Vanquish

Vanquish is a fast-paced sci-fi third-person shooter in which the player, as agent Sam Gideon, dons the futuristic ARS suit that allows for lightning-fast knee-sliding movement and temporary time deceleration at moments of greatest danger. The story about a Russian space station threatening the United States with an energy weapon serves mainly as a framework for a string of breathless action sequences taking place both aboard the station and amid the ruins of a devastated New York.

The game, originally released for the previous console generation, arrived on Xbox One as part of a remastered collection that highlighted its emphasis on speed and aggressive, offensive-minded play, rewarding players for constant movement, risky close-quarters engagement with enemies, and precisely timed weapon reloads. The combination of cover-based shooting with acrobatic sliding and massive robotic enemies created a distinctive rhythm, backed by an electronic soundtrack and an over-the-top, grandiose Japanese direction of action scenes full of dramatic slow-motion moments and cinematic camera angles.

Vanquish was praised on its original release mainly by a narrow circle of action-genre fans as mechanically brilliant, if commercially not very successful, and the remastered Xbox One version only confirmed that status to a new audience. Years later it is considered a cult classic from developer PlatinumGames and one of the best-designed action titles of its decade, one that significantly influenced later games built around fluid, almost dance-like movement in combat and rewarding aggressive rather than cautious play. Its short playtime is offset by a high density of ideas per hour of play, so the game still feels like a remarkably concentrated demonstration of what the action genre is capable of. Many reviewers today retrospectively rank it among the best-paced action games of its entire console generation, one well worth discovering even at a great remove.

Why play it: For fans of the action genre who appreciate fluid, almost dance-like movement in combat, it's a short but remarkably concentrated demonstration of what the genre is capable of.