I was playing this last night, its lots of fun. Pretty easy to play, feels a bit deliberately mindless.

I love the look of it, reminds me of P.N. 03 in parts. In fact the game itself is a big chunk of Gears with a bit of P.N. 03 style thrown in for good measure.

The AR gauge (properly called something else I'm sure) never seems to last long enough for me, I don't quite have the timings down, but I'm getting there with toppling the Russion robot pretty nimbly using both turrets. Lots of ways to take him down though, I've ended up scratching around the lower for ammo in the past after losing both gun placements without using them.

Not exactly sure how to use those two walkers either, they don't really have enough ammo - hop in quickly and it'll be destroyed in seconds, take your time and the ammo doesn't last for much useful. Be more fun to go against the transforming robot as the walker, which is what I was hoping, not sure if that's possible.

I'm torn on the lack of multi-player though - completely understandable given the controls, but a shame there isn't some kind of dual-path co-op in there, which could conceivably work.

That's an older build of the game that guy is playing, you can't do the evade/cover invincible tricks any more. Originally you could cancel the invincible frames of the Enter Cover animation with the invincible frames of the Evade. So you could sit there completely immune to fire by alternately tapping X and Square. They've fixed it now, so you can't evade the Argus Main Cannon or explosive damage like he is in the vid any more.

Vanquish is a strange one. The character can do so much amazing stuff, but none of it is through your own effort. Every time some really amazing technique is used, it's nothing but a QTE. When I first started playing about the with AR Mode (bullet time) I thought it would be like Viewtiful Joe, where slowing time allows you to use enemy attacks to your advantage. But you can't. In fact there is very little you can do in terms of anything clever.

I can't help feeling they've created something which is not a good enough 3rd person shooter to be of interest to fans of the genre, and fans of Clover/Platinum cleverness will find nothing here either.

The way they've handled melee attacks is utterly bizarre. All but one of the melee attacks you have will completely drain the AR gauge, leaving you close to death. Even if you connect an attack on an enemy during it's death animation - it's goodbye to the AR gauge. So powering in and making use of a melee attack will leave you defenceless, unable to evade properly and unable to boost for almost 10 seconds - and this is after you've just intentionally dived into the heart of the action to use the attack in the first place.

Well... retail copy acquired this afternoon and just pumped my way through Act 1. Have to say I agree with all Saur has said regarding the options you have in combat, especially with the melee stuff but once I stopped trying to play it like Bayonetta / DMC it has come together a lot more. The ARS seems to be geared towards making you hard to hit and manouvreable rather than giving you lots of attacking tools, which I suppose was the core of PN03's mechanics with all the dodge timing windows and shit. So once I started using it for more evasive measures the system really clicked into place. Dont get me wrong you can still unleash absolute carnage when you string the right moves and weapons together but like Saur said everything comes with a price so you have to be a lot more conservative than you would normally in a Platinum game. I guess that is a symptom of the genre though.

Lets also get one thing straight! When this baby runs and runs well, it is absolutely staggerring to watch. Minutes ago a I flipped over some cover with the rocket launcher equipped, kicked in the ARS to dodge a missile that was coming at me and just as said missile slid inches past my spinning torso, I unleashed a rocket of my own into the chest of the big mech that shot at me. Now, that on its own would be worthy of a slack jaw but to then follow it up by using my remaining ARS gauge to boost toward another medium mech and somersault kick him in the face and then hang in the air emptying an assault rifle clip into what was left of him just about left me limp. There is pure gaming gold in here boys make no mistake... it's just a different kind

The reason I ended up hating the game so much is because I was looking for another game using the Stylish Action mindset/template they always manage to lay down. I want to be able to do what Sam does in the cutscenes, why can't I manually use the AR Mode to turn enemy attacks to my advantage? Why can't I slow down time, just before a rocket hits me - then smash it back at the attacker? Why can't I chain together melee strikes? Why the hell is the ARS suit energy drained to zero upon landing any aspect of a melee attack?

Even if you connect a melee attack against an enemy which is already dead (and in the middle of it's death animation, you lose 100% suit power! Also, melee attacks which 'should' be all kinds of amazing don't actually hold/stagger the enemy in place. The rapid flurry of punches with the Assault Rifle equipped could have been a whole heap of fun if the enemy suffered some sort of stagger animation while it connects. But they've left it so that the enemy can move and attack freely while you perform the punches. This leads to a few different outcomes - to which you always lose out;

a) during the punching animation, the enemy can still hit you as it likes - so you take damage, then lose all your suit energy.
b) the enemy moves out of the way after you connect a hit, you can either carry on punching thin air then lose all suit power, or you can cancel out of the move with an evade - then lose all suit power.
c) you try connecting the punches on a large target such as the Tank's or Argus core, it either veers off to the side and misses the target (followed by loss of all suit power) - or the target moves and you are forced to evade - then lose all suit power...

The melee attacks only become effective when you start using them in in-direct ways, there are some useful tactics, but it's mostly nothing to do with directly hitting things with the attacks. All the way through I was waiting for Platinum to deliver a new build where they had finished and implemented this game's "system", but it never happened. I was waiting for some sort of attack/combo chaining system, and Gauge management mechanics similar to Viewtiful Joe. It makes so much sense for powerful attacks to drain the gauge partially, then you'd have to carefully manage how much AR Gauge you have available in each situation. As it's a purely single player game, why not let the player go crazy with all these abilities the character has? In the cutscenes - the guy is AMAZING! But during play you can't actually do anything he does in those sequences. From these guys especially, I feel cheated! The AR Mode system is SO horribly underused - this should have had so many VJ aspect thrown in. You can manually trigger the mode, that's great - but why the hell did they not include gameplay elements in which the slowing of time is essential? How about for example, an enemy core which rapidly moves around? Or maybe a core shielded by a rapidly moving armour, or an enemy attack of which the blast area is visually cued up before it strikes - but the cue is too fast to read in normal time.

But there's nothing like this. Even the other function of the Boost (can pass under low clearance areas) is only used once in the entire game! Right at the start it mentions you can pass under low clearance areas with a Boost, then present you with such an area - so you are forced to use it in order to progress. After this, there isn't a single object or barrier where you can do this in the entire game.

Compared to other 3rd person shooters we see these days, yes it's a beautifully built game and the character control really hammers home why these guys are so good at what they do. If only they'd been able to go all-out and allow the player as much freedom as we saw in games like VJ and God Hand. Maybe it's all down to intentionally holding back and keeping things very single for the fear of straying too far off the box-ticking template gamers expect now.

What an amazing read, thanks man. Who'd have thought we would be at this point in games - our heroes not using their HERONESS any more. It was bad enough that most players didn't use it or didn't even notice it was there in the first place...but it shouldn't end like this...not like this...

This is what I meant about a moving Core - 5:20 in this vid. Tracking something like that is what I feel the AR Mode would have been brilliant for.

If you want to see something * E P I C * - watch from 2:42.

My own Evagelion......Do Want.

A few reviews have picked up on the AR gauge problem too, sounds like a real shame. I still had a lot of fun with the demo, I'll probably give it a go.

Have you seen 2.22 yet?

http://www.yesasia.com/global/evangelion-2-22-you-can-not-advance-blu-ray-2-disc-edition-english/1022953464-0-0-0-en/info.html

1.11 looked amazing, so I hunger for HD, but phear the cost.

Yeah I got 2.22 - it's astounding!

I couldn't wait and downloaded a norty blu-ray rip, I'll definetly buy it as soon as I get paid this month. I love this new version Evangelion so much, especially as I don't feel like punching Shinji in the face this time round (so far).

Hehe, I've always been quite sympathetic towards Shinji, I hold Gendo responsible for his lack of confidence

No.

I refuse to give any lenience to Shinji, he's currently in my good books after 2.22 (but still on shaky ground). If I was given an Evangelion to pilot (especially such a mint looking one which roars and has teeth), the whole world would crumble in awe of my Buzz chains. This is why I love the new female pilot, send her out into battle and she lets rip with shit even the operators at Nerv have never even dreamed of. In this one Shinji actually pulls off some amazing stuff though, I give him that - the ending of 2.22 is just incredible.

Speaking of Buzz - a remix of the Psyvariar soundtrack was released.....I can't believe I wasn't notified

The new Eva movies are indeed amazing, I just love how Anno set up his own studio to make them. The new designs are lovely too and Bandai have been going mental with awesome toy releases:

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN958487
http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN949498
http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN955745

I still love the original Eva-01 from the TV show and I have the re-made Tamashii Spec toy at work. The detachable armor is seriously brilliant:

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN941839

I totally hear you on Vanquish's woes but compared to most of the crappy FPS/TPS games out there, it does shit on them from a pretty dizzy height (both functionally and graphically). It's just a shame that the game's core systems plateau so badly.

That one with the detachable armour is SICK!!!

Yeah, it's pretty lush. I have one of the original SOC Eva-01's too and the Spec version is just so much better (bigger too):

http://robogeki.sakura.ne.jp/1990/xs01.html

Properly shocked at how forgiving people are of this game.

It's purely down to the fact that this game is a generic 3rd person ego massage. It does NOTHING even remotely new or clever, yet I read so much about people justifying it. There's absolutely fuck-all underneath the surface of this game, yet people are so forgiving. I read people blaming themselves that they haven't found this game's "hook" and there has to be more to the system and scoring - there isn't! Then on the other hand you have God Hand and Bayonetta which are so INSANELY deep you'll never master every aspect, yet the vast majority of people won't give either game a chance.

It's so depressing that Platinum can churn out this vacuous shit and get more recognition for it than gems like Viewtiful Joe and Bayonetta.

Only one little shred of awsum made it into Vanquish;

I'm about half way through and trying not to fall into a pattern of 'Jumpwall-SLOW-headshot', but it seems like the most effective path to take so...

There are some class boss death animations to be fair, but they don't really justify me shooting some legs and then shooting the core. Its that press a button and destroy the universe thing that we all hate about God of War, only this time it takes a while for the button to reduce some health bars. Bit boring innit.

That said I love the blue flying sword enemies and the Unknown, just wish I had a different character to fight them with!

Because there's no "System" to the scoring, all you have is the Clear Time Bonus and the destructible parts of certain enemies as your means to score higher. I think playing for fastest time records is the way to go. There are so many simple things they could have done to spice up the scoring a bit - even something as basic as a "kills-at-once" bonus would have made it a lot more competitive.

There's always - Somersault-SLOW-Headshot. Just as long as the Somersault doesn't actually hit any enemies you're fine.

I had to reload this section as when I first saw it, I thought it was a trap, so I bulletimed a grenade and skidded into them shooting with a disc launcher.

Finished the game last night, and...it's alright I suppose.

The final stage was pretty anti climatic compared to everything that came before it, the final boss was really disappointing once you've fought a transforming robot the size of a block of flats.

It feels unfinished if I am honest, as soon as it starts getting awesome it dips and then never reaches the heights of the earlier levels.

I don't really feel the need to replay it for score or time attack purposes. I just don't feel there is a specific hook to get me do that. I've got enough fun from just shooting, bullet timing, dodging and skidding about the place.

There is the Challenge Modes but I've not ventured into that apart from breifly, maybe that will give the game a bit more mileage...if any. I was expecting something on the level of Resident Evil Mercs where you have rewards for taking risks and a series of additional bonuses making your way through a level. Learning paths, routes and scams to get as many points as possible. From what I saw, it was wave after wave and point A-B. Bah.

Unlocked God Hard mode, I'll give that a blast tomorrow.

If they replace the red bots with the blue bots...I can see it causing me a lot of trouble.

Saur: I think the Sniper rifle allows you two kicks and the disc launcher lets you abuse the shit out of the melee. Takes out Romonovs, Unknowns and Crystal Vipers like they were nothing. Slide > Melee > Shock Grenade > Melee.

But it didn't make sense having it max your heat meter.

Hmm played the demo once. It looks absolutely lush, but then I've never been a graphics whore. It's slightly odd isn't it, because you have a lot of the core ingredients here for something quite interesting. Evade; Boost; and the ARS, but they've done absolutely nothing with them as far as I can tell. I wanted to bullet time melee incoming rockets for instance or shock, boost, melee, boost etc. etc. Something to mix it up. Basically they should just drop Bayonetta into the game and that would be that. Having said that it is more interesting than Gears of War for instance.

Problem is the bar has been set so high by Platinum that when they don't deliver (Infinite Space I'm looking at you) you feel doubly cheated.

I covered this a lot in the guide, the Shotgun melee attack is the only one which negates melee damage, and the Disk Launcher the only one which you can use repeatedly. Never get got the Sniper Rifle one to score more than 1 hit, wonder if that's something they changed in the retail version (hope not!) - I justified the Sniper one by it's range is useful for bypassing enemy low cover positions.

In the game it says the Shotgun Melee makes you invincible to enemy fire, and that you can land Somersaults repeatedly. I spent ages trying to work out how those 2 statements are true, it's a major oversight to include 2 "tips" which don't work.

I found The final boss being just 2 of a boss you've already fought was a real let down, it wasn't a decent fight the 1st time round anyway. In God Hard you are going to HATE the way you are forced into emergency AR Mode!

Is there a way to turn off the SFX warning when the suit is powered down or switch it to something heroic (I like being in this mode so I can get my melee on).

You need Guile's theme.

Guile's theme goes with EVERYTHING.

Fucking funny man! God I love The Matrix.

Gotta love Carlton too - .....why is Guile's theme so perfect?

Saur,

I am surprised you dont like the game so much...what was it like to do the guide for a game you are not so passionate about?

BTW, good job doing those guides...anything we can look forward to next?

Matt

I try to be professional and write as complete a breakdown as I possibly can. With Vanquish, I didn't enjoy the game but I was still able to offer a very complete breakdown of the game mechanics and enemies. The other members of the team all specialise in different aspects, like one guy specifically played and wrote in the style of "speedrunning" the game and another wrote in a "completionist" fashion to cover the main campaign. My job is to pick apart how the thing is built, I can do this regardless of the game I'm working on.

Working with guides is wildly different to writing a review, I always make absolutely sure that I don't express any kind of opinion. So in the case of Vanquish, every time I came across something I didn't get on with I would stop and make sure I found a specific practical example of where and how the element works. You can't make excuses, in so many cases a reviewer will slate a game he hasn't bothered to learn. But with a guide you can't do that, even if a certain move is seemingly not in the player's favour - you still MUST find a useful practical example of how to make it work.

There's no way I'd ever tackle anything to do with these guides half-heartedly (I really went into one with the enemies in Vanquish, especially the Romanov series), the team who produce these books work so damn hard at it that I'm constantly paranoid about letting them down.

Bayonetta was the one I enjoyed working on most, having the game a year before it came out was a dirty little secret I had great fun keeping! With Bayonetta, the game was so insanely deep that I couldn't keep my chapters within the imposed word count - I don't think any of the writers could. So the guide ended up being huge, regardless of the extra cost involved - the boss wanted everything kept, so it all stayed. The hardest part was covering her weapons, I originally planned to writeup each and every possible equipment combination and the differences each made - but there wasn't room. So instead I isolated each weapon and left the mixing up part to the player, it would have taken up half the book otherwise. Then it turned out that all the info we were given from Sega regarding player/enemy damage was wrong, so right the way up to when it was due to print we were still sending it back and forth to Platinum for correction. The guys at Platinum balanced the game purely through playing it and didn't fully document all the changes made. But one of the guys there was brilliant and checked each and every possible attack/damage value for us, I got to argue about damage aspects with one of the staff who made the thing! For the rest of the obsessive/clever shit one of our guys captured the 360 version of the game at 60fps and worked out all the frame data for just about everything you could think of. Due to his work I could write things like "Bayonetta will charge for 227 frames..." and know that it's absolutely accurate.

Not sure what's coming up next, I'm not too sure I'll be writing any more. I was offered a position on the team for a new game but declined. They always manage to find a way to rope me in though, so you never know - I started working for them only after months of emailing back saying "NO!"

Had a pop at God Hard and managed to make it to the top of the stairs at the start of the second check point. Then was forced back down them by a rather over enthusiastic Romanov. Do they focus in on you once you are within their radius or if you shoot at them, or both? The only way I could keep it at any sort of survivable distance was to do a melee kick then try and shotgun it until my power came back on. The meth seems to be - throw everything you have at it and then hope you have some left for the rest of the enemies if you manage to survive!

I'm determined to make it to the first boss at least though!XD

Oh hey look what I found

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vanquish-Official-Guide-Future-Press/dp/3869930144/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288627646&sr=1-1

LOL!!1

Ungh. Would it be wrong of me to buy a guide for a game I don't have?

Loved the MadWorld and Bayo guides so much.

Not at all...I own the Madworld Guide but due to having a Japanese Wii have never played the game!XD

isn't it out now in Japan?

Pretty sure Madworld has the English voice track too, our debug version (USA region) had all languages. May as well pick up the Japanese version if so, the script is so damn funny;

XD

OH SssssNAP!!1

I'll pop it on my Xmas list then

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-z3-49-en-70-3nq4.html