Breakdown aspires to do many things; it certainly does, but none of them are executed correctly.
Breakdown casts you as Derrick Cole, a guy, who, you'd think, just wants to live a normal life. Instead, he's thrust into a quest to go to a place called Nexus and blow it up? to save the world. Of course, its not that simple. You've got a guy named Solus who is insanely powerful, and a crapload of soldiers who are just dying for the chance to shoot you up. Over all, Breakdown's story is the best, and will certainly keep you entertained, though the gameplay and other mechanics certianly won't
Graphics-wise, Breakdown is pretty awful. I recently tried to replay this on my 360 and HDTV, and after playing Red Dead Redemption and Far Cry 2 extensively in the past few weeks, its like looking at a Renaissance painting and then looking at your 5 year olds' refrigerator drawing (not to insult the creative talent of 5 year olds; I'm just trying to make a point). Muddy textures are all around you, and you'll be wandering through corridor after corridor, and you'll never really get outside to see the sun. Bioshock this is not, and if you base your purchases solely on graphics, then this game is not for you. Even if you don't, be warned that the graphics do detract from the gameplay, and jaggies are everywhere. With a little (read: crapload) more polish, this game could have at least competed with other Xbox titles. Right now, it looks like an early PS2 release/ late PS1 release. I think my Dreamcast could do better.
Gameplay: Probably the best and worst aspect of this game. The game offers you hand to hand fighting with tons of combo moves that you'd expect to find in a game like Marvel vs Capcom or Tekken. This would be awesome, and it is, except the AI is VERY unrelenting when it comes to fighting. You'll be having close quarters combat with big burly guys named the Tlann, and once you gain the ability to fight them, it'll be pretty easy one on one. Sadly, the game feels the need to throw more than one into the mix, so while you're busy on one, the other can easily punch you, knocking you over, and you'll be trapped in that endless cycle. Making just one enemy having a lot of health or giving you multiple enemy attacks would have alleviated this problem, but the developers either didn't see fit to do this or just didn't have the time. In addition, I thought I'd be able to do matrix stuff, like running on walls to get to soldiers and snapping their necks and whatnot. Although you get a bullet shield power, it doesn't last when you let down your guard, so you can only snap in and out of guard while shooting with an smg. If this game had some slow down with some real awesome kung fu moves, I think it might have sold better. Last note about the hand to hand is that the game gives you all of these combo moves, but you'll really only need a few. In addition, the cool combo moves require extremely accurate button presses in a timely manner, so really, you'll just be using jabs, backhands, and amateur kicks to win your battles.
The guns in the game are also pretty awful, and, as you'd expect of a 2003 game, there's none of that popular aim down sight feature you'd expect in today's FPS'. You'll only get a MP5, pistol, rocket launcher, and a few other things throughout the game, none of which are very accurate, due to the terrible lock on system. It's hard to describe, but your lock on consists of a circle slightly off center of the enemy, and you just shoot at that. If you find that too unwieldy, well, your out of luck, because the chances of you actually hitting something outside of the lock is next to nothing. You get grenades, but they're not really helpful in any sense. The FPS portion of this game wasn't well thought out, and it feels like it was just thrown in for the developers to be able to add ranged combat so they could list another feature on the box.
The sound is nothing great, and although I love my sci fi techno, obviously the guys at Namco don't, as the techno sounds like a cheesy C movie, and I don't even know if those exist. The big immersion factor Namco tried to add kind of fails, the only immersive moments being pretty boring. You get to see Derrick throw up in a toilet, and you get to actually have to pick up your guns and ammo and health items yourself. Meaning, instead of walking over the ammo and health like EVERY OTHER GAME, you have to press x to bring out your hand, press it again to pick it up, and press x one last time to use it. So if your in the middle of a firefight, and want a soda to heal yourself up, you'll probably end up dying before you even use it. While its realistic, it doesn't make for a good game. One thing I found kind of annoying as well was that Derrick ate only a bit of the rations bar, and although it heals him up, he throws the rest away. So if he ate the whole thing, he could bring all his health, or at least 90 percent of it, back. I know he's in a hurry and all, but couldn't he just scarf down the whole thing? Whatever.
Breakdown tries to do so many things, its worth a rental just to see, if anyone even rents this game anymore. Nothing is really fleshed out, and the story, while good, can't hide the rest that's wrong with the game. Breakdown is admirable for its jack of all trades attitude, but in essence, its master of none.