Like Bayonetta and MadWorld before it, Vanquish weaves an experience so wickedly over-the-top that if Michael Bay, John Woo, and Robert Rodriguez were melted down and rebuilt as a single sentient being, their collective minds would still be blown before the opening credits had even finished rolling. Well, perhaps not by the opening sequence as Vanquish’s story and cinematics are surprisingly dull. They border between comic book-esque absurdity and the most boring and cliched exposition on par with Hideo Kojima’s worst, and as with Bayonetta they drag on far longer than they should. As a vehicle for the action the story does a barely passable job, but you could literally interchange any character or plot point with those of a random Saturday morning cartoon, sprinkle copious amounts of the F-bomb on top, and still end up with roughly the same outcome.

When everyone finally shuts up, though, Platinum proves that awesome action and tight gameplay are truly its expertise. I can best sum up Vanquish as “Gears of War meets God Hand at x5 speed… in space”. You play some utterly forgettable tough guy doing his best (or worst?) Wolverine impression. The real star of the game is Not Wolverine’s Augmented Reality Suit, which comes equipped with jet thrusters and a shape-shifting armory of robotic death deliverance. The jets will allow you to quickly slide from cover to cover while shooting enemies in slow motion or dodging incoming rockets, and is what most differentiates Vanquish from being just another Gears of War clone (which is actually just another Kill.Switch clone, for the record).

The DARPA-developed experimental weapon system (aka “BLADE”) allows the player to carry three different guns in addition to explosive and EMP grenades. Nothing special there really, but any time one of the weapons has full ammo and the player picks up another one, that specific weapon is automatically upgraded. Unfortunately, it’s not a system that facilitates effective usage of your full arsenal; instead, I spent the entire game running around exclusively wielding my trusty HMG while never even touching my other two slots so that the respective weapons would be continuously leveled up. Annoyingly, all your hard work is erased if you replay a mission or start a new game, so it’s best to just focus on the three weapons you truly care about and completely ignore the rest.

Aside from the solid and exciting gameplay, what I really loved about Vanquish was the sense of an intense, ongoing battle between two factions. Most of the enemies are human-sized robots who will utilize the same cover you and your military comrades do but are easily felled by a quick headshot, yet there are plenty of increasingly large boss machines to contend with as well. The fact that it all takes places in an impressive space station just makes the illusion of an epic war saga that much more potent. Again, too bad the plot and canned dialogue can’t complete the package.

There’s been a lot of drama surrounding Vanquish’s alleged short play time. My first playthrough, in which I racked up 1039 kills and died seven times (as opposed to Eurogamer’s ridiculously newbish 54), took 3:52:01, according to Vanquish’s own end-game stats tracker. I doubt this tracks cutscenes, but when individual chapters can take as little as one to two minutes to complete, it’s not at all unheard of. All of this while looking for hidden statuettes and maxing out every weapon, too.

Some would look at the brevity of the experience as a negative, but Vanquish is a genuine breath of fresh air in a world choked to death by games like Fallout: New Vegas wear out their welcome long before the 50+ hours required to complete them have been met, and titles like Quantum Theory artificially expand their playtime by including one too many waves of enemies every possible chance the developers get. It’s fast, furious, and most importantly, fun. So much so that immediately after I finished the game, I started over again on a harder difficulty. Whether you rent or buy, there’s no denying that Vanquish is simply worth playing.

With Final Fantasy XI about to enter its eighth year of existence, the amount of fan support the game continues to receive is nothing short of phenomenal. Not only does the game still inspire fan conventions like Vana Fest, but the developers are still creating new content for players to partake in. At this weekend’s Vana Fest, Square Enix announced three Final Fantasy XI scenario add-ons set to release throughout 2010, at $10 each. The three packs will release in all territories simultaneously, and will be available on all three FFXI platforms–PC, PS2, and Xbox 360.

The three expansions will be named Vision of Abyssea, Scars of Abyssea, and Heroes of Abyssea, with the first expansion (Vision) due this summer. Players will need to have acquired two previous expansion packs–Rise of the Zilart and Wings of the Goddess–to access these three new add-ons.

Any FFXI fans still out there? Are you looking forward to trying out these new parts of that world, or has your vision shifted to Square Enix’s next MMO, Final Fantasy XIV?

Atlus announced today that the PlayStation Portable port of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 would make its way Stateside this summer.

Apparently, the developer is skipping over Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Personal 2: Innocent Sin (which never got a US release anyway) in their PSP port series of the super-popular role-playing games.

Persona 3 PSP (or P3P) came out in Japan in November 2009. It’s an “enhanced” version of the PlayStation 2 original with the option to play through the game as a female character with altered story elements as a result. Also, the battle system is tweaked to more closely resemble Persona 4 for PS2.

My first exposure to Konami’s Silent Hill series of scare-fests was back in 1999, fresh off of a week-long bender of Resident Evil 2. Ready for even more malformed monsters and mutant crocodile menaces, I was somewhat surprised when I powered my Playstation on to find an incredibly different environment than RE2′s Raccoon City. Instead of facing a horde of genetically altered flesh-eaters, I was met with twisting camera angles, hauntingly melodic background music, and faceless creepy crawlies straight out of Jacob’s Ladder. Silent Hill’s titular fog-infested locale was frightening in a much more psychological sense, creating a general sense of uneasiness and anxiousness that offered a nice change of pace from RE’s conventional Romero-esque scare tactics.

The franchise hit a high point with the scarring Silent Hill 2, a journey through the psyche of a tortured widower that garnered both critical and commercial acclaim; after a relatively successful direct sequel to the original with Silent Hill 3, the franchise slowly headed back to obscurity with the remarkably dissimilar Silent Hill 4 (originally not even a Silent Hill title), then ran safely back towards the horror conventions it tried so hard to stray from with the American developed Silent Hill: Homecoming. Despite its masterfully frightening origins, the Silent Hill series fell victim to contrived and confusing plot twists, as well as several inherent gameplay issues such as unwieldy cameras and a slow, cerebral pace that proved too taxing for survival horror fans accustomed to Resident Evil’s gut-wrenching pace.

Luckily, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories returns to the game’s glory days by re-imagining the first Silent Hill and combining it with a more psychological ploy that harkens back to the classic second installment; Harry Mason is still searching for his daughter in the barren villa of Silent Hill and as the game progresses, players slowly begin to unravel the mystery of the town and the man who haunts its snowy streets. But rather than being a direct remake, Shattered Memories has an interesting twist: the developers — Climax Group, the promising minds behind 2007′s handheld prequel, Silent Hill: Origins — bills it as a game that “plays you as much as you play it.” Every so often, the core action will be broken up by small psychiatric sessions, prompting an unorthodox doctor to ask you almost uncomfortably personal questions about your hopes, fears, and sexuality. Depending on your answers, the game will shape itself as more tailor-made for whoever’s playing it. After all, what’s more frightening than a horror game that knows what scares you?

While the psychoanalyzation angle is certainly an ambitious one, I just didn’t feel like it went quite far enough. Two separate playthroughs of Shattered Memories with polar-opposite answers did alter character dialogue and appearances, but the game’s simplistic puzzles and repetitive nightmare sequences were left entirely untouched. Add in the fact that the game can easily be completed in about five hours, and there isn’t an awful lot to keep players around for another playthrough.

The aforementioned nightmare sequences are especially disappointing: Unlike previous Silent Hill titles, Harry is unable to actually fight his faceless foes, instead resigned to meekly pushing them aside and scurrying away. Discretion is the better part of valor unless, of course, you’re mired in a dense fog that surrounds a labyrinthine city, at which point it just becomes jarringly annoying. Harry does come equipped with a GPS on his cell phone, but the level design is so straightforward — every path but the one you are meant to take is blocked off by a convenient wall of ice or some other debris — that it’s almost completely useless.

At the end of the day, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a bad game by any means — it’s an incredibly original and ambitious project, but the weight of its problems, both old and new, keep it from being much more than a nostalgic love letter addressed to diehard series fans.

PROS: Intriguing psychological angle; looks great for a Wii title; fantastic voice acting
CONS: Far too short; nightmare sequences are frustrating; way too easy to get lost

Ansem
Beat Reverse/Rebirth mode and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.

Axel Enemy Card
Progress through the story

Demyx Enemy Card
Atlantica: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth

Diamond Dust
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.

Getting Mushu and Xigbar card
Go to Hollow Bastion and use key of rewards and there will be two chests one containing Xigbar

Larxene Enemy Card
Progress through the story

Lexaeus
Beat Reverse/Rebirth mode and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.

Luxord Enemy Card
Agrabah: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth

Marluxia Enemy Card
Progress through the story

One Winged Angel
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest in Twilight Town.

Roxas card (Doubles attack strength)
Go to Twilight Town in Sora’s mode and enter the treasure room. There should be two chests with one of them containing the Roxas card.

Saix Enemy Card
Traverse Town: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth

Ultima
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest/shop in Castle Oblivion.

Vexen Enemy Card
Progress through the story

Xaldin Enemy Card
Monstro: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth

Xemnas Enemy Card
Wonderland: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth

Zexion’s Card
Beat Riku’s story and retrieve from a chest in Destiny Islands.