The PC port of Vanquish, released yesterday, is rock solid and fun with it: "A great port of an entertainingly subversive cover shooter," as Phil put it. But it looks like it may suffer from a bug or two that aren't entirely uncommon in PC ports of older console games, as according to this post on NeoGAF, the damage that players take from enemies is tied to the framerate, and the higher your FPS, the faster you get pasted.
"I've tested this multiple times using the AR mode tutorial (the bit where enemies shoot at you a bunch in order to demonstrate auto AR) and you take much more damage when playing at higher framerates," GAF user Wesker explained. "If you lock the framerate to 30FPS AR mode will activate after 6-7 seconds of taking enemy fire but if you're playing at a higher framerate, like 60FPS, it will activate in just 1-2 seconds."
He posted a pair of animated GIFs to demonstrate the issue: At 30 fps, Sam staggers at least four times over a span of about six seconds before the screen goes red, but at 60 fps—at which point the damage difference apparently stops scaling—he only staggers once, and it only takes a second or two, before he's in trouble. Animated GIFs are easy enough to fake, but a number of people have said in follow-up comments that they've had similar experiences with unexpectedly deadly enemies.
30 fps:
60 fps:
As odd as it seems, this bug is not unprecedented: A very similar issue related to weapon and armor degradation rates plagued the PC release of Dark Souls 2. That problem was fixed in relatively short order, and hopefully this one will be too. I've reached out to Sega for more information about the problem, and will update if I receive a reply. And for more animated action, be sure to check out these "9 sweet Vanquish GIFs that show why the PC version rules"—even when it's unfairly kicking your ass.
