10 Forgotten Sci-Fi Video Games You Need To Play

8. Vanquish - Sega (2010)

Binary Domain
PlatinumGames

Vanquish is a game with a release spanning over a full decade. It began development in 2007, was released for PS3 and 360 in 2010 and arrived to Windows PCs in 2017. Remastered versions came to PS4 and XBOne in 2020.

A third-person shooter set in the near future where Earth's human population burgeons to the point where nations fight for scarce resources, Vanquish is best known for its quick pace and useful sliding-boost mechanic.

Players take on the role of Sam Gideon, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) soldier equipped with the prototype Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS), a battlesuit outfitted with a vast array of functions, including thigh mounted jet boosters.

He is armed with the experimental Battlefield Logic Adaptable Electronic Weapon System (BLADE), which scans existing weapons and transforms into them. It stores these scans and can shapeshift between each on command.

It's been nominated for a bevy of media awards throughout the years but perhaps nothing speaks of its quiet, lasting appeal more than the sheer fact that for over a decade, it continues to be released on nearly every contemporary platform.

Contributor

Jason Russell has been working in video game journalism since the early 1990s before the internet existed, the term "fanzine" had meaning and sailors still debated as to whether or not the earth was flat. The first time. More recently he has been the guy responsible for the Retrospective column for Old School Gamer Magazine, pens up a Game Skinny column on a plethora of video game topics. He's somehow managed to author nine novels, writes and runs the blog CG Movie Review, is co-founder of the science fiction publishing house Starry Eyed Press, and sometimes, when the planets align and the caffeine has fully left his system, it's rumored he sleeps.