With Vanquish developers Platinum Games have taken a standard macho third person cover shooter and injected it full of Japanese flamboyance and panache. Instead of shooting waves of mindless grunts in a grey/brownish landscape, you are confronted with waves of laser-death spewing robots in a...

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+ High-octane action; + Unique take on third-person shooting

+ High-octane action; + Unique take on third-person shooting

- Vanquish is to the videogame industry what Independence Day is the movie industry. A thrill ride from beginning to end that will have players wondering what's around that corner and how things simply couldn't get any worse.

Gears of War meets bullet hell in this manic game.

Fast paced, frantic combat; the boost mechanic is awesome; some ridiculously awesome cutscenes; great graphical presentation

Some unfair deaths; lack of enemy variety; the game is a bit short

A highly polished gameplay foundation makes Vanquish a title well worth playing, even if it's over far too quickly, something that unfortunately cannot be said of its cliche laden story and incredibly annoying character dialogue.

Vanquish is a sci-fi shooter where you take control of DARPA operative Sam Gideon, who has been assigned a mission to battle legions of future-tech enemies using a vast arsenal of weapons.

is by no means a perfect game. It won't win Game of the Year, and it probably won't make a lasting impression in the roster of video games that have been released. It is, however, a very reasonably fun game that is worth playing until the end.

An exercise in apathy, neither solid nor liquid. Not exactly bad, but not very good either. Just a bit "meh," really.

Vanquish is the latest effort from Platinum Games, the minds behind Bayonetta . This time they're looking to put a boot up the backside of the third-person cover-shooter genre. How By combining rocket boosting, bullet-time and cover-shootouts that's how.

Boosting around while shooting couldn't be cooler; Excellent cover-based shootouts; Fun start-to-finish

Way too short at under five hours; Too much grey; Not enough boss fights

It's entirely in keeping with Platinum Games' devil-may-care attitude. For years, we've written off Japanese studios when it comes to first- and third-person shooters: always playing catch-up to their American counterparts, never quite delivering.