I was looking for a different kind of games than the usual JRPG I’ve been playing. I needed a breath of fresh air. I tried out games like Dynasty Warriors 8 XL, Hitman 2016, AC IV Black Flag, and Watch dogs 2. Nothing really stuck, I was about to give up and go back to my comfort zone that is JRPG. But then I found Quantum Break.
First of all, the game looks fantastic. The faces are really expressive, the environment looks pretty, especially when we’re in a time stutter, the animation and color do feel like time actually broke. That being said, sometimes the animation of the time power is too flashy and makes it awkward for you to see what is actually going on.
Quantum Break had a pretty interesting theme with its time travel gimmick, but so did all the previous games I mentioned. So I didn’t expect much when I got to it. In fact, I nearly dropped it in the first hour because of the rather generic start.
The game starts with Jack Joyce, our main Protagonist, being called by Paul Serene, his best friend, and soon-to-be main antagonist, to help with activating his project, a time machine.
However, William Joyce, Jack’s older brother, the other engineer that also worked on the time machine was very confident that the time machine had the wrong calculation and if activated, would go very wrong.
Despite William’s warnings, Paul activated the time machine. And it worked! He managed to travel 2 minutes into the past. Just when they wanted to try going to the future, William arrived with a gun in his hand. Gun on his head, Jack tried to calm his brother, but Paul got stuck in the time machine, and the fracture in time had already happened, Time was broken. Meanwhile, a fully armed squad was raiding the place.
Jack and William tried to run while Paul was looking for a way out from inside the time machine. Jack found out he got superpowers to manipulate time, and with the power and Jack’s experience with firearms, they forced their way through against squads of trained soldiers, heading to William’s car in the parking garage to retrieve a tool which William said will be able to fix the fracture, until Future Paul made an entrance and killed William.
We spent the rest of the game playing as Jack trying to fix the fracture with the help of Beth Wilder. There are 6 Acts in total, including the prologue. After each Arc, we got to control
Paul Serene and make a decision on which path to take in-game. These decisions affect the game greatly, changing NPC dialogue, collectibles, who lives and dies, and even the cutscenes.
Speaking of cutscenes, every time we make a decision as Paul, we are given a whole 20~ minutes live action cutscenes, fully acted by real actors such as Shawn Ashmore (Robby from Xmen), and even Aidan Gillen (Peter Baelish from Game Of Thrones).
These live action cutscenes are very well acted and surprisingly emotional, and they give a much-needed insight into what our enemies were doing while Jack Joyce was creating chaos in their ranks. And although I was surprised when I first saw it, I think they pulled it off pretty well.
My problem with it is how they break the flow of the game too much. We’re playing a game, we’re having our adrenaline riled up, we got to the end of an Act/Chapter, we’re excited to continue to the next one, then we’re expected to sit still and watch 20 minutes live action scenes. It’s not like you can really skip them either because they’re very important.
There are a lot more things that also disrupts the flow of the game. When we’re not shooting people with cool superpowers and walking through halls, we’re either solving small exploration puzzles or reading collectibles from phones, emails, or radios that got left behind. Now don’t get me wrong, these are very entertaining to read/listen to, it’s also a cool way to
build the world. But boy they are LONG, and there are LOTS of them. You can easily spend 5 minutes reading a single one, now imagine if there are around 200 of them. These are the kind of things that break immersion.
While there are lots of flaws with the way the stories are told, the game still has intricate plot mysteries and amazing world building that makes it better than most games like it. While it is a shame that the ending is the same no matter our choices are, I still like how each routes plays out and how much they contrast, adding replay value to this game.
Now, the characters. They are the main reason why I finished the game. Most of them has a very simple motivation that’s easy to relate and shown through their action in the game, and Im gonna talk about some of the more interesting ones in details.
SPOILER ALERT
Liam Burke.
The Boss himself.
Liam. Burke. This guy, is a BOSS. He got shot in the chest and, without receiving medical help, fought through dozens of trained soldiers and assassins for the whole night, all to protect his family. He’d even go against what he believed in the beginning just to make sure that his family is safe. No matter what though, this guy is a force to be reckoned with, and I was very excited to fight him as a boss at a later part of the game.
Jack Joyce
Jack is kinda in a weird place. I like him in every scene he was in, the way he was still able to crack jokes even in his situation, and the way he cares for Beth. But he’s really the most undeveloped character in this game. He mentions that he’s familiar with guns, this implies that he has been involved in some dark and deep conflicts in the past. I thought this would be a foreshadowing for character development. But no, it’s a random line to justify why Jack can fight through dozens of trained soldiers.
There really is not much to him, even when he found personal motivation in the game it feels unmerited.
Paul Serene
Paul was an interesting character. We see him at the beginning of the game as this ambitious and driven young man but turn into a ruthless character who would even sacrifice his best friends to complete his plan. It really makes us wonder what happened to him after the first time he used the time machine. It’s also interesting to see his breakdown and his organization as the game progresses.
Beth Wilder
My favorite character. Her story is such a sad one. When she was 8 years old(the year 1999), she was approached by a woman who’s actually the older version of her and she was handed a notebook, detailing not only what will happen from then on, but also how she will react to it. And that’s it, her life was over from then on, she no longer had a choice, her fate was already written.
The notebook even had an entry about 9/11, and how she will try to stop it, but it was useless. Fate can’t be changed, no matter how hard she tries. Can you imagine being 10 years old and knowing that a major terrorist attack will happen and despite your best effort, thousands of people still die? I’d probably break and be depressed. It amazes me how she still had hope to stop the end of time 10 years later. Until she saw the End of Time.
Beth Wilder got send off to the future, the End of Time by mistake. She somehow managed to
send herself back to 1999, where we managed to meet her, but she had lost all hope, she was depressed. It makes us even more curious what happened during the End of Time, and at the same time, also makes us more sympathetic to Paul, as we were left to wonder what the damn hell happened?
Martin Hatch
I’m on to you Hatch! I’ve always known you are one sly bastard. This guy has always been an enigma from the moment he appeared on the screen. He appears to be capable, charismatic, and loyal to Paul, but several of his actions questions his loyalty. Anyway, his twist at the end of the game was quite surprising to me, and I’m looking forward to his appearance in the possible sequel.
Charlie Wincott
Chuck you snake! This game would honestly be over in 2-3 hours if you just happen to be sick during that week. He is cocky, selfish, petty, and a coward. He would do anything so he alone would live to see another day. His personality, paired with his communication problem, led him to suffer from loneliness. Despite this though, Charlie remains one of my favorite characters, because I can actually relate to part of him, he’s actually the character that feels the most “real”.
Most of his actions, while “unheroic”, are done with the intention of survival. Reporting that Liam Burke is a traitor, getting to the good side of Hatch, doing everything he can to secure a spot in the Lifeboat Protocol, all are done with the intention to survive. I’m pretty sure most people in his situation would do the same.
And then when he arrived in the Lifeboat, realizing that he was all alone in that wide place, he decided to step up and become a hero, losing his life in the process. Charlie, you are a hero.
SPOILER OVER
The gameplay is a simple action cover-based shooter, you hide behind cover, you take aim, and you try to get a headshot if you have a brain, but this time with a twist. You got a time superpower! you can “fast-forward” yourself, allowing you to move faster and dodge projectiles, you can freeze enemy and stack all of your bullets and the damage will all come at once after the duration runs out, and few more other powers. The time powers, combined with enemy AI that doesn’t allow you to merely hide behind cover provides a very exciting fast paced action game. As the game goes on, you encounter enemies that can also use the time power with the help of some science machine, and boy are they a pleasure to fight against.
It took me around 10 hours to complete the whole game, and I enjoyed every single moment of it. The astounding visual, captivating gameplay and very relatable characters makes Quantum Break quite a wondrous experience.
Personal Rating: 8.5/10 – Looking forward to the sequel.
Not-So-Civil Review of Video Games That I Play 