I've recently gotten my hands on a copy of Assassins Creed Brotherhood, which, like every other AC game, has monopolized my time when it comes to gaming. Because of this, games such as Rock Band 3, Batman Arkham Asylum, GOTY Edition, NHL 11, Castlevania Lord of Shadows, and Vanquish sit on my shelf, gathering dust. This happens a lot actually. I'll get into a game and others will tend to vanish from my conscience until I stumble upon them in a random gaming urge.
Anyway, tonight one of those urges hit me. I was in search of a 15pt achievement, which would have given me exactly 55555 Gamerscore. Nothing special, just something neat. AC Brotherhood doesn't have a 15 pointer, but Vanquish was littered with them. So, for the first time in a week I pull AC:B out of the system and load up Vanquish. I forgot the reason why I stopped playing last time, as a GIGANTIC Boss Robot had fried my brains with some sort of "Cut the World in Half" laser/flamethrower.
BTW: It was an awesome death. :)
Anyway, I go about trying to figure our how to kill the darned thing. It wasn't horribly difficult to figure out. All "glowy" things die, then the robot dies. Go team! Basic stuff, really. So I start filling this thing with as much hot lead as my little guns can muster (please hold comments here :P) and before I knew it, I got a 20pt achievement for tearing the robo beastie a new one. OOPS! There goes my 55555. So I continue on, only to realize that this is easily the most fun I'd had in a game in I don't know how long! An hour had passed before I truly realized what was going on! Go team, AGAIN! :D
Vanquish is one of the few, one of the proud, immersive gaming experiences that while not "unique" (see my last post with info on Vanquish) it most certainly fills the bill of what a game should be: DAMN FUN. There's nothing like screaming around with your jet boosts, back flipping out and crushing a Geth ((AHEM)) robot skull, flipping into AP SLOWMODE and headshotting 3 other robots and slowing down some behind a barrier to light up a cigarette and throw it at the enfeebled or dead carcasses left in your wake. All that and you still can shoot, as it seems that "No Smoking" is something that is still happening in this future and is programmed into all robots good and bad. The robots go after the cigarette like a moth to the flame, forgetting you ever existed! So, you then get to kill these fellows too. Ahhhh, the fun.
The game is fast, furious, and easy to play, with a lot going on on screen and enough control to make sure you know it's you doing it. Amazingly done, Sega. This game gets the nod for at LEAST surprise game of the year, and quite possibly Game of the Year from lil ol' me.
Now lets not take away from Assassin's Creed Brotherhood! It's a load of fun, but it's been done before. A well realized world, very beautiful environments and character movements and models that all game should really wish to become. The sad part of this is: this is essentially identical to what I thought about AC 2. This is a part of this year's fad of taking a game engine and design that worked, do minor tweaks, and make a whole new game of it. See: Fallout New Vegas (Bleh), Star Wars: Force Unleashed II, NHL11, Rock Band 3, and Dead Rising 2. All these wonderful and fine games were great, when they were first released 2 to 4 years ago. While some work really well, like NHL 11 and Dead Rising 2, others like Fallout New Vegas were really tough to get though because they didn't fix all the bugs from the old game, and seemingly added more. :S Back to AC:B though, check it out on at least a rental. It's nothing new, but vavava voom! Damn does it look great.
My dryer is almost done and I gotta grab some sleep. But I'll be back soon with some more wondrous chat about my stinker team the Islanders, and more on the great games I'm playing now. Until then...
... g'nite folks!
C
I'm sure Vanquish is a great game and I've heard a lot of amazing things about it. It might even garner some Game of the Year nods in slow years but you're talking about a year that saw the release of Red Dead Redemption (my pick for this year), Mass Effect 2 (most people's pick for GOTY), Civ 5, Starcraft 2, Halo: Reach (not my personal pick but up there for many), God of War 3, Heavy Rain (a very unique and critically acclaimed game), etc. This is a tough year to pick game of the year. While it may be awesome, I have a hard time believing that Vanquish can compete with half of the titles on the list above
ReplyDeleteDon't kick it til you try it really. It really is "that much fun". However, I'm more trying to get people to try it more so than to give it a serious nod as game of the year. It definitely goes in as a "Surprise Hit of the Year" title.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not knocking the game and if there were an award for "Sleeper" Hit of the Year, Vanquish would be a top nominee for sure. I've heard that comment on many occasions from a few different sources. It's certainly on my list to play eventually. I think that for me, it will end up being a game like Dead Space, a game that I go back to play shortly before the sequel comes out. Just starting my third Dead Space playthrough now (on Impossible difficulty) by the way...awesome game...pick it up if you haven't already.
ReplyDeleteHad Dead Space a couple of times actually, keep trading it because it's value spikes every so often (it's a strange one for a game trader)... I'll get it again soon. It's a lot of fun.
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