The game is amazing, but its pacing is completely disrupted by a TV show inserted between chapters. Thankfully it's not 100% need to have a full picture for the story.
I'm gonna keep this short-er, which is extremely unlikely for me.
I bought this game on sale, after playing Control, which I reviewed and found great.
Quantum Break is a game that to me, especially after Control, has not shown to have a very strong identity. While the game does a lot, and well, it also has some not-so-great moments. The gameplay is absolutely fun, and using time-related powers is just awesome. At the same time sometimes the game limits your movements arbitrarily and for no real reason. This kills the gameplay flow compared to something like Control, where the map is your playground. It changes camera position and gameplay speed out of nowhere, and it's usually just to have the characters slowly walking and talking, which might as well be a cutscene at that point.
Talking of gameplay flow, after each act of the game, you should sit down and see a live-action show they shot with the actors from the game. The cast is just wonderful, and one of the actresses is actually in Control! It progresses the story while offering more details and a different point of view before continuing to the next chapter with the main character.
It's a nice idea, and it means that you play half the story and watch the other half, but in a game that already struggles to make me fully enjoy its gameplay, movement, and combat system for more than 10m at a time, having to just sit in front of the PC watching a 30/40m video to understand the whole story is not necessarily what I expected when I started this completely blind. It's a nice idea, but I would have rather have a slightly longer/detailed game, standalone, and a better show that was hosted on Netflix or even on Microsoft Store for free: both standalone but connected. This is especially true considering they are quite separated, for example, in the game you meet this character called Burke, but you get to see him twice in the game because he's mostly one of the show's characters.
This is why I find it absurd not to develop both ideas more to get a better end result: a full game and a full show that together complete each other without neither being forced on the player. A bit like Final Fantasy's XV Kingsglaive, which is a separate movie that then connects to one of the DLCs, but it doesn't force you into a 2h movie while playing - not the best example, I am aware.
Another thing I didn't appreciate about the show is that it's only possible to stream it on Steam, while on Microsoft Store it can be downloaded separately for offline play, which is even worse than a DRM. The show is high resolution and it requires a lot of bandwidth to stream it, if you don't have a strong internet connection or don't have it all you won't be able to experience the whole game. Most importantly, though, is that if Remedy servers close and they don't let us stream this - massive - 75GB show anymore, this paid licensed version of the game is worse than a pirated one.
In conclusion, it's not a bad game, especially if you're into heavy narrative titles as I am. Gameplay, when allowed, it's really fun and I would suggest it. It's a cool idea, but it's the execution that is lacking for me.
Hopefully, there will be a sequel!
5/10,
I bought this game on sale, after playing Control, which I reviewed and found great.
Quantum Break is a game that to me, especially after Control, has not shown to have a very strong identity. While the game does a lot, and well, it also has some not-so-great moments. The gameplay is absolutely fun, and using time-related powers is just awesome. At the same time sometimes the game limits your movements arbitrarily and for no real reason. This kills the gameplay flow compared to something like Control, where the map is your playground. It changes camera position and gameplay speed out of nowhere, and it's usually just to have the characters slowly walking and talking, which might as well be a cutscene at that point.
Talking of gameplay flow, after each act of the game, you should sit down and see a live-action show they shot with the actors from the game. The cast is just wonderful, and one of the actresses is actually in Control! It progresses the story while offering more details and a different point of view before continuing to the next chapter with the main character.
It's a nice idea, and it means that you play half the story and watch the other half, but in a game that already struggles to make me fully enjoy its gameplay, movement, and combat system for more than 10m at a time, having to just sit in front of the PC watching a 30/40m video to understand the whole story is not necessarily what I expected when I started this completely blind. It's a nice idea, but I would have rather have a slightly longer/detailed game, standalone, and a better show that was hosted on Netflix or even on Microsoft Store for free: both standalone but connected. This is especially true considering they are quite separated, for example, in the game you meet this character called Burke, but you get to see him twice in the game because he's mostly one of the show's characters.
This is why I find it absurd not to develop both ideas more to get a better end result: a full game and a full show that together complete each other without neither being forced on the player. A bit like Final Fantasy's XV Kingsglaive, which is a separate movie that then connects to one of the DLCs, but it doesn't force you into a 2h movie while playing - not the best example, I am aware.
Another thing I didn't appreciate about the show is that it's only possible to stream it on Steam, while on Microsoft Store it can be downloaded separately for offline play, which is even worse than a DRM. The show is high resolution and it requires a lot of bandwidth to stream it, if you don't have a strong internet connection or don't have it all you won't be able to experience the whole game. Most importantly, though, is that if Remedy servers close and they don't let us stream this - massive - 75GB show anymore, this paid licensed version of the game is worse than a pirated one.
In conclusion, it's not a bad game, especially if you're into heavy narrative titles as I am. Gameplay, when allowed, it's really fun and I would suggest it. It's a cool idea, but it's the execution that is lacking for me.
Hopefully, there will be a sequel!
5/10,
An always-online singleplayer game that suffers from nearly every symptom of early 2010's "cinematic game design". Scripted, linear, animation-centric, sluggish and unresponsive. With unacceptable checkpoint design and ridiculous loading times even on very fast hardware. Half the story is conveyed via TV show episodes that are streamed from external servers instead of installed locally, and half the exposition of the rest is delivered via incessant overly verbose text-only readables. The only person I can recommend this to is a Sam Lake super-fan, and even then I advise only to watch a playthrough. It's not worth being an interactive product. Also, the day those servers go down, you will lose half of what you paid for.
I bet many players uninstalled in Act 4 part 1. A puzzle with multiple consecutive insta-death timing challenges, and a single failure sends you back before two ladder climbs, two walking sections, four cutscenes and an entire miniboss fight. It's obvious that the checkpoints didn't go through a single second of QA.
I bet many players uninstalled in Act 4 part 1. A puzzle with multiple consecutive insta-death timing challenges, and a single failure sends you back before two ladder climbs, two walking sections, four cutscenes and an entire miniboss fight. It's obvious that the checkpoints didn't go through a single second of QA.
- Interesting game it sadly just feel like wasted potential where the game parts feel too little but at the same feel too long at the same time.
- The show/game dynamic is interesting but sadly does not really hit with the intended desire.
- The game itself is sadly just mediocre.
- The show/game dynamic is interesting but sadly does not really hit with the intended desire.
- The game itself is sadly just mediocre.
"Unable to stream".
Online only cutscenes? What were they smoking. I'm even connected to the internet, it just doesn't work.
Online only cutscenes? What were they smoking. I'm even connected to the internet, it just doesn't work.
Quantum Break es un juego con una trama magnífica que te tiene enganchado de principio a fin y que va escalando apropiadamente.
Eso sí, como suele pasar con los juegos de Remedy y del universo de Remedy (sí, vale, no tienen los derechos, pero me han dicho que referenciarán a Quantum Break más adelante. Así que es como si formará parte del universo de Remedy) si no lees las notas y cosas interactuables del escenario, te pierdes parte de la trama.
Por suerte, yo ya lo sabía y me lo he leído todo.
Por desgracia, el gameplay no me ha acabado de convencer del todo y no le habría venido mal que lo hubieran pulido un poco.
Sin entrar en spoilers, habría estado bien que el final boss hubiera estado mejor trabajado, ya que la forma para derrotarlo se puede complicar y, a veces, puede ser injusta.
Por otro lado, me ha gustado el formato televisivo y no me habría disgustado que hubieran adaptado el juego a formato serie.
En resumen, el juego me ha encantado por su trama, las decisiones, el toque televisivo, algunos giros y demás, aunque tiene puntos mejorables como el gameplay.
Eso sí, como suele pasar con los juegos de Remedy y del universo de Remedy (sí, vale, no tienen los derechos, pero me han dicho que referenciarán a Quantum Break más adelante. Así que es como si formará parte del universo de Remedy) si no lees las notas y cosas interactuables del escenario, te pierdes parte de la trama.
Por suerte, yo ya lo sabía y me lo he leído todo.
Por desgracia, el gameplay no me ha acabado de convencer del todo y no le habría venido mal que lo hubieran pulido un poco.
Sin entrar en spoilers, habría estado bien que el final boss hubiera estado mejor trabajado, ya que la forma para derrotarlo se puede complicar y, a veces, puede ser injusta.
Por otro lado, me ha gustado el formato televisivo y no me habría disgustado que hubieran adaptado el juego a formato serie.
En resumen, el juego me ha encantado por su trama, las decisiones, el toque televisivo, algunos giros y demás, aunque tiene puntos mejorables como el gameplay.
Kind of boring, kind of interesting. Very flat characters. A time travel story that seems to actually make sense somehow. I'm not a huge fan of 'choices have consequences' game narratives. Maybe get it if it's on sale? I only played it to complete my Remedy catalogue.
Still, my instinct is to go easy on this game in terms of criticism. I found the story forgettable, but you can see the way that Remedy was experimenting with live action and more ambitious storytelling here, something that seemed to really pay off in Control and even more so in Alan Wake II.
Still, my instinct is to go easy on this game in terms of criticism. I found the story forgettable, but you can see the way that Remedy was experimenting with live action and more ambitious storytelling here, something that seemed to really pay off in Control and even more so in Alan Wake II.