Hellooo PlayStation.Blog – my name is Julian Mehlfeld and I’m the community manager on Vanquish here at SEGA. I’m very happy to be writing this blog all about our soon-to-release Vanquish demo for PlayStation 3, which should be out on August 31 across PSN. For everyone at SEGA, this is very exciting news, and we hope you enjoy taking a spin on SEGA and PlatinumGames newest offering. Before we jump into the details, I want to give you a quick bit of info on the setting, the game, and then offer you a bit of a challenge.
The Story So Far…
Vanquish is set in a desperate future, one that centers around exponential population growth, a demand for resources, and a political power play from Russia that lands you in the heart of the action aboard an orbiting space station. You play Sam Gideon, DARPA Agent and co-designer of some very advanced technology – the Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS). Your mission is to work with the infiltrating military to restore order, find your fellow agents, and prevent an attack on New York City, among other American targets.
The Secret to Success
Vanquish is the newest game from the mind of Shinji Mikami, creator of such classics as Resident Evil. Known for his epic games, Shinji Mikami has taken on the 3rd person shooter in a way that only he could. Working with PlatinumGames, together they’ve come up with a very fast, very fluid, and very intense cover to cover shooter. How you operate the Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS) system and the key abilities it grants you will be the deciding factor in your success – or failure. The two abilities that I find the most useful are Boost and Augmented Reaction (AR).
The Augmented Reaction Suit, you’ll find, is incredibly fast and agile when you use Boost to navigate around the demo area. Boost allows you to dash over to save wounded marines, evade attacks, or quickly close the distance on any enemy to deliver a punishing melee attack. Boost into cover, boost out of cover – boosting is one of the best tools you have for both defensive and offensive action in Vanquish.
While Boost grants you speed, Augmented Reaction (AR) will grant you time. Time will save you in both a reactive and proactive manner – push forward with your Boost and flip on AR to destroy enemies while you dash past them. Jump out of cover into AR to line up headshots and stop a guarded threat behind cover. Roll into AR, plant your body, and focus fire at heavily guarded targets for maximum efficiency. Defensively – you’ll enter into AR when you take on too much damage, granting you a moment to kill your main threat, or evade into cover to recharge and continue the fight.
I highly recommend checking out the tutorial before jumping into the full game to see how these two abilities play out. You’ll get a chance to mess around in a safe environment and become comfortable with how the game works. Trust me, you can adapt while you play the game and absolutely get through it – but you will benefit from a bit of practice!
The Demo Challenge
So as a spot of fun, I figured I’d leave you with a challenge to see if you can best what I consider to be a very impressive clear-time on the demo. Our own internal producer, Keith, has become quite good at the demo from various trade shows and has a clear time of 6 minutes and 12 seconds. I challenge you to beat this time! Keith is good, but I’m betting the community will be able to best him in a few short days after release – prove me right, post screenshots if you can, and show them what community can do!
The Vanquish Demo releases on Tuesday, August 31 at a time to be specified by PSN – we hope you enjoy the demo and look forward to your impressions!
This is my most anticipated game of the Year!!!
Platinum Games consists of the best game developers in the world!
I’m just so glad that they decided to do the PS3 version first and than port it over to the 360. Good move guys!
I nearly cried when I played the Bayonetta demo on ps3 to see its lackluster framerate, washed out colors, and screen tearing. I still loved the game. It has the best combat system ever created and Bayonetta is one sexy diva! But still, so happy to see that I’ll be getting a POLISHED Platinum Games title in VANQUISH for my system of the choice. The PS3.
Day 1. Thanks Julian Mehlfeld
@45
Amen brother.
I will need to try the demo, sega isnt what they used to be, but I hope they deliver with this one.
ok so there is a difference between the xbox and ps3 version
so i’ll get the better version, xbox it is then
thanks for being honest
been waiting for some Sega avatars on PSN none yet…
This game look amazing!!! I cant pay my rent but i will hiding 60 dollars from my girlfriend for this game. Great job Sega and Platinumgames.
AWESOME! I’ve been interested in this game since I saw it at E3, I hope the demo is awesome.
This game looks amazing, can’t wait for the demo!
Going to play this demo to death. Looking forward to it.
I love sega. I also like bayonetta, even thos 360 got the better copy, of it, imnot made those things happen with a port> thats why i hope you guy do a exclusvie game with ps3 one, But 6 mins and 12 seconds… Sound kinda easy .. Im very good in these type of action adventure shooter your talking to mcbuttz78 who played straglehold on hard boiled and never got out..The same mcbuttz that beat fight night 4 on goatt and nevr lost a fight 60 ko’s 54 of them being in the 1st 3 rounds.. I will take your challege and but dont say it didnt warn you when its 5 mins and 54 sec..
yea i’ll send a pic to prove it no problem :)… where’s the address lol??
mcbuttz78
Not saying it’s impossible, but as a new game with some new tricks to learn, you’ll have to work for it and that’s what I want :).
You can post to our forums at http://forums.sega.com – I’m on there everyday and will keep a look out, or just PM me the shot!