Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Vanquish makes cover feel like a launchpad rather than a hiding place. In the opening battles, you can play it like a familiar third-person shooter for a few minutes, popping up to fire and ducking back down. Then the ARS suit starts to click: boost-slide across the battlefield, reach a safer angle, unload into a robot’s weak point, and move again before the enemy line settles on you. That restless rhythm is the reason to play.

Sam’s suit gives you two kinds of pressure at once. Taking too much damage triggers a slowed-down AR state, buying a precious moment to line up shots or escape toward cover; you can also activate it yourself for precision. But both slow motion and sliding draw from suit power, so reckless use leaves you waiting for the system to recover. It is a smart constraint. You are powerful, but not allowed to coast, and the best encounters come from learning when to spend that power for a decisive reposition rather than treating every slide as an escape button.

The weapon selection keeps firefights from settling into one routine. Assault rifles, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, lock-on lasers, disk launchers, and the LFE gun give you plenty of options, while grenades and hijackable stationary turrets add useful bursts of force. You can carry four weapons, and holding onto one long enough to upgrade its damage or ammunition capacity gives scavenging a real tactical edge. Ammo pods make switching possible, but constantly discarding weapons means giving up that growth.

Robots and mechanized enemies are a good fit for the game’s fast target work. Larger bosses expose highlighted weak points, and even standard foes can go down faster if you find the vulnerable spot, often on their back. Your AI-controlled military allies contribute to the chaos and can be revived, though the focus stays firmly on Gideon’s movement and aim. A sneak mission, vehicle-based on-rails sections, and occasional quick-time events break up the shooting, but the constant dodge-and-attack combat is where Vanquish is at its strongest.

Graphics

The action is viewed from behind Sam, keeping his armored suit, slides, and weapon fire in clear view while robot-heavy battlefields fill up with targets. Highlighted weak points give bosses and certain regular enemies a clear focal point, which matters when the screen gets busy and you need to decide where your next burst should go.

Story

The story wastes little time establishing the stakes: the Order of the Russian Star seizes an American solar-energy space station, destroys San Francisco, and threatens New York unless the United States surrenders. Sam Gideon, a DARPA operative equipped with the ARS suit, is sent into the conflict to stop that threat. It is a broad, urgent sci-fi war setup built to propel you into the next battle.

Gideon is not entirely alone. Robert Burns leads the military task force fighting beside him, while Elena Ivanova monitors the suit and relays environmental information from afar. These supporting roles give the mission structure, but the narrative’s main job is to keep the forward momentum intact between the five chapters and their acts.

Several cutscenes and in-game cinematic moments showcase powers beyond the player-controlled moveset, including flight. That can create a slight divide between what Sam does in the story and what you can do during combat, but it also fits the game’s deliberately heightened action tone. Come for the crisis and the armored heroics, not for a deeply layered political drama.

Overall Experience

Vanquish is at its best when it makes you feel like the only acceptable response to incoming fire is to accelerate. The cover mechanics may sound familiar, but the boost slide and slow-motion system change the attitude completely. Standing still is usually the mistake; crossing open ground at the right second, even when it looks absurdly dangerous, is often the answer.

There is frustration in that learning curve. Slide too often, drain the suit, and you can find yourself exposed with fewer options. Depend too heavily on the emergency AR slowdown and you are usually already in critical condition. Yet those failures teach a readable lesson: plan a route to cover, save energy for the moment it matters, and aim for weak points instead of merely pouring ammunition into the crowd.

The five-chapter structure, varied weapon roster, bosses, and occasional detours provide enough change without distracting from the central idea. The story does not carry the same force as the combat, but it does not need to. Vanquish earns its reputation through momentum, pressure, and the satisfying moment when you stop playing cautiously and start using the battlefield like a racetrack. If that sounds like your kind of shooter, the payoff is absolutely worth the heat.

Retro Replay Score

8.1/10