Breakdown Review

When you hear the words "first-person action game," you can most likely quickly amass a pretty clear picture of what to expect from said game. This is because for years upon years now, the category of first-person action titles has managed to survive using the same core ideas and gameplay mechanics over and over and over again. Sure, innovations pop up here and there, but it's a real rarity when you see or hear of anyone really setting out to do something truly original with the concept. Namco's latest first-person action title, Breakdown, is of this rare breed. Breakdown seeks to take you to a level of immersion rarely attempted in a first-person title, both through its method of storytelling and its style of gameplay. For this fact alone, Breakdown is absolutely a laudable effort, as it does truly bring some new and exciting ideas to the table. Ideas aside, however, Breakdown's underlying game design is unable to bear the weight of its own innovation, so it's really just a pretty good action game that you can't help but feel could have been so much more.

Looking through the eyes of supersoldier Derrick Cole, you will see and experience many familiar science fiction-based clichés, but at least you'll do so in a unique and immersive way.

Breakdown's storyline, plot, and characters are perhaps its least remarkable aspect, though this is not to say they're particularly bad in any way. In the game, you play as Derrick Cole, an unfortunate soul who wakes up in a sterile-looking laboratory, completely devoid of memory. Just as he begins to grasp onto some marginal bearings of his identity and what is going on, the lab is suddenly attacked by a group of elite soldiers. Just as Derrick is about to be killed, he is miraculously rescued by a mysterious woman named Alex. Without diving too far into the realm of spoilers, it can be said that Breakdown's story from here on out primarily revolves around Derrick rediscovering his true identity, learning about his role as the unwitting participant of an experiment that gave him extraordinary powers, and unearthing the mystery surrounding a race of superhuman warriors known as the T'Lan, who are threatening the world.

Breakdown wears its story inspirations without even so much as a hint of concealment. The game is essentially equal parts Half-Life and generic anime, both in its basic plot and its story arc. On paper, these aren't necessarily bad places to draw inspiration from, but Breakdown really doesn't do an especially good job telling its story. The primary problem in this regard is the main character of Derrick himself. Derrick is supposedly an amnesiac, and yet somehow, he comes across as the least inquisitive man ever to walk the Earth. Aside from a few instances where characters will ask Derrick direct questions--in which he is given the choice of two possible answers--Derrick never really attempts to figure out what's going on around him, no matter how bizarre things get. Instead, the game simply goes out of its way to explain everything to you through in-engine cutscenes and scripted sequences that appear frequently. While you are appropriately educated through this method, it gives the story an exceptionally hackneyed feel. Additionally, the plot itself never really goes anywhere particularly interesting, and in fact, it becomes downright silly toward the later portions of the game.

However dumb Breakdown's plot may be, it becomes far more forgivable thanks to some rather innovative situations and sequences that give the game a much more interesting feel than it would have otherwise. Though many of these sequences are scripted, the game's first-person perspective gives these sequences a much more unique feel. In one sequence, you are sent flying off of a rooftop (as the result of a blast from a helicopter-fired missile) and crash through a grove of trees all the way to the ground. Though the sequence itself isn't terribly original, the sense of disorientation and panic you experience as you fall toward the ground is unique. Another example involves a series of apparent hallucinations/daydreams that Derrick experiences throughout the game. Walking through certain doors or even just approaching certain areas of a level will cause a TV static-like effect to appear, and suddenly Derrick will be in a peculiar dream state, seeing objects or people that are not there or experiencing a completely new environment that was not there a mere moment ago. These sequences and experiences are a nice break from the action, and really, the only criticism that can be mounted against them is that they simply don't come into play often enough.

Breakdown contains a number of extremely cool sequences. Unfortuately, there just aren't enough of them.

These types of sequences are only one of several ways in which Breakdown attempts to completely immerse you in its experience. Like most standard first-person games, you control your character using the left thumbstick, and you can look around by moving the right thumbstick. When you happen upon an object or item that can be interacted with, by pressing the X button Derrick will use his right arm to interact with that element. For instance, when attempting to pick up an ammunition clip off the ground, pressing X once makes Derrick pick the clip up, and pressing it a second time allows him to store the clip. By pressing B, Derrick can simply toss the clip. When climbing a ladder or opening a door, you press X to interact with it, and the animation sequence that follows gives you a much more lifelike feeling to the action than you often get in this type of game. Breakdown features a fairly wide array of these little types of actions too, which range from climbing onto a ledge, to eating a hamburger, and even to, of all things, vomiting. While the latter activity mentioned could be done with or without, depending on your personal tastes (pardon the pun), you can't argue that the game doesn't try its best to really make you feel like you're viewing the world through Derrick Cole's eyes.