Breakdown – XB – Review

If you‘re an old-school
gamers–such as myself–you might recall a side-scrolling first-person arcade
brawler called The Super Spy that was not only innovative but pretty fun as
well.  While the demand for first-person fighting games took a backseat to the
much loved first-person shooter, gamers couldn’t help but cheer the news that
Namco has decided to revive a brawling game that is seen through the character’s
eyes.  Breakdown is here to offer gamers something completely different–and
there’s definitely nothing wrong with something different.  Yet is this
groundbreaking game design enough to breathe new life into the genre or is this
a novelty that will wear out pretty quickly in the game?  If you like glowing
fists and genetic monstrosities, please read on.

Breakdown is the story of
Derrick Cole who wakes up in a testing facility in Yokohama, Japan with no
memory of who he is, what he’s doing in a lab or what lead to him being in a
coma.  All he can remember is a top military official telling him that he’s
their last chance to save humanity.  Through his eyes, we see a mysterious young
woman named Alex Hendrickson simply appear before him out of thin air and help
him escape the lab as all hell breaks loose.  We also witness unusual
occurrences that befall Cole during his escape, making him question his sense of
reality.  And when his right fist begins to glow and pack a powerful blow, he
soon discovers that he might have been a test subject for a program designed to
make genetically altered super soldiers.  Suddenly Cole and Hendrickson find
themselves fighting for survival and for the truth behind the experiments.

Control-wise, Cole moves
around the environment somewhat more awkwardly than most games with first-person
view.  For one thing, Cole can look at his legs and feet and, in order to tell
if you’re crouching, you can take a peek at your shadow.  Cole has the ability
to crawl on his stomach so he can squeeze into some really tight spaces. 
However, this game is about action and fistfights and the controls handle them
quite well.  Cole can even block blows and send a hard uppercut.  He can also
mix a few punches for effective combos and even end a combo with a well-placed
kick.  As a defensive move, he can roll to the left or right and even perform a
back flip (that will produce a disorienting view of the floor as you do it).  To
keep this from being a simple brawler, Cole can even pick up and use firearms
such as handguns, submachine guns and even fragment grenades.

Cole goes up against armed
soldiers who come with heavy firepower and genetically mutated soldiers that are
known as T’Lan warriors.  The T’Lan warriors possess powers that make them
immune to bullets thanks to a powerful defense shield and they pack an inhuman
punch that can damage you quicker than you can raise a fist.  This makes for a
challenging encounter and the perfect excuse to put your gun away and start
delivering knuckle sandwiches.  If you’re running low on health, Cole turns to
fast food as a source of health.  Ah, nothing like a good hamburger to get your
energy up and running again.

While this technically
sounds great, the game isn’t as perfect as it seems.  For starters, the
countless enemies you’ll encounter throughout the game suffer from weak AI. 
Because you are forced to fight one enemy at a time, your opponents can’t quite
decide who should fight you first . . . that is, until you target a specific
enemy.  While you fight your first opponent, the second walks around and waits
his turn as you battle his companion.  And your enemy also has an unfair
advantage over you–once they knock you down on your behind, they unmercifully
and immediately give you no chance to dust yourself off and defend yourself.  At
one point in the game while I fought a T’Lan warrior, I was tossed to the ground
only to find myself getting killed instantly the very second I got back up
again.  Other times, when you’re up against three opponents in the same area,
they can attack all at once and send punches your way at the exact same time. 
Talk about overkill.

The game is also quite
repetitive.  Often times you’ll be performing the same type of task that
requires you to look around for a key card that opens up the next area or find
the quickest route out of a place.  Your friend Alex doesn’t even bother helping
you out.  Of all the skirmishes with patrols of enemy soldiers, I counted the
number of times she raised her gun or drew her knife and started to wonder why
she’s even around.  All is not, bad, though; Breakdown has several satisfying
moments.  For instance, Cole discovers early in the game that he has a unique
gift that comes in the form of his glowing right fist.  He can send powerful
punches and even a shockwave attack that will have you forgetting the fact that
he has a gun.  He can even block bullets, a trick that just looks too cool for
words.  And Cole’s final confrontation with main villain Solus makes for the
best showdown since the Final Fantasy VII crew took down bad boy Sephiroth.

For a game with a
first-person perspective, Breakdown surprisingly doesn’t quite dazzle the way
that it should.  To begin with the game’s best graphics quality is the character
design and it is beautifully detailed to the point that you can practically see
character’s hair move or see them wrinkle their noses when they make some kind
of facial expression.  Even Cole’s hands and fingers are wonderfully detailed. 
However, the game’s environments, especially those involving laboratories, are
extremely sterile and considerably dull.  Many times you’ll find yourself
surrounded by interesting and bizarre backgrounds, but there are more plain
looking ones than interesting ones.  The visual effects, though, is where the
game really shines.  Your glowing fist looks amazing and the T’Lan warriors’
defense shields are simply dazzling.

The sound fairs far better
than the game’s visuals seeing as the sound detail, score and voice acting are
nicely done.  The game’s score is very dramatic and wonderfully melodic in all
the right places.  It’s so good, in fact, that gamers can even listen to it by
accessing a music player in the Extras menu.  The voice acting is also nicely
done and the majority of the voice actors never overdo their performances.  But
it’s the sound effects in the game that make this a very auditory experience and
listening to the sharp bang of your pistol just does wonders for the realism
factor.

Breakdown is a poorly
executed game with an original concept that is held back by its repetitive
action and uninteresting world.  This is highly unfortunate because Breakdown
also has many excellent qualities that should have been implemented more
throughout the game.  There is still some fun to be had in the game and gamers
should not miss playing it so I recommend this one highly as a weekend rental. 

Gameplay: 6.5
First-person brawling certainly
doesn’t get any better than this and with a satisfying collection of punching
combinations and defensive moves; fistfights are simply enjoyable experiences
with your unique fist.  However, the poor enemy AI and the awful targeting
system make fighting a one-at-a-time type of encounter.  Had you been able to
attack multiple enemies, the fights could have been more intense and far less
repetitive than having your next opponent walks around in circles waiting for
his turn to send a punch your way.  Or sometimes they attack you all at once,
all of them punching you at the exact same time, making things completely
unfair.

Graphics: 7.0
On the one hand, the game features
some attractive graphical details in the characters you’ll encounter as well as
the details of things such as your hand and the items you pick up and examine
(shades of Shenmue, only with far more detail).  But on the other hand, the
majority of the environments are stale and places such as labs become too ugly
to ignore.  While there are some very pretty exterior locations, they aren’t as
pretty as they should be.  Thankfully the visual effects work well and watching
explosions or the neat motion blur of your glowing fist makes up for the lack of
better backgrounds. 

Sound: 8.0
The dialogue, which was taken from
its original Japanese, is translated rather nicely here.  The game’s score is
also beautifully cinematic to the point that it changes in all the appropriate
moments scattered throughout the game.  Scripted events are treated with great
music but they are also treated with detailed sound effects.  At one point, an
enemy slams Cole against the wall and you can hear whatever was behind you break
and the heavy breathing of the opponent himself.  Gunfights also sound realistic
. . . enough that if you play this one with a good sound system and with the
volume up, your neighbors will probably call 911.

Difficulty: Hard
Even in the game’s normal setting,
the game is quite difficult . . . a little too unfairly difficult, I might add. 
There are times when Cole is asked to run from the enemy, but if for some reason
you do lock on to an enemy on accident, it’s impossible to run away and you are
soon killed by whatever it is that you were running from.  Often times, T’Lan
warriors will knock you down and won’t give you a chance get back up and block
the next attack.  And don’t even bother asking Alex to help out
since–especially during battles–she seldom raises her knife or gun to help you
out.  While the game does have plenty of helpful checkpoints, the load times
just seem to make them more of a nuisance.

Concept: 8.0
Breakdown certainly runs circles
around The Super Spy with its unique first-person brawling mechanics and it even
brings plenty of first-person shooting elements.  While the level design is far
from great, there are a few times when you do break the repetitive cycle that
plagues this game by completing a few tasks that require you to do more than
just flip switches.  Still, there is not much here that will have gamers playing
this again after they complete the game.  This is, however, the first game to
feature a first-person perspective of your character–ahem–tossing his cookies.

Overall: 7.5
Unfortunately, Breakdown is plagued
by many problems that keep the game from rising over the already crowded
first-person shooter genre.  Flaws aside, the game offers something quite unique
and worth a gamers attention but for those gamers who bought into its hype, they
will only find disappointment.  Do yourself a favor and rent this game for the
weekend.