Calum Petrie gets hands on with Quantum Break…
During the week I was lucky enough to get hands on with the latest creation from the great development team at Remedy Games. Quantum Break is a third person shooter with an extremely interesting twist on the cover based shooter model, thrown in with impressive motion capture and mind bending visual effects; Quantum Break is the game that Xbox gamers have been missing from their lists.
Quantum Break uses the concept of time at its core to use as the story telling technique, the player’s unnatural abilities and also the big bad at the end of the game. They have used the simple concept of time and broken it down into a seen how far they can stretch and shape it into their vision.
The cast in this game has characters we know on screen from X-Men films (Shawn Ashmore), Lord of the Rings (Dominic Monaghan), Game of Thrones (Aiden Gillen) and even Fringe (Lance Reddick). The actors bring a lot to their in game performances, which do reflect in game and has players controlling characters who they are familiar with in some shape or form.
The cinematic style of the game was coupled perfectly with the opening chapter of the game I managed to play at the event. The game has been split into five different chapters that the player will directly be involved in, between chapters there are live action Junctions (almost like TV episodes) which are used to delivers the other side of the story which you do not play.
While playing through the game you can interact with certain objects or elements that will cause a Quantum Ripple that has a direct impact and changes the Junctions between episodes. This is also a testament to the branching story of the game, the re-shooting of footage to insert into the game must have been an undertaking itself and then not to mention the impact the game has on the story throughout the game. I believe Ripple was the best term to use in the game.
The gameplay is something of note as well, though the games action does basically start you off as a cover based shooter. By the time when the first chapter ends players will have unlocked at least four of their time abilities which can be used to dominate the battle field in the early stages of the game. The mechanics in the game are very strong, the controls are extremely responsive and the game has a very tight knit feeling when it comes to character movement.
The level design for combat zones is never a narrow or enclosed space, the player has been given a substantial amount of space to manoeuvre and learn how to use time as an ally. The abilities I have gained allowed me to mark enemies in the immediate vicinity and watch how they were moving; another ability let me create a pocket of frozen time which can hold enemies at bay while you tackle another pincer group. Time dodge was my favourite ability as it allows players to quickly dash (sometimes known as Blink in other games), timed with a well place aim at the end extended the slow motion duration allowing me to line up some perfect head shots. Last but not least we had Time Wall, this is a massive barricade of frozen time that stops bullets hitting the player and creating a temporary shield. Once your abilities have been familiarised players can develop their own unique play style of the game and the actions provided from these abilities are what makes the game fun and fresh feeling.
The game was running on a number of Xbox One consoles at the event and there were a few PC builds of the game. The announcement was made a few weeks ago that the game was no longer going to be an Xbox One exclusive but rather support cloud sharing saves with Windows 10. I was playing the game on a PC development build where it ran exactly as it looked on the Xbox One, though Remedy staff at the event assured us they were pushing for sixty frames per second and 4K definition on the Windows 10 build.
The current offer on Xbox that if you pre-order Quantum Break you will receive the Windows 10 version for free, not only that but they will give you a free copy of Remedy Games previous title Alan Wake (along with both game DLC and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare) for free. This is a massive game bundle and a lot of story driven games for the price of just one game alone. I see this as a mark of customer satisfaction and a testament to how the developer has the customer in mind when marketing the game.
I have had my curiosity piqued and I know for a fact I am looking forward to getting my hands on this game when it is released April 5th.
Calum Petrie – Follow me on Twitter
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