Deep, original, tame, sloppy... In many ways it is good it is also bad at the same time but it was at least interesting.
Gameplay: This is a true first person game as it comes. What is interesting is the interaction of your character with the environment. You press X to pick up objects, and he will bend over and pick it up and hold it, observing it for a while, and you just press X again to put it in your pack. You can see your feet!! Man, how many FPS lets you see your feet?!?! Okay, seriously, you climb, run, jump, shoot in first person, and all cut-scenes are in first person also, so it feels that you are IN the moment or event. What gives this game the cool factor is that it has a melee fighting system involving pressing the shoulder buttons for left and right punches, and with combinations of the directions allows various kicks and uppercuts that just gives the melee fighting an edgy feel. You can pull off combos and wail on enemies, and watch them hit the floor then you can lay down more hurt as they try to get up. Also the same can happen to you as the disorientating experience of getting your ass handed to you is surprisingly cool when you first get a taste of it, as you stagger around and eventually slump to the floor. What is even better are some of the things that happen visually in the game. To mention them would pretty much spoil the experience of the game for those people that would like to play it. But let’s say some exciting things happen, and some weird things happen which just look great and keeps you asking questions in your head.
But… As a shooter, it is pretty poor as the array of guns you can have are limited to a pistol, a machine gun, rocket launcher, one other ranged weapon, and grenades which are totally useless as you can’t throw further than 3 feet in front of your ass. Even aiming up doesn’t help. But it doesn’t end there. The game has a lock system which is somewhat useless other than indicating that an enemy is in front of you. It isn’t the babyish lock systems fault, but more like how inaccurate the machine gun (which is the weapon you’ll be relying on for a good portion of the game) is. For the machine gun to be effective, you have to stand about close to mid range. And you have no option for a crosshair. Also there is an option of auto lock (default) which locks on to the nearest enemy if you are attacking. In melee fighting this can kill you as it spins you around on some occasions, turning your back on a more lethal threat you wanted to kick or slide tackle into, but you can disable this (but it is useful for some things – it just could have been implemented better).
Dying in this game is the norm. You have to get used to fighting against groups of soldiers, then groups of these scary T’lan warriors that love to punch and kick your ass. Lucky the game has generous number of checkpoints that seem to save your progress at the times where you are going to kick the bucket. After some gunplay or fist fighting, you are sometimes confronted with a set piece which usually entails some active event that could probably get you killed rather quickly. Thank goodness for checkpoints. Then afterwards you may have a cut-scene that forces the story along, just to interrupt the fighting or tedium for the most part.
It isn’t much of an adventure game, as there is nothing to explore, but you are taken to some wild places, physically and mentally, which just makes the game a bit special. Too bad some of the action the takes places is a bit o’ rubbish. Weak gunplay people, but the fighting with your fist is surprisingly cool to do.
Story: What is most intriguing about this game it how it’s laid out. The character that you play starts off with no background, no memory, and weird things start happening as soon as he wakes up from his coma. As this game is first person throughout, you start off as disorientated as your character, which you later find out his name is Derrick Cole. You are quickly introduced to a woman who would be helping you through the game, called Alex. You are stuck in what seems like a building of some scientific research, and the military want you dead for some reason, but also these strange human like creatures that seem unstoppable, called T’lan, that have also invaded the building, killing the soldiers and the scientists with no regards for life. You discover all not what it seems, and Derrick has some kind of special powers unknown to him. You have hallucinations (which just look great), that takes the story/experience along an interesting route.
The game really start with pace, but it slows down to a crawl due to obvious forced conversations. You can interact with objects alright, but not people. Alex will come up to you to say something which is relevant to the story, but you can run off somewhere and she will say there, speak to thin air for a moment, and would reply with a line like, “Are you listen to me?!”. It’s really obviously scripted, especially as they stand is set locations, and you can run around characters, and they give no effort in trying to face you when they are talking to you. Its funny watching their heads crane around trying to talk to you while they are mannequined into position, but that gives a little idea about how much thought they gave about how they wanted to deliver the story. Not much. Occasionally you are given dialogue options, which for the most part don’t do anything other than give possible humorous replies. But essentially they add one or two lines to respond to your option, but anything afterwards, they were going to say it anyways.
Also the story is strongly sci-fi, and also doesn’t explain something which I say is pretty important. It isn’t a plot hole, more like something that doesn’t makes sense, and characters in the game glance over this fact. Also as the game progresses, there is less dialogue/story progression and it is down to reading notes or listening to tapes from the scientists that are left around. It cools how you pick up a notepad, and start flicking thro’ pages, but it seems that they can only write 6 lines per page.
It’s like they had some many ideas to present the story, like with hallucinations, cut-scenes and funky stuff like that, but the poor pace and square dialogue… uhh…
Sound/Music: The characters sound ok when they talk. The voices aren’t too special, but not that bad either. For the most part they sound emotive. The sound effects are cool. I thought I was playing a first person Tekken game, because when you hit people sometimes lightning hit sparks comes out instead of the “honeycomb” break shield. And T’lan warriors skin make Tekken sound effects as well. Like when you do Lei’s rave kick combo… It’s made by Namco, so it figures.
Music is atmospheric, but nothing that burns into my skull, other than that rock song if you get the good ending… very Linkin Park. I think.
Graphics: For some parts of the game, this game doesn’t look too good. The graphics are solid, but the buildings are surprisingly depressing. Grey geometric corridors have never been so frequently shown in a game. Also Derrick, when you catch him in a mirror, doesn’t look that hot. A bit jaggy throughout, and of course the E3 video renders looked much better. However, the special effects that are apparent in this game on odd occasions made my jaw drop and sometimes go “WTF?!” I’m not talking clever lightning and the odd shiny-shiny thing (if it was clever lightning and the odd shiny-shiny, it was a touch of genius). The hallucination effects are wicked.
For the most part, the graphics are ok, a bit jaggy when you look at it right (or wrong), but it looks damn depressing at times.
Summary: You go around trying not to get yourself killed, discover the mysteries about yourself and what is going on around you, which generally involves going on a linear path which for the most part is explicitly shown by doors with green lights as opposed to red lights, and getting to a forced cut-scene which develops the plot a bit. When you get used to the bad gunplay and set pieces which can be really frustrating, the game seems meh. When you come across something amazing that left you a bit breathless because you were actually engrossed in the game, it seems hot. It really depends if you want yourself to be immersed in this game or not.
In actuality, it is really a reasonably decent idea of a game done not too well, and seems underdeveloped. Also crap level/location design that throws you in situations that are annoying just doing over again. The following statement regards one part of the game: this game should NOT be a platformer, Namco! It was annoying doing it for the first time over!!! If the level/location design was better I would score the game higher, but some people might get depressed over some parts of the game. Some bits were stinky. If there was another Breakdown game, I’d get it. I wish for Namco to do a better Breakdown game… it was so close…
If you are looking for something interesting, just for it being interesting on an aesthetic level, it’s worth a shot. You aren’t getting the best gameplay from this, but I said this to my friend:
“It was a rollercoaster… It had highs and lows. I can’t say I enjoyed it from beginning to end, but I say this. It was one hell of a ride.”