Vanquish

 Xbox 360
User Score
9.6

Universal acclaim- based on 1828 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,727 out of 1828
  2. Mixed: 53 out of 1828
  3. Negative: 48 out of 1828
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  1. Gunner_Rya
    Mar 10, 2011
    6
    Vanquish is a Japanese game. Naturally, it is high in adrenaline and wants to fire as many missiles at you at the same time as possible.
    Also, as with many Japanese games, it is very silly (insert rocket boots joke here). Good dude bad dude storyline, mixed up with a twist which is more of a slow turn at the end.
    The basic premise is that a Russian bad guy (who seems to like the colours    Vanquish is a Japanese game. Naturally, it is high in adrenaline and wants to fire as many missiles at you at the same time as possible.
    Also, as with many Japanese games, it is very silly (insert rocket boots joke here). Good dude bad dude storyline, mixed up with a twist which is more of a slow turn at the end.
    The basic premise is that a Russian bad guy (who seems to like the colours black and red a lot) decides to fire a microwave at San Francisco. Then you end up on a space ship with robots surrounding you trying to rip your face off. Did I miss something?

    The robots are great enemies, popping heads off is still somehow satisfying after just about every game with robots allows you to pop their heads off and there is some variation with walkers seen in Star Wars Battlefront 2, the silver surfer and Megatron from classic Transformers all taking part. Despite this, I feel as if they underplayed the variation, from the first mission I thought I'd face off hordes of unique robots, but I ended up with an occasional megatron and 95% of the enemies being the same standard model which got very boring fighting 3/4 of the way in.

    The game is excessively short, being at best 5 hours of campaign (an additional three thousand hours for cut-scenes) with no additional game modes - not even multiplayer. Its not even as if the campaign is highly replayable - it really isn't which surprised me.

    Vanquish is not a bad game, it has lots going right for it, but the short campaign and monotony really don't do much good for the 50 dollar price tag it had on release. Despite these shortcomings, I'm awaiting a Vanquish 2, where hopefully there will be some variation to break up the combat, a longer, less cinematic based campaign and hopefully a few new features such as maybe a hoard one to go up against the game's major competitor, the ever present and huge 'Gears of War' franchise.    … Expand
  2. john_rostron
    Nov 7, 2010
    7
    Better fun, gameplay and guns than Gears Of War, but way too short and no multiplayer holds this back from getting a top score. Worth waiting and buying when it comes down in price - pay about two-thirds of retail because this is two-thirds of a game. Big shame it didn't go the full distance because it could have been a real belter.
  3. XRAIN
    Nov 9, 2010
    6
    Could have got much better score from me, probably even a GOTY award from me if it wouldn't have some problems. Never saw annoying lags and bugs, great looking graphics, controls are good if not counting, that you can do evade move only in four dircetions. What problems in this game? Well, first of all, I completed this game on hard in 4 hours, giving you '' What? Did I already completedCould have got much better score from me, probably even a GOTY award from me if it wouldn't have some problems. Never saw annoying lags and bugs, great looking graphics, controls are good if not counting, that you can do evade move only in four dircetions. What problems in this game? Well, first of all, I completed this game on hard in 4 hours, giving you '' What? Did I already completed this game? '' feeling. Even though completing this game gives you a God Hard difficulty option, it doesn't save you from the feeling. For second problem, the end section of the game. At the final sections of the game, you will face boss battles, repeatedly. Worst of all, boss enemies which you had faced before, you will need to fight againts them, again, again and again. It just gets annoying when almost every fight is againts bosses. Buy this only when it gets cheaper, other wise I recommend this game.… Expand
  4. SuperkenGaming
    May 27, 2017
    7
    Vanquish
    don’t believe the hype
    Vanquish is a 7 hour long 3rd person shooter where you play as agent Sam with a sick augmented reaction suit. Russia destroys San Francisco with a solar beam and demands the United States surrenders before they do the same to New York and you set out to stop this. Before you do play this game, I need to bring you back down to reality, because this is not    Vanquish
    don’t believe the hype
    Vanquish is a 7 hour long 3rd person shooter where you play as agent Sam with a sick augmented reaction suit.
    Russia destroys San Francisco with a solar beam and demands the United States surrenders before they do the same to New York and you set out to stop this.
    Before you do play this game, I need to bring you back down to reality, because this is not some hidden gem classic that everyone on the internet makes it out to be…
    Don’t get me wrong… Vanquish is a really fun game...
    The shooting feels great, you can slide around on the ground for slow motion shots or just move around maps faster…
    And when you take too much damage the game will go into slow motion allowing you to find cover or have a better shot at taking out the enemy before you die
    Which makes for some pretty epic feeling gun play…
    And the best part of this game is the guns and their upgrades…
    There’s a huge variety of weapons here to find what you like best...
    You can carry up to 3 weapons at a time plus grenades, and enemies will randomly drop upgrades that you can assigned to your favorite weapon to increase its stats instantly..
    The game doesn’t slow you down my making you go into some skill tree, no... You pick up an upgrade with your equipped gun and you’ve got an upgraded gun right then and there...
    And even better if you pick a duplicate while your ammo on a certain gun is still full... you also instantly get an upgrade for that weapon…
    This system had my actively switching guns and holding out on more rare weapons just incase I could upgrade it on the fly…
    upgrading all of the guns in the game while still making sure you have the ammo to get the job done is a meta game itself…
    But the greatness ends there..
    Because the rest of the game is bland and repetitive…
    The story is hard to follow,
    the characters are uninteresting
    There are no epic moments here...
    There are annoying one hit instakill bosses that will have you replaying the same fight over and over…
    every level looks and feels pretty identical...
    a lot of grey…
    no colors here which bores me…
    just a bunch of repeat killing the same enemies bosses and mini bosses over and over until the credits roll…
    I had a bit of fun with vanquish...
    But the expectations of the internet sorta ruined this experience for me
    I don’t know what everyone sees in this game...
    It’s a good game… but not beyond just good
    I give Vanquish a 7/10    … Expand
  5. Nathanimations
    Sep 4, 2022
    5
    Userscore too high. They were at the top of Best user rated games of all time.
  6. ERRORCODE-20
    Jun 6, 2020
    7
    This game is fast paced and incredibly fun. But the art direction is so bland and lifeless. It never changes from the boring grey color palette. The main character and cast is extremely generic. None of the bosses were very memorable either. Except the last. The gunplay and movement are enough to make this a good way to spend 5-7 hours though. I highly recommend.
  7. gamerz4life
    Sep 24, 2020
    6
    Wow what can be said about this game. If you’re looking for something with a story then this is not the game for you. The game just throws you into it with no backstory and no indication of what’s going on or why with this supposed ‘war’ you’re fighting. All I know is that you’re on some sort of space station. And for some reason the enemy uses all robots while your side uses all humans.Wow what can be said about this game. If you’re looking for something with a story then this is not the game for you. The game just throws you into it with no backstory and no indication of what’s going on or why with this supposed ‘war’ you’re fighting. All I know is that you’re on some sort of space station. And for some reason the enemy uses all robots while your side uses all humans.

    It is all about the flashy gameplay. And the gameplay is a run and gun, third-person shooter. Or put more accurately a run and slide because once you learn how to slide in your fancy suit there’s no going back. But make sure not to overheat!! Also, your suit can slow down time for more accurate shots. Now let’s talk about the boss fights, they typically had about 2-3 stages you had to get through. Oh you successfully got through the first stage and halfway through the second before some bs boss supermove takes you out cuz it’s almost impossible to dodge? Well you better get ready to play that whole fight over from the beginning, because there are no fight checkpoints between stages. The game is near impossible to play on anything but easy because of these awful boss fights, I tried getting through the very first boss fight several times before saying screw it, I’ll put it down to easy, but oh wait you have to start the whole game over again and it can only handle one save file.

    The final ‘story’ moments has some of the biggest what the heck just happened moments, one moment everything is good and chummy and the next it’s all gone to hell and there’s no real reason why. That accurately describes the whole story. Not to mention the annoying woman who’s always talking in your ear, she’s not really involved in the war and says she can hack anything but at all the important moments she just ‘can’t get into the system’!

    Overall, avoid this game. If you must try it then rent it or borrow it from a friend because you won’t want to pick it up ever again, there is no replay value. I felt like I had played this game for a total of around 14 hours, then I checked the stats, turned out it had been about 5 hours. Phew! Oh by the way, the best gameplay rolls during the credits.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

34
#34 Best Xbox 360 Game of 2010
28
#28 Most Discussed Xbox 360 Game of 2010
39
#39 Most Shared Xbox 360 Game of 2010

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 70 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 62 out of 70
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 70
  3. Negative: 0 out of 70
  1. Absolute Games
    Jan 31, 2011
    50
    If you're still itching to waste a few hours on Vanquish, here's some advice: wait until the inevitable price reduction.
    Read full review
  2. Xbox World Australia
    Jan 19, 2011
    80
    If you like fast paced arcade shooters be it with patchy Japanese sci-fi story with utterly forgettable characters and dialog, Vanquish is your bag.
    Read full review
  3. Cynamite
    Jan 16, 2011
    85
    As soon as you get behind the tricky controls, the killing of the robot-armies is fun. Sadly, the campaign of the action-blockbuster is very short.
    Read full review
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