Mech-Man Mikami

Big reveal for Shinji Mikami's opening gambit for Platinum Games, Vanquish. Players look to be cast as a masculine run n' gun retreader, battle-suited and chasing Western audience thump tastes. The shill liberally quotes from Jon Favreau's Iron Man, as well as Neill Blomkamp's Halo shorts, just to keep things familiar. As a threat of sop, it's not quite as shameless as Tecmo's upcoming Gears of War facsimile Quantum Theory, but the idea of a gaming titan like Mikami beavering away at just another mech-man game has inspired yawns.

There's promise in the trail though - an aggravated right winger spends the entire duration vomiting revenge rhetoric over footage of towers falling. Can we expect a satirically minded interacter, offering a one-man power fantasy War on Terror? The battle suit itself looks like a consumer product, Apple-white with Xbox inflections. The anime blocked live action component also cues Super Sentai memories, reminding us that Japan also has a long standing fascination with armoured, beetle-men. There's even a faint whiff of Mikami's underappreciated shoot juggler PN03. Brass tacks: when has Mikami ever put a foot wrong?