Quantum Break (2016)

This game is really good. A ton of meme's were made about it back when it first came out. And it is slightly aided in the current day by much more powerful computers. I'm sure it was poorly optimized. It's way better than people made it seem though.

The blend of live action and real gameplay and how lifelike the characters look even in the "game" sections made me miss FMV's of yore. Great story, actually pretty entertaining combat and powers. I was both surprised by the number of guns but also somehow wish there were a bit more. Since they ended up being more fun than I thought they'd be. Lance Riddick is amazing-rip to one of the greats. Miss him a lot.

Unfortunately like many have stated the last boss is one of the worst encounter designs ever made. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's just annoying. It's frustrating and doesn't communicate whats happening well. You just have to run in a circle endlessly which gets old fast. Stopping for even one second or turning backwards means you instantly die.

The fictional Riverpoint University in the United States is conducting research into the possibility of time travel. During one of the experiments, an accident occurs, causing a series of inexplicable oddities as the world around us begins to slowly and gradually disintegrate. In addition, three scientists: Jack Joyce, Beth Wilder and Paul Serene, are endowed with supernatural abilities that allow them to control space-time. While the two of them strongly believe in the possibility of fixing the world, Serene, convinced of the inevitability of the impending catastrophe, tries to use the damaged spacetime and Jack's abilities to fulfill his own goals.

The story of Quantum Break is very similar to the television series. The events depicted in the game are supported by live movie scenes with real actors. While the game follows the actions of good heroes like Jack and Beth, the movie scenes focus exclusively on the game's main villain Paul Serene and his company Monarch. Thanks to this way of narration, we learn many aspects of the same story, shown from two different points of view during the game. In addition, both in the game and in the movie scenes, we, the players, have to make important decisions that will be reflected in the subsequent flow of the game.

Quantum Break is, first of all, a dynamic third-person action game where, besides shooting, the important thing is to pass the next levels and use your abilities not only to fight, but also to repair the world. This aspect of the gameplay is significantly diversified thanks to the constant change of our environment after the damage of space-time, numerous anomalies in which objects, structures or buildings disappear or crumble before our eyes. This means that during the game we don't just follow the predetermined path and sometimes we may have to look for alternative solutions and paths to the destination.

Traveling and fighting in an ever-changing environment is accelerated thanks to supernatural abilities resulting from the failed scientific experiment. During the game, for example, we can speed up or slow down the passage of time, or create a special protective shield around Jack. While each of the abilities in question are important to use together constantly during the fight against various enemies and obstacles, the key to success is to use them judiciously in battles, as your powers need a certain amount of time to regenerate. The whole process requires not only great skill, but also the ability to tactically plan your movement.

Quantum Break's graphics are of high quality for its time. They were also developed using an engine called Northlight, which allows for realistic rendering of facial expressions. In addition, the authors took care not to distract us with an overly complex interface during the game. The interface is extremely minimalistic, with only a few icons indicating the powers available. Quantum Break also features more or less well-known actors from the world of cinema. The cast includes Shawn Ashmore, Aidan Gillen and Dominic Monaghan. Quantum Break offers 13 hours of gameplay.

Great, fun experience of a game with a pretty entertaining story and a solid cast. I felt lost as much as one would with a time travel story. I'm assuming that a huge chunk of the world-building was through the collectible intel and stuff, but that was a bit too much and the long, winding ones from random characters I found myself just collecting but skipping past.

The episodes were what initially turned me off from this when I first tried this a couple of years ago, but I regret that now that I picked this up again. At first, I thought I would have preferred to play those scenes out in game format, much like how we played as Serene in the Junction chapters, but during the second episode, I realized that it was enjoyable as is. There's nothing quite like witnessing the thrill of a twist in an uninterrupted episodic format (as long as it didn't stop to buffer, which it did for me in later parts, damn ISP).

But yeah, all in all a fun game. But WTF is that final battle, gods I have not cursed at a boss fight that much in so long.

Нет, ну какое же говно!

Тут всё сделано хуёво, прежде всего — игра. Как шутер это дико пресно: способности банальные, враги скучные и стандартные (обычные, юркие и бронированные), а оружие звучит и ощущается будто трещотка.

Сериал категории «С», который ничего не добавляет к истории, рассказывая о третьестепенных персонажах, на которых, естественно, наплевать. А ведь и кат-сцен в игре хватает.

И экспролинг: записки, море записок, их не только дофига, но они ещё и наполнены «водой»! Возможно сценаристам в «Remedy» платят за количество знаков. Иначе эту графоманию объяснить невозможно. Ну, ещё можно найти очки для прокачки способностей. Вот только возвращаться не дают.

В итоге выглядит прохождение этого высера выглядит примерно как: «Кат-сцена, блуждание по локации и чтение записок, перестрелка (короткая), блуждание и чтение, 20 минут сериала».

Если вырезать отсюда сериал и чтение записок (они бывают очень длинными), то игры останется часа на 4-5. А так всё это тянется часов 8-10. Причем сама история... скучная. Это обычная для жанра временная петля, да ещё и с намёком на продолжение. Я не удивлен, что эта херня провалилась. Здесь настолько сломан темп, будто бы специально старались.

P. S. А ещё в игре адово мыльная графика и мерзкое, слишком резкое освещение, постоянно перерастающее в пересветы.

My thoughts on Quantum Break are somewhat conflicted, but I want to start by saying this: The soundtrack is AWESOME!

This is a VERY standard and mediocre game. It's by no means bad, but it felt very bland. The gameplay is what kept me going, honestly. Despite being... well, normal, it's fun as hell! Using Joyce's powers is a joy, the shooting is a bit shallow but it still does the trick and deciding how the series will "change" is interesting. The writing isn't all that great, but the action moments and the actors manage to convince you to stay, towards the final acts.

The thing is, aside from that, everything is just 'OK'! The story is bad on the first 2 acts, picks up on the 3rd and gets pretty good on the 4th & 5th, but it's all just TOO bonkers, without actually trying to explain it to you, in a cohesive way. There are files and audio logs spread around areas, but it's TOO MUCH reading and, quite frankly, it's all very uneventful and boring. In the beginning, the series' parts were weird, as if it didn't know what it wants to be. Some events happened out of nowhere and the whole time travel thing seemed empty. Things take too long to happen and when it does, it's too late. Also the game has some pacing issues. It seems unsynced and unconnected, sometimes. At times, it felt a bit buggy. It lacks challenge and checkpoints were badly done.

Despite the hollow identity crisis that Quantum Break suffers from, gameplay is still really fun and characters are actually well portrayed. I won't recommend it, but if you have Game Pass, try it out! Just don't expect anything beyond an standard experience.

Gameplay: 3.5 /5 Story: 4 /5 Presentation: 4 /5 Difficulty: 1 / 5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Interesting story and game mechanics. The concept of the story was interesting and unique. I like that you are able to pick different paths to progress the story and how that affects the game as well as the SPOILER mini-series within the game. It was kind of funny as I felt more into the game whenever a live-action segment started. That was a unique form of storytelling I haven't seen used in games yet. The voice acting and mocap acting was very well done. Not a ton of companies pull off mocap well, but I caught myself at times not making a disconnect from the characters in the game vs in real life. It's a short and engaging experience.

Quantum Break is a sci-fi third-person action-adventure game. Was exclusive to Xbone but good thing it came out on Windows 10 as well as I love Remedy Entertainment and wanted to play their next game. Finally got around to it.

The time-related story was interesting and I got more into it, later on, but at the same time, it felt disjointed and I never got HOOKED like I wanted to. Monarch never became as interesting of a company the game wanted you to believe. The long TV Series episodes mostly dedicated to Monarch and their inner workings were just too long and always broke the flow, even if some stuff in them was nice. Also, LONG ASS emails are in no way a fun way to spread out the story in a level. It was tedious and a super lazy way to do it. Most of the characters...I didn't really care about them, even if the voice work was pretty much solid throughout the game. And the game just kinda ends in a rushed way giving you somewhat of a sequel bait, which was annoying, to say the least.

The combat/gunplay on its own was kinda meh, with a wonky cover system. But with time powers, chaining your attacks and feeling like a superhero, it was quite fun. And a lot of it has to do with the beautiful presentation of anything related to time. Temporal and Spatial graphical distortions giving you awesome trippy visuals, the sound effects, the seamless integration with the levels, it was just amazing to experience all that when everything came together perfectly. Also, the A.I was aggressive, constantly forcing you to move, which made the fights more adrenaline-fueled, especially when there are several enemy types attacking you all at once, even if it was easy (played it on Normal). Unfortunately, without much depth in customization and little variation in combat scenarios, it gets repetitive quickly, and the game doesn't do much to change that.

Graphically, time stuff was amazing as already mentioned, and some of the environments/levels were nicely detailed, giving you a proper 'lived in' feel. But the animations needed more refinements, and the cuts between in-game cutscenes were often jarring and abrupt with some texture pop-in. Shadow filtering was also wasn't quite right. And the game's built-in upscaler gave it a soft feel overall. All these things kept it from a thorough clean and clear presentation visually, which sucks cause the game can be a looker at times.

I wanted to love this game but it just wouldn't let me with its inconsistencies. Remedy tried an ambitious approach, and while I applaud them for that, but it wasn't a full hit. With a few tweaks and some changes, the game could have been a GREAT ONE, it definitely had the potential.

Overall, I liked it despite its flaws, and if I were to give it a rating, it would probably be 7/10.

Great game! Very enjoyable, rich story, beautiful graphics, good 3rd person action shooter with some time lapse/bullet time mechanics, funny powers and very nice live action serie following and improving the storytelling.

Remedy has a good achievements with me, personaly. I am a huge fan of max payne and some of this game gave me some payne's taste. Story, charisma of entire casting, good acting and also voice acting exceeded my expectations for this game. However take a note: the physics, interation of Jack with enviroment and the some repetitive mechanics could make the game tiresome, in my opinion.

Great graphics.
Beautifuls effects (a bit repetitive, and too much like "I am the bad guy so I have red effects", time don't make difference between good and evil it's a fuking physical law).

A lot of attention in details of the maps.

But

Classical story with just a magic "we fixed time" at the end and a "the 2 is coming"

Basically a walking simulator with ennemies.

With the videos the life time is good but you will realize that you played 3 hours at the end.

No real time powers (like rewind etc...) instead of this just time shield (???) time bomb (???) and some pretty cool like time walk (the best).


Conclusion

Good game that clearly doesnt worth 70$ if you are a pirate go for it or if you find a sale you will have a good time, but I really think this time can't be very good if you think during gameplay how much you payed those videos.

PS: ofc there is others events line you can explore but at the end I just not wanted to try, not funny to redo all the story with just 4 choices different to make.

Quantum Break

Playtime - 8hs 48 mins
Completion - 97%

Is it a game or is it a TV show?

As it happens it is a bit of both.

The lastest game from Remedy is a paradox in more ways than one. It is a third-person cover shooter Where you play as Jack Joyce (Shawn Ashmore - Xmen) who gets caught up in a time travel adventure where you are trying to stop the “END OF ALL TIME”.

While visiting your brothers old friend you decide to help him out with a science experiment. Of course it goes wrong and *Kablooey* time is fractured and you seem to have developed some new time powers.

The game part is pretty standard cover shooter mechanic, but the time powers allow you to do a lot of cool things with the word time slapped on the front of it. Things like Time dodge (short sprint to avoid bullets), Time Stop (freeze an enemy in a time bubble and shoot it a lot so they get hit with them all at once when it unfreezes), Time Blast (basically an explosion of time ???), Time shield (blocks bullets), Time Vision (basically Detective Vision from Batman)....oh you get the idea.

So combining these powers with the range of weapons you get can make for some fun combat, if a tad easy. On normal level this game is a cake walk.

The TV part.. well at the end of each act there is a short interlude where you play as the bad guy. This ends in a binary choice of how he is gong to respond to what you have been doing in the main game parts. It then is followed by 20-25 mins of a TV show which you just sit and watch. It is an interesting idea, but it breaks up the game play more than a Kojima game. It does flesh out a couple of throwaway side characters as the main actors barely appear in it, but in the end it has no bearing on the storyline. There are some minor things you do in the game that lead to slight changes in the show, but blink and you will miss the mention of that item you interacted with being talked about.

Pros

* I give them credit for trying something new with the TV show aspect.
* The combat and powers can be fun to use, but I wish they could be combined more.
* The graphics are great.
* I do enjoy a good time story and this one was ok. Gets a bit timmey whimmey head hurts occassionally.
* Acting is generally decent with a number of the actors being faces I had seen before.
* Puzzles were ok but could have done with some more.

Cons

* Movement is a bit swimmey. There is a slowness and awkwardness to the character movement that can be frustrating.
* The cover mechanics and shooting are very hit and miss. There is no cover lock, it is automatic. Stand near cover and he auto moves ito position. Then stands up like an idiot to shoot. No blind fire at all…weird. Guns also lock onto target, but frequently taget the wrong thing or just plain miss.
* The platform sequences are hideous.
* Combat is waaay too easy on normal level.
* TV show is streamed so make sure your connection is fast enough otherwise you will have to download about 75 GB of video. (mine was ok for the most part)

Overall it’s not a complete disaster, but neither does it completely work. Neither the game nor the TV show stands out for me and it ends up all being a bit middle of the road.

3/5