
	Platform Xbox 360 Genre Action Publisher Sega Developer Platinum Games ESRB T (Teen) Released October 19, 2010

- A quick action fix - Ridiculous - Tactical Challenges are really hard

- Half-way through the game and I had no idea what was going on with the plot

Review: Gears of War 2 (360) Review: Army of Two: The 40th Day (360) Review: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (360)
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Vanquish

Score: 8.5 / 10

Most of Vanquish is completely ridiculous. It's the good kind of the ridiculous though and really I only need to point to one feature that sums it all up. While in cover, hitting the left bumper, Sam Gideon, the dude in the exoskeleton armor, will snap out a cigarette, take a puff then throw it.

I don't even need to touch other aspects of the game, like how the story makes so little sense that I was more than half-way through before I had a sense of what

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part Sam was playing in the story; or how many of the shots of Sam's female ops agent are up her skirt; or the fact Sam spends a good amount of time rocket-sliding from place to place just because it's more dangerous than simply walking or running.

It feels like the developers revel in that ridiculousness.

Fortunately, they didn't

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ignore the gameplay in favor of Crazy.

Platinum Studios has successfully created a game that I can play for 30 minutes and feel like I made some progress, blew up some giant robots, shot things in slow-motion, etc. Basically, I can get a gaming fix pretty quickly and aside from one slower "stealth" section, it's all rolling, rocket-sliding, and robot killing.

The Tactical Challenges unlocked by moving through the story are a perfect fit for this kind of 30-minute play session. Operating in a closed arena setting, wave after wave of enemies of varying sizes continually materialize. They can be extremely challenging but what I liked most about these areas is that the story and periods of "downtime" are completely removed, which allow for an exercise in pure skill in applying tactics, utilizing specific weapons to suit the opposition, and making full use of rocket-sliding. Then I can put down the controller feeling satisfied.

Vanquish is a complete action package and like any other spectacle on this scale -- movies, books, TV shows -- it's crazy fun, even if it doesn't stay with you beyond turning off your 360.

- Aaron Simmer

(November 10, 2010)