The Demo for Vanquish, a joint project between Shinji Mikami and SEGA is now available on Xbox LIVE and PSN. The Demo is called Velocity Attack, and features some of the key elements of Vanquish.

As I’ve mentioned on numerous accounts, I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, and so I love Shinji Mikami. We will definitely be keeping an eye out for this one!

Sega has confirmed the release date of Shinji Mikami’s (who brought us games like Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, etc) newest baby, Vanquish. The demo will be available on August 31st in North America, and September 1st in Europe.

The official demo is titled Velocity Attack. As Sam, the US government agent decked out in a futuristic ARS battle suit, players will be fighting the Russians in a race for the planet’s dwindling resources. Sam will have an arsenal of weapons and upgrades, as well as the the ability to hijack “walkers”, or use his suit’s unique Boost and AR mode to take down enemy robots. The demo will also feature a boss, Argus, as the climax.

Vanquish is set for release in North America on October 19th, in Australia on October 21st, and Europe on October 22nd for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Developed by PlatinumGames, the developer behind Bayonetta, and directed by Shinji Mikami, the creator of the Resident Evil series, VANQUISH is SEGA’s next third-person action shooter.

I know, what you’re probably thinking. It’s just another Gear of War clone. But wait! It’s different!… or so they say. From what we’ve gathered so far, the main theme of VANQUISH is “intensity.” The player takes the role of “Sam” (you can tell a lot of ingenuity went in here), a government agent decked out in a futuristic battle suit, in a near future world where nations war over the planet’s remaining energy source. From this it really sounds like the only ”near-future” part is the battle suit.

Anyhoo, like I mentioned, its all about intensity in this game. As Sam, you will have access to a huge arsenal of weaponry, as well as vast experience in martial arts. You will be putting all this to use through a “fast, fluid, and frenetic” combat system.

As you can probably tell from the screenshots above and below, along with cover and shoot, there are some very flashy hand-to-hand combat. It looks like it maybe the result of a QTE event, but it still looks very cool.

In case you’re wondering, the actual story goes like this:

Russia and the United States are vying for ownership of the world’s fast-depleting energy resources and the US has constructed a space station in order to harness energy from the sun. Russian forces capture this space station and divert its harvested solar energy into a blast wave that destroys San Francisco, aiming to force the US into a total and unconditional surrender. In response, the US tasks its armed forces with recapturing the space station before the Russians can annihilate their next target – New York.

Sounds intersting enough. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how “intense” this game will really be, won’t we? VANQUISH is set for release in Winter of 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PS3.