This is not a game I was ever going to buy on my own. It looked interesting, sure, but between tech issues as a game written in Microsoft's UWP platform and a single player game that demanded you use the network to stream videos, I was pretty soured on actually spending money on it. And while things did improve with the game moving to Steam, I still wasn't about to buy it without a huge discount. And thanks to Humble Bundle, I didn't have to. Now as I finish up, I'm glad the game just about literally fell into my lap. I would have missed out on one hell of an adventure.
Story: Welcome to Riverport, a bustling city in the USA. Jack Joyce was asked by his best friend Paul Serene to come visit, but admittedly, it was never "just" to see his friend. Rather, Paul called on him for a kinda large favor. Paul's been working with Jack's brother William on a major scientific project at the local university, but their funding is about to be pulled if they cant prove any results. Still, William didn't want to pull the switch on it claiming it was not safe. So it was up to Paul to show the university their money wasn't being sunk into nothing. Still, Paul didn't want to give details till Jack was there and for good reason. What the two of them had been working on was a time machine and it was time to make history.
At first everything was working perfectly. The machine started up properly and all parameters were in the green. In fact the test example even went perfect as Paul exited the machine before he went in, proving it worked. But it turns out William was right and a flaw in the calculations would cause the machine to break down, trapping Paul inside and creating "the fracture."
This fracture in time itself is the key event the entire story this game revolves around, as it is in essence time breaking down. It started with occasional "pauses" in time called skips. During these moments only those who had been exposed directly to Chronons (or time-radiation) or wearing gear designed to counter the effects of it can continue to experience the world while everyone else is stuck in place. But what would be once in a while quickly started happening more and more often, leading up to the ultimate disaster scenario: the end of time itself.
But that is not to say there is no hope and the universe is doomed, for the man who didn't want to turn on the machine was also aware of and built a device designed specifically to try to fix the fracture if and when it happened. Calling it the countermeasure, William tried to protect it. Unfortunately for him, it also put him between two conflicting plans for mankind to survive the single biggest catastrophe we would ever know. On one side, Jack trying to use it as his brother intended and stop the end of time from happening and on the other Monarch Solutions with plans not to stop the end of time, but to survive it in a pocket of time and learn how to restart time after it has stopped. And that second group is headed by none other then an older Paul Serene.
And this basic premise makes for a much more interesting story then simply "hero vs villain" as one might expect. Both sides believe what they are doing is not only right but the only way to save everyone and do so based on the evidence they have personally witnessed making for a truly high stakes adventure where the only difference between sides is which one you believe. And you will be given plenty from both sides to make up your own mind.
To put it bluntly this is one of the most unique ways I've seen a story is written and delivered in a video game. It is told in a cycle of three parts: An act of the game in which you play Jack Joyce, a short interlude in which you will play as Paul Serene, and then a chance to relax and watch a live-action conclusion episode that reflects things you do in the the game as Jack and a choice you will have had to make when playing Paul playing out around employees of the Monarch Solutions company. And yes, they recorded tons of extra video so that while the game itself is linear and has very little variation to reflect your choices, the story in total can do so through these episodes. It was an insane choice to make in development and due to budget alone I do not expect we will see anything like it again. But at the same time, this truly adds something special to the story, giving you a much more full view of the events. It would be a shame to miss it.
9/10
Graphics: While I am sure there are even better looking games due to the age of this one, that should not take away what's been achieved here. To put it bluntly this game is a gorgeous. When things are normal, the world looks crisp and well detailed and to be honest damn close to wandering around at photographic levels of realism: be it in the campus you start the game in, offices of Monarch Solutions, or any of the handful of locations the game will take you to. And yes, there really are not a lot of locations this takes place in, but you probably won't notice till you walk away from the game for a while, both due to the writing and when things stop being normal.
In essence, time stopping tends to mean things get crazy. You will see all kinds of insane occurrences with anything from bullets freezing in mid-space to trains crashing into buildings in a stuttering repeat or an absolute collapse of a buildings frozen like delicate displays, and always with a wicked distortion effect that adds to the surrealness of it all.
Sadly, people in this game are not quite so nice looking. Don't get me wrong, they still look great, but just not quite as real as the world. Rather its clear this is a game and aiming for close to real, if not completely so. Still, despite the high standards, it stands out due to the choice of putting live-action episodes between the game ones, as you are constantly being shown the real life counterparts and pushing that difference all the more because of it.
7/10
Sound: This is not a game where the audio is going to make a lot of impression. In fact it's probably notable for how generic the music can get at times and for how little meat there is in the gunfire. Sure some actual songs in it sound cool, but they tend to be more between acts and in the credits more then anything else.
Still I get all of this out of the way quickly to focus on the star here, the voice work. Since this game focused on having a live TV show as part of it's story telling mechanic, the acting team was indeed fully qualified actors who carried their performance into the in-game cut-scenes and conversations while you play. It all mixes well and results in a stellar delivery for everyone involved, and these will be what you remember most.
8/10
Gameplay: For the most part, Quantum Break is a 3rd person action game in which you will control Jack Joyce as he stands up against the Monarch Solutions company in a struggle over who's plan to save the future is going to go forward. While playing you can expect the game to be a mix of exploration and finding clues as to exactly what is going on in the story (some of which interacting with will directly influence the plot) and arenas where you will face off with squadrons of Monarch's security teams who's only goal is to capture the single biggest threat and unknown factor to their plan: Jack.
When in combat, the game is frantic. You will be diving around the room you are in, trying to get an advantage over your opponents by all means available. This could be firepower, position, or even just using your time-powers to control the room. This latter part is the main focus the game will have you relying on and makes it obvious from the beginning, starting you off with just the power of "time vision" or perhaps more accurately "radar to see where everyone who wants you dead is." Time may be ending, but power over it is your friend.
And while this usually feels great, do not expect combat to challenge you. Rather you will find this game exceptionally easy. Between the control these powers will offer you and how easily you heal when in danger, do not expect any part of this game to hold you up for long. Yeah, you can expect to die once or twice on the way, but usually it will mean you found a bad way into the situation and when you try again, you will get through.
When not in combat, however, things will slow down and be a lot more interesting. At these times, you could be tasked with finding a way through an obstacle (like a locked door or an alternate way into a building) or even just time for conversations between characters while moving to the next location. But these times are also when you get to discover things about the world in the form of intel, or narration objects. Finding these will go that much farther to explain the details of the world and what is going on. You may even find loose chronons which you can collect to upgrade your powers as you play, though how much you need them may vary heavily.
7/10
Bugs: While this game is a bit notorious for bugs, I can't say I ran into any outside of an occasional bitmap render issue (which one is on top). This game ran perfectly fine. However, I do have to note here that the episodes between game-play are not on your hard drive. In order to fit the game on a single blu-ray disc for the console release, it was designed to stream this part off of a server, so we have a single-player game that actually requires an internet connection to play right and get all the content. The Xbox One version of the game got an option to download standard def versions of these videos as DLC and play them off your hard drive instead of over the net, but no such options exist on PC.
Overall: This is a very solid game and well worth your time to play through and enjoy. The combat is frantic and fun, the story is actually interesting, entertaining in it's own right, and very well thought out/told, and even the time gimmick is played out to actually be fun and interesting. The only things really holding this game back are that is really easy and you can not enjoy everything it offers without being connected to a descent internet connection. But if you like a really well thought out story in your gaming, fast paced combat, and the ability to find the pieces of it yourself, there is a lot here to love.
Score:
8/10
System Requirements:
- Core i5-4460 running at 2.7 Ghz or AMD FX-6300
- 8 GB RAM
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R7 260x
- 68 GB hard drive space
- Windows 7 (64-bit versions only)
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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