vanquish?

[ZOM]

Here's a little tidbit on the matter: http://www.segabits.com/?p=4914

[CMoon]

Short game = intense arcade style experience. I'm in!

That said, perhaps higher difficulties might be really important--not just to play for high score but to play for survival.

[MachineAres 1CC]

Just like some other people said, there's a ton of Americans around the internet already (reviewers and gamers) throwing a bunch of shit at the game just after hearing that the campaign is short. I guess the world around us expects RPG-length gameplay out of every game that hits the market and a shitty online mode where they can shoot their friends and yell at each other. I know this is going to utterly flop in the US because most Americans just to understand this type of game where the gameplay is the real star of the game and the game is meant to be played over and over to hone your skills (much like shmups,) not some over-done realistic graphics and shit-talking online play like every other shitty game that hits the market now. I'll definitely have this in my disc tray come Tuesday, but I know this is going to flop just like Bayonetta and be in the bargain bins by about February of next year. Get ready for the onslaught of shitty reviews and people saying they're not going to play it because the campaign is short.

[Obiwanshinobi]

In "world around us" people who buy even just one game per month usually have a hefty backlog of unfinished ones. I'd be surprised if majority of people put at least 4 hours into every game they buy.

[Zaarock]

Short game = intense arcade style experience. I'm in!

That said, perhaps higher difficulties might be really important--not just to play for high score but to play for survival.

Agreed, I hope the same applies for Challenge mode (weird no-one mentioned this yet).. hopefully it gets hard and remains fun to time attack. The stealable walker mechs seem to make parts pretty easy and weird to control, I hope they dont put many vehicles like that in. If they have like 20 challenge levels or something along with the campaign I wouldnt have any problems with the "length" myself.

By the way, on the platinum games blog the guy who made the AI for the basic enemy troops was saying that the AI "limiter" is turned off for the hardest difficulty, making the enemies smarter and faster. That along with different enemy layouts for harder difficulties would give the campaign a lot of replayability just for survival.

[MachineAres 1CC]

In "world around us" people who buy even just one game per month usually have a hefty backlog of unfinished ones. I'd be surprised if majority of people put at least 4 hours into every game they buy.

This is a sad truth, yet they still complain about things being short. Like everyone else is saying, this is extremely comparable to shmups, with the arcade-like experience being at the core. Western reviewers just have this only-going-to-complete-the-game-once-unless-it-has-online-play mentality and completely demolish games based upon this idea. So they think if it doesn't have online, they're going to judge the value of the game by how much time it takes you to complete the main campaign/story mode once, which is completely asanine. Unless its something that is over-hyped through the roof for a year before it comes out i.e. any Nintendo franchise, God of War, etc., then not having an online mode is completely excusable.

[Cthulhu]

I just wish more reviews would pop up. It's only two days away. What's the hold up?

Many games now seem to have review embargoes that prevent anywhere from officially listing scores until release day. If they don't agree then they don't get review copies. Sound cruddy (it really kind of is), but it's pretty commonplace anymore.

[subcons]

IGN's review is up.

Pretty positive. If you played Bayonetta, you should know what to expect. Short in length, tight on game play. But there is the scoring/survival aspect as well as Challenge Mode.

I've been reading impressions from people that claim to have played through it early and they say that dying causes you to be penalized as far as weapon upgrading goes. Not sure if that's true, but that's certainly an incentive not to die.

[CMoon]

I've been thinking about the rumored 4 hour length of the game, and thinking about how much I miss having a game I can beat in a single setting. Even God Hand couldn't be beaten in one setting. I actually rather hope that you can beat this in less than 4 hours because I'd love to see a modern game we can talk about 1cc'ing. I'd love to actually have a modern game I want to play from start to finish over and over. The DC was the last console that had short arcade style titles. Everyone is taking this the wrong way! It was the push toward longer action games that ruined the genre!

[chempop]

CMoon wrote

Shorter is better

I totally agree! Single sitting play-throughs are what I miss so much in modern games. Compare Panzer 1+2 with Orta; first two games were adrenaline packed, Orta (which I still do like very much) has bosses that loop patterns and become somewhat a snooze fest. I was also upset to hear that S+P2 was over twice as long as the original (which I thought was he perfect length for a rail shooter).
If Child of Eden takes three hours to beat I'm going to be pissed.

[sjewkestheloon]

On the issue of length I would honestly rather this was a bit longer, but a short replayable campaign is ok by me. It may even endear me to it as an antidote to the usual RPGs that I play.

I won't be paying £40 for it. Maybe £30.

It pleases me to hear that the higher difficulties have different enemy spawns as this was one of the best things about Bayonetta.

[evil_ash_xero]

I don't know if you guys have been paying attention, but the reviews have been coming in.

IGN 8.5
Game Spot 9.0
EuroGamer 9.0
JoyStiq 4.5 out of 5
1UP B+


There's a few others out, some are around 8, the lowest being 7. Overall, this is pretty well received. So far, it looks like it'll rank a little below Bayonetta.

I got it today....it's nuts!

[MachineAres 1CC]

I don't know if you guys have been paying attention, but the reviews have been coming in.

IGN 8.5
Game Spot 9.0
EuroGamer 9.0
JoyStiq 4.5 out of 5
1UP B+


There's a few others out, some are around 8, the lowest being 7. Overall, this is pretty well received. So far, it looks like it'll rank a little below Bayonetta.

I got it today....it's nuts!

Yeah, even though Bayonetta got mostly rave reviews, it still failed, sales-wise. It was was released in January 09 and I saw it in bargain bins for $29.99 by June 09. I'm curious to see how this goes. It seems Fallout is stealing some of what may have been Vanquish's thunder anyhow, as its reviews are largely in the 9 range, though there aren't any "major" reviews out yet. But in any case with Americans, franchise>original IP.

[Elixir]

It was was released in January 09 and I saw it in bargain bins for $29.99 by June 09.

Bayonetta was released January of this year, or almost a year ago in Japan.

[evil_ash_xero]

I don't know if you guys have been paying attention, but the reviews have been coming in.

IGN 8.5
Game Spot 9.0
EuroGamer 9.0
JoyStiq 4.5 out of 5
1UP B+


There's a few others out, some are around 8, the lowest being 7. Overall, this is pretty well received. So far, it looks like it'll rank a little below Bayonetta.

I got it today....it's nuts!

Yeah, even though Bayonetta got mostly rave reviews, it still failed, sales-wise. It was was released in January 09 and I saw it in bargain bins for $29.99 by June 09. I'm curious to see how this goes. It seems Fallout is stealing some of what may have been Vanquish's thunder anyhow, as its reviews are largely in the 9 range, though there aren't any "major" reviews out yet. But in any case with Americans, franchise>original IP.

I thought IGN and Game Spot were probably the two biggest game sites on the web. Game Trailers just gave it a 9. I don't really know what other "major" review could be coming out..unless you mean G4, and they're kinda clueless.

Yeah, the sales probably won't be too high. It's pretty short, and features no multi-player, and many extras whatsoever. A big no-no for today's gamer.

But it does kick ass.

[chempop]

Spent a few hours with Vanquish tonight, mostly watching my friends play and a few turns myself - really sweet game! Quite a bit of diversity in the enemy design in act-1 (which took us about 2 hours to progress through), handful of crazy guns to help take down the hulking robots; so glad that there are tons of bosses!

Reminds me of things I like about Gungrave, Zoe, Gunvalkyrie, PN03, Otogi, etc, I haven't played through Bayonetta yet but there is a bit of that in here too. Only thing that bothered me a bit was the whole squad that stays with you, I hope later on they are eliminated because it'll give a better atmosphere without all the Mercs swarming about. The music/sound is perfect, it really feels like you are controlling a cybernetic dude with the flange and audio effects screeching as your suit diminishes power.

Overall it easily met my high hopes, Platinum Games is on a streak, lets hope it sells well enough to fund their next original game.

Vanquish worked on my JPN region 360

[LtC]

I'm quite interested in this game. The demos were very good but I'm a little worried about the replayability of the game.

Looking forward to hearing people's opinions about if the game really leaves you wanting to play over and over to perfect your scoring and trying out different difficulties before I'll buy the game.

[MachineAres 1CC]

It was was released in January 09 and I saw it in bargain bins for $29.99 by June 09.

Bayonetta was released January of this year, or almost a year ago in Japan.

That's what I meant. It felt weird when I was typing it, but I didn't really pay attention to the US release cause I had pre-ordered a Japanese copy which was released in mid-October '09.

Also, I was playing my copy for a few minutes tonight before I had to sleep and it just drove further home how bad the English voices are, almost purposefully so. But unfortunately, the Japanese track doesn't really sound right either since the characters are so blatantly American/European.

And as far as there not being "major" reviews, I was referring to Fallout, since at the time of my original post, there was no Gamespot, IGN, 1-up, or any other major review up yet.

[evil_ash_xero]

There is one part that is so on purpose goofy, that I laughed out loud. Sam falls off of something and falls a LONG way down. He grabs onto something with one hand and is hanging there for dear life. Well, then he decides to break out a cig and start smoking. It was funny as hell.
The credits were also very funny, and much better than that dumb dancing angel bit at the end of Bayonetta.

I beat the game around 4:52, and thought it was really awesome. Definitely too short though. I would have liked another couple hours on it.
To make a comparison, it's not quite as good as Bayonetta, but that's due to the short length, and lack of unlockables. More the short length than anything though.

But I know i'll be playing it a number of times, probably because of the shorter length.

I hope for a sequel.

[Ed Oscuro]

What is there in the way of promoting replayability? Scoring systems?

[subcons]

What is there in the way of promoting replayability? Scoring systems?

Pretty much. There's scoring and Challenge Mode. There is indeed an achievement for beating the game without dieing, though, it says it can be on any difficulty. I'm curious to see what the leaderboards end up looking like.

Other than that stuff, there is no replayability unless you just enjoy extremely tight, pure gameplay. I'd think this would be right up everyone's alley here, seeing as how we're all huge fans of a genre that basically consists of hour long games, if that.

[Acid King]

Other than that stuff, there is no replayability unless you just enjoy extremely tight, pure gameplay. I'd think this would be right up everyone's alley here, seeing as how we're all huge fans of a genre that basically consists of hour long games, if that.

Sounds perfect. It'll be a bit before I pick this up, but I've already set money aside so I can buy it as a gift to myself when I finish my thesis. I'll finally have something to play other than Ninja Gaiden 2.

[sjewkestheloon]

Yeah, even though Bayonetta got mostly rave reviews, it still failed, sales-wise. It was was released in January 09 and I saw it in bargain bins for $29.99 by June 09. I'm curious to see how this goes. It seems Fallout is stealing some of what may have been Vanquish's thunder anyhow, as its reviews are largely in the 9 range, though there aren't any "major" reviews out yet. But in any case with Americans, franchise>original IP.

Didn't Bayonetta sell well in excess of 1 million copies, and the developers stated several times that the sales exceeded their expectations?

[Acid King]

Didn't Bayonetta sell well in excess of 1 million copies, and the developers stated several times that the sales exceeded their expectations?

As of February, it had sold more than a million worldwide.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/106/1066973p1.html

[mirkvid]

Picked this up tonight. Game play is really fun and fast. Really stylish looking as well. I played past the first boss, and if you die during the boss you have to start over at his first form. At first it kind of annoyed me, but after you learn how to take down each form, it goes by quickly and you can really work on improving your time, which I think adds a lot of replay.


Didn't have time to play for too long, but so far I really like it. (super cheesy cut scenes included.) The hero looks like a stoner solid snake!

[MachineAres 1CC]

worldwide.

[Skykid]

Got a PS3 version of this in the letterbox today. Genuinely glad to hear it's 4 hours, I might actually be bothered to finish it.

[Acid King]

worldwide.

It's not Halo numbers, but that's still pretty good.

[CMoon]

Finally put some substantial time (a couple hours) into vanquish tonight. Most of my time is going into Etrian Odyssey 3 which is more my pace. One thing you have to give this game credit for is the sense of immediacy and immersion. The game mechanics are solid even if it's not going to be another God Hand. Level design so far seems to be consistantly intersting and there's always that drive to see the next level. I know this is going to be short and sweet, but hell! I think I'd have a heart attack if there were much more of this.

I feel like what this game (at least at the moment) is really lacking is a level select, but maybe one will open up later? The game is clearly set around memorizing levels, but without a level select, it might be too big for that. Well maybe it will turn into 'how far can I get without dying.'

[ratlhead]

There is a chapter select (probably you saw that) but that doesn't work for individual levels i think. I 'm also looking for a level select in these type games that has level collectibles. Anyway, i've completed the game on hard difficulty, clocked nearly 7 hours. Very very good game but not on the awesomeness level of God Hand. Some minor complaints;

-A more complex score system would be better. (Meelee bonus and a simple chains system etc.)
-I'm not too sure for this but when you die if you return to title screen you won't penaltizied for dying and also you can start from latest checkpoint. This makes the game more safe and kills the meaning of scoring a bit.
-Some unlockables (especially a Burns mode! ) wouldn't be bad.