorld and Bayonetta, and what we last saw from Shinji Mikami in God Hand. And I'm not entirely sure if that's part of the design or if we haven't seen everything the game has to offer -- I wouldn't be surprised if Sam's suit had other abilities beyond slowing down time and boosting across the floor like a vacuum cleaner, but I don't know for certain.

Either way, the developer's track record leaves me with a lot of confidence in the game. Whether it ends up erring on the traditional side or branching out in other directions, Vanquish is something I plan on paying extremely close attention to leading up to its release later this year.

[Kyo]

PS3 Lead platform.

http://www.destructoid.com/ps3-is-th...h-165902.phtml

[Kaisha]

Then director Shinji Mikami took the stage and proceeded to thank IGN for their God Hand review

I wonder if he did that with a straight face.

[Insanecyclone]

Want gameplay?

Here's gameplay

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...anquish/100954

[BRP]

I wonder if he did that with a straight face.

Wow, I didn't read this til now and I have to say I am blown away by his sheer awesomeness. Mikami is the greatest.

[Kiarax]

Want gameplay?

Here's gameplay

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...anquish/100954

Actually looks pretty awesome. Looks like it's gonna be fast with some interesting abilities thrown in there. Hopefully there'll be more at E3.

[Hyan]

Kinda reminds me of Metal Wolf Chaos.

[Fallyn]

looks amazing, Edge magazine (UK only?) got some hands on with it and said it was great, and they're nazis.