Vanquish

**Sandman42** · 01-29-2010, 04:34 PM

Re: Vanquish

Sweet looking trailer. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

**Flawless** · 03-03-2010, 01:42 PM

Re: Vanquish

Shinji Mikamki Talks Vanquish With Famitsu

First, the basics, as listed in the magazine. Vanquish is an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 multiplatform title that's in development at Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta. Shinji Mikami, known for his work on the Resident Evil series, is the director, with Platinum's Atsushi Inaba serving as producer. Sega will be releasing the game to Japan this Winter.

Famitsu first asked Mikami for his feelings on announcing his first new game in four years. His response was that he's happy to announce a new title, but he didn't put much thought into it being the first new one in four years.

Asked to describe Vanquish, Mikami answered with "Shooter." One of the big reasons for going with this genre, he explained, is that it's being developed not just for Japan, but with overseas markets in its sights.

"Making a normal shooter wouldn't be interesting," continued Mikami, "so it has the concept of the feeling of speed and good tempo, and something flashy. There are lots of games where you shoot and kill people, so this time we wanted to try and see how we could convey the good feeling of shooting robots."

Famitsu pointed out that Mikami has the image of making action games rather than shooters, to which he responded: "It will be a shooter that places importance on the good tempo and feeling of rhythm you get from playing an action game." The boss battles in particular will approach action games, he said.

Outside of the main interview, the magazine mentioned a few more specific areas for the game. One major feature is the use of "boosts," which can be used to close the distance to your enemy quickly. The game also has a large variety of close-range attacks along with a "Bullet Time" feature which lets you slow time down.

In addition to the speed being fast, you'll find that lots of enemies come out and attack. "Compared to a normal shooter, there's more information," said Mikami. One area of concern, he said, has been to keep there from being too much information, which would leave players not knowing what to do.

The magazine also offered preliminary details on the game's setting. The game takes place in the near future and has a story based off an American and Russian standoff. The future setting, explained Mikami, allowed them to make the enemies into robots, make the cinematic scenes flashy, and make the world large. The character you control sports a slim, flexible armor suit.

Mikami shared one little development secret for the game (yes, already!). Your character doesn't have a bunch of weapons in his possession. Instead, his weapon changes shape in real time depending on use. Originally, Mikami revealed, your character had a partner dog character who'd merge with your suit and take the form of various weapons. This wasn't received too favorably by the staff, so they switched to the idea of the weapons transforming.

Current development on Vanquish is at 80%, Mikami told the magazine. They're putting together the fundamental areas of the game, but detailed areas like enemy and ally AI remain. "The work from here on out gets annoying," he joked

**Flawless** · 03-03-2010, 11:33 PM

Re: Vanquish

Screens

**Flawless** · 03-04-2010, 03:51 PM

Re: Vanquish

1UP Preview

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.

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.

"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.

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.

**Flawless** · 06-05-2010, 01:13 AM

Re: Vanquish

It's like the 3rd-person shooter equivalent of Bayonetta.

<div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=100953"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=100953" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/vanquish/12653" title="Vanquish">Vanquish</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-vanquish/100953" title="E3 2010: Exclusive Gameplay Trailer">E3 2010: Exclusive Gameplay Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div>

**CaptainZombie** · 06-05-2010, 10:50 AM

Re: Vanquish

Originally posted by Flawless

It's like the 3rd-person shooter equivalent of Bayonetta.

<div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=100953"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=100953" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/vanquish/12653" title="Vanquish">Vanquish</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-vanquish/100953" title="E3 2010: Exclusive Gameplay Trailer">E3 2010: Exclusive Gameplay Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div>

This game is looking great and can't wait for it to release.

**sportsdude** · 06-05-2010, 12:08 PM

Re: Vanquish

looks odd yet interesting. I wonder if there is multiplayer. If not, I probably won't get it.

**phant030** · 06-05-2010, 07:42 PM

Re: Vanquish

Originally posted by sportsdude

looks odd yet interesting. I wonder if there is multiplayer. If not, I probably won't get it.

Already said no MP.

Vanquish Will Be “Fastest” Shooter Ever, No Multiplayer « Games Thirst

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2010/06/03/vanquish-will-be-fastest-shooter-ever-no-multiplayer/

**MINATAURO** · 06-05-2010, 10:36 PM

Re: Vanquish

Good call on P.N.03. wasn't that a gamecube game?

**CaptainZombie** · 06-05-2010, 11:08 PM

Re: Vanquish

Originally posted by MINATAURO

Good call on P.N.03. wasn't that a gamecube game?

Yes it was.

**DickDalewood** · 06-05-2010, 11:55 PM

Re: Vanquish

Wow, this looks crazy! I'll definitely be interested to hear/see more.

**Flawless** · 06-07-2010, 01:01 PM

Re: Vanquish

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**trobinson97** · 06-07-2010, 02:00 PM

Re: Vanquish

Man that looks fun!

**Flawless** · 07-05-2010, 01:30 AM

Re: Vanquish

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Vanquish

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