Vanquish previews emerge from Tokyo

It seems like a whole mess of outlets took a trip to Tokyo recently to play Platinum's upcoming Vanquish. ... What? Oh, well, no, we weren't there. It's fine though, it is. We're pretty sure that our invitation just got lost in the mail. (Our mail guy's a total Japanophile, so we'd believe it.) Besides, we were really busy that week. Just really busy with various things that we were doing.

... Anyway, we've read all the preview coverage that went up today and these are the broad strokes:

You'll play as a government agent named Sam who's using his futuristic battle suit, large arsenal and martial arts skills to recapture a solar-powered space station just used by Russia to blow up San Francisco. (Side note: If you want to make an armor guy mad, attack San Francisco.) As for what its third-person action feels like, we're seeing a lot of descriptors like "intense" and "frenetic," perhaps a move away from bulkier action heroes like Marcus and the Chief. The only character detail we know about Sam is that he smokes mid-fight, which is pretty much all we need to know. One sad note: No online multiplayer. Well, maybe in Vanquish 2: Still Vanquishin'.

What's that? You still want more? Well, maybe try Sega's blog or Game Informer or Eurogamer or basically anywhere but here. No, we told you, it's fine. *sniff*