Andy Laub

We went to the MALL OF AMERICA over the weekend as part of our occasional “let’s pretend we’ve never been to Minneapolis before” thing that we like to do (we also went to IKEA!), and while it was enjoyable enough (and at least good exercise – did you know that a lap around the mall is over half a mile?), we basically only spent money on lunch and that was it.

But I did make one very important observation. We had been warned before visiting that Microsoft has done what we in the biz call “copying Apple” and opened one of their famed(?) Microsoft Stores at MOA. Not particularly humorous – I don’t dispute that a branded store for a company with as many products as Microsoft is useful, and putting it in one of the biggest malls ever makes sense. The issue at hand is where in the mall it is: across from the Apple Store.

Seriously.

The problem here is that Microsoft’s stores, as implied above, borrow heavily from the book of Apple in every way; it really is like they took an Apple store and changed the logo. That wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t immediately from their “inspiration” – it was like looking in a mirror. Well, maybe a funhouse mirror. We even noticed that both (at least on the Saturday we were there) have greeters positioned front and center – I like to imagine they spend their day staring each other down when not dealing with shoppers.

But that’s not all! My most memorable mall moment is walking into the Microsoft Store after a brief visit to Apple: immediately upon entering, the floor slopes upward about 6 inches for no apparent reason and with no warning. it’s a little jarring, to be honest, because no other stores that we visited do this. I’m not going to get all melodramatic and say it’s a safety hazard – it’s just weird. I guess they must have done it so they could run wires, but what a lazy way to do things when you have that kind of money to spend.

Then I realized it’s all a metaphor, man. That little jolt you get when you enter the store is preparing you for every little nit you’ll have to deal with when using their products. Sure, they’ll get the job done, but you’ll be complaining the entire time about the dumb little shit you have to deal with while doing so.

Remember how I said I was going to play Crysis 2? I still am, I promise. I just… it hasn’t happened yet. I had planned to rent it shortly after finishing up Bulletstorm, but it was still nowhere to be found. In the meantime, reviews of Bulletstorm led me to Vanquish, a game released last year that is basically what happens when you combine Gears of War and Bulletstorm, then take Epic out of the equation and replace them with Sega.

The result is a third-person shooter in which you run around on a space station and shoot communist robots. Similar to Bulletstorm, there’s a button that lets you slide around on the ground, and also sort of do things in slow motion. And you have a gun, but your gun is special because it’s every gun (more on that later). Also there’s a button that you press to smoke a cigarette, in case you need to be reminded that this game is very, very Japanese.

This sounds like it could be a recipe for disaster, but the opposite is true – Vanquish is a very fun game. Unlike the plodding, cover-reliant pace of a typical shooter, the goal here is speed. I’ll admit that I relied on cover more than the game probably would’ve preferred, but the mechanics are there to keep you in motion a good portion of the time; rarely are there locations in battle that are truly “safe” so you have to use your maneuverability to your advantage.

I mentioned you have what is basically the gun. Your amazing, one of a kind suit of armor is impressive, but your gun? It can look at other guns and mimic them. Remember in the Transformers movie how the robots scanned the vehicles and then turned into them? That’s what your gun can do. Except it’s a little simple, so it can only remember three guns at a time. I don’t know why that distinction exists, but it does.

But your gun can upgrade itself. If you scan another copy of a weapon you already have, the first result is your ammo refills. If your ammo is full, you get a little mark next to that gun. Three marks and you get a star, and each star is an upgrade (ammo capacity, power, etc). But don’t die, because sometimes you’ll loose a mark if that happens. I’m not really sure how the logic for that works – sometimes marks were lost, and sometimes they weren’t, and the same weapon wasn’t always affected – but really, don’t die. It’s bad for your points.

Did I mention the points? This game has them! I’m pretty sure they’re a way of telling other people how great you are at this game. Or in my case, how great you aren’t. But at the same time, the game also has giant enemy crabs, whose weak points you can attack for massive damage. Then they turn into giant humanoid robots.

In short, you should probably try Vanquish if shooting things is something you enjoy. It doesn’t really take very long, and it’s very shiny.