Quantum Break Review (XB1)

  Quantum Break is a pretty game. Not quite “photo realistic”, there's a definite look to the game that's consistent and technically sound. There's a mix of convincingly dirty cityscapes and clinically sterile corporate offices, and the recognizable real world actors are... well, recognizable. It's a game about time travel and the end of time itself, so there's plenty of artistic interpretation of what rips in the fabric of time would look like as alternate timelines collide with each other. Jack Joyce, the main protagonist, is given time-altering powers from the start more or less, so there's plenty of fun with physics and tech demo levels of interaction with enemies and the environments. Fortunately, Quantum Break doesn't hang it's hat on graphics alone to deliver a shallow actual tech demo, instead opting for a narrative heavy, highly polished full game that presents the player with multiple options to affect the story and gameplay. The whole package is supplemented by four twenty minute live action cutscenes presented as television episodes. If that sounds dumb, I'll surprise you by stating these FMV productions are actually of above average quality even by modern cable TV standards. The game itself, however, is below average and I'm reviewing the game as a whole. It's not great.

  Time travel stories can get real messy, real quick. With potential paradoxes, plot holes, and the need to explain the theoretical science while avoiding bogging down the more interesting narrative, it's a tough genre to do right. Quantum Break doesn't seem to know how to approach the potential pitfalls; it's kind of tounge-in-cheek at times, seeming to throw it's hands up and concede to being corny sci-fi pulp. It over explains it's science, throwing out multiple acronyms for the same devices and over complicating simple concepts as if to excuse some space magic. It dabbles in some cultish parallels, setting up the main villain as a time traveling prophet but not committing to the arc. Early in the game you power up a time machine and it's pretty nifty, then the game has you doing the same process multiple times on different machines and it just gets old. The cast of characters is large and the perspective and focus is constantly shifting, so the story is spread so thin you don't end up caring about any of them, including Jack Joyce. The main plot points aren't that intricate or complicated, but the game does indeed turn into a mess.

  Most of the core action in Quantum Break is standard third person shooting, with some time powers taking center stage as the main hook. You start out with a bubble projectile that freezes time within, making for some spectacular setups where you can fire a shit ton of bullets into an affected enemy then watch him get torn to shreds when the bubble collapses. There's also a defensive version where a protective shield surrounds you, absorbing fire and allowing you to regenerate your health. If you charge your shot you project a bomb that can do serious damage to groups. For mobility, you have a quick dash that can trigger slow motion bullet time afterward, and a sustained version where you essentially run super fast. All of these powers are on individual cooldowns, so the flow of combat boils down to spamming whatever's handy until everybody dies. A few enemy types mix things up in minor ways, like soldiers with some of your abilities, backpack wearers that mute your powers, or shotgun/minigun heavies that are basically bullet sponges. When you're zipping around the arenas popping off powers and sending lifeless enemies spiraling into the atmosphere it's really enjoyable. It's too bad any meaningful, memorable encounters are so few and far between, and your abilities are never really challenged in true puzzle-like fashion. Most of the flashy moves are fairly interchangeable, and it turns into a spam fest with no real tactics involved.

  It's tough to even categorize Quantum Break as a straight action game when it has so little action. Most of the playtime is spent walking around while other characters talk to you, opening doors or solving easy puzzles for them, or picking up collectibles to flesh out the story. And Quantum Break is just fucking rotten with collectibles. You can ping areas with your “time vision” to spot highlighted objects (as is the trend...) which can be “narrative objects” (random shit), radio broadcasts, TV shows, e-mails, quantum ripples that effect the cutscenes in small ways, or upgrade points to increase your powers. These things are fucking everywhere, and they completely kill the pace of the game. There's nothing worse than playing a game where you have to stand still for several minutes at a time, watching a TV show or listening to the radio (which is not interesting), or reading a novella worth of text. More often than not there are secondary characters you're following, and boy are they quick to repeat the same lines over and over while you're trying to read an e-mail. “Come on”, “This way!”, “We need to hurry up!”.... How about go fuck yourself? Fucking obnoxious shit. This should not exist in modern games. Either pause the game when there's something to read or watch (you know... in this game about stopping time...), or better yet... don't have a million fucking collectibles in your narrative/action game. It's a shitty way to tell a story. Why didn't you put this shit in the live action cutscenes? Fuck... Granted, they're “optional”... but some of them are pretty fucking important to the story, while others are incredibly long winded and redundant. Then some are jokes that may or may not hit. You just don't know, so you end up staring at walls of text. At one point I was in an office building with probably a dozen rooms open, one after the other, and each room had two fucking long ass e-mail chains to read through... one after the fucking other... Fuck that shit. It sucks.

  The game is just all over the place. It doesn't know where it's strengths lie (hint: the half dozen action scenes are pretty cool...) so the end result is scattered on the floor. Counterintuitively, the TV “episodes” are the most consistently entertaining aspect. They're well written, competently acted, and they're so well produced that I received a warning for streaming them because a Hitbox moderator was convinced I was re-broadcasting an actual television show. It's a shame that Quantum Break: The Show has very little to do with Quantum Break: The Game. The episodes focus primarily on a group of secondary characters, acting out their own storylines that barely connect with the game proper. They'll pop up in-game for a brief second or two, like, “Hey, remember that hit show you watched?”, but they have very little actual impact. It's perplexing why there isn't a bigger crossover between the two mediums, or why they didn't just take the live action bits and use them to tell a more cohesive, focused story.

  Quantum Break is a mediocre game that's bogged down in some real bullshit. It's an action game without enough action, a narrative game that spins it's wheels, and a collect-a-thon that shouldn't exist. I would say that the best way to play it would be to skip any secondary distractions and check out some cool time powers, but it would be quite anemic in that case. To top things off: the first instance of platforming in the game (where you're allowed to jump) resulted in my character glitching out, stuck in a falling animation inches above the ground. Then when I got to the end of the game, debating whether to replay it to see what the branching paths offered, I was treated to a bullshit cliffhanger ending trying to set up a sequel or DLC, leaving plenty of loose threads hanging in time and space. No.