Just some awesome high-concept sci-fi action. Remedy has quickly become one of my all-time favorite studios. The games they make might not always land flawlessly, but they are constantly putting out stuff that feels fresh and high effort. These guys are always doing something outside the box.
Quantum Break really worked for me. My main, and pretty much only, gripe with it is the TV show aspect. It’s such a weird decision, and as I stated these come with the Remedy territory, that doesn´t really work. It simply is extremely less interesting and compelling when compared to the “game” section of this game. It feels and looks like cheap TV, the things that happen in it have no real impact on the game, and the game itself has no real impact on it, even though the game constantly tries to tell you that it actually does. These 4 episodes add up to about an hour of fleshing out very minor characters that barely show up in the game. It doesn't help that these handful of characters are extremely paper thin, and their respective performances are, as I said before, straight out of a cheap TV show.
These episodes are to be endured rather than enjoyed. I also find it extremely bizarre that the game, at least on PC, streams these episodes from some Microsoft server that will one day be inevitably shut down. There’s no option on steam to download these episodes, and if you play offline, you simply aren’t able to watch them. This adds to the idea that these poorly executed, extra-long, live action cutscenes, are just non-essential filler that could simply not be there at all without impacting the overall player experience.
I do believe that the whole “live action interludes that are affected by in-game decisions” concept could work if more budget and care went into it. And if they were actually developed in a way that complements the gameplay sections instead of as an addon that feels more like an afterthought.
At least the game itself, removed from the “TV show”, is a banger. The story is pure dumb fun sci-fi, with just the right amount of science mumbo jumbo, compelling characters, interesting macguffins and awesome set pieces. I didn’t really care for the “decisions” you can take in between acts, but it ties well into the whole time-travel/multiverse concept that the narrative goes for. Overall, great writing, great performances from a well-known cast, pretty much perfect pacing, I had a blast with it.
Graphically it’s a spectacular game. It looks gorgeous and way ahead of its time, especially the facial animations of the main cast. But it’s the overall visual design that really stands out here. Every location feels like a real space instead of a combat arena, populated with little dumb things everywhere to really sell them as real. The whole visual language they developed for the fractures and “time powers” is simply gorgeous looking and adds a lot of punch to the action. Great architecture and lighting too.
The gameplay is so much fun that it’s kind of a pity that combat encounters feel so short and few and far between. It feels as kinetic and engaging to move around and shoot as it did in Max Payne. Some of the powers available here are clear callbacks to the bullet time shooting present in those games. Everything here pushes you to zoom around the arena, evading baddies and just wrecking them. A blast to play through, I just wished there were more combat opportunities in it.
One other very minor gripe. While it is very much improved here, and there’s a little puzzle aspect to it, Remedy should really cool it with the platforming sections. Not their forte.
Great game brought down a peg because of the terrible “TV show” addon. Honestly, I’d say to skip them altogether when playing if the first couple of minutes don’t grab you, because the game is very much worth seeing through.
Quantum Break really worked for me. My main, and pretty much only, gripe with it is the TV show aspect. It’s such a weird decision, and as I stated these come with the Remedy territory, that doesn´t really work. It simply is extremely less interesting and compelling when compared to the “game” section of this game. It feels and looks like cheap TV, the things that happen in it have no real impact on the game, and the game itself has no real impact on it, even though the game constantly tries to tell you that it actually does. These 4 episodes add up to about an hour of fleshing out very minor characters that barely show up in the game. It doesn't help that these handful of characters are extremely paper thin, and their respective performances are, as I said before, straight out of a cheap TV show.
These episodes are to be endured rather than enjoyed. I also find it extremely bizarre that the game, at least on PC, streams these episodes from some Microsoft server that will one day be inevitably shut down. There’s no option on steam to download these episodes, and if you play offline, you simply aren’t able to watch them. This adds to the idea that these poorly executed, extra-long, live action cutscenes, are just non-essential filler that could simply not be there at all without impacting the overall player experience.
I do believe that the whole “live action interludes that are affected by in-game decisions” concept could work if more budget and care went into it. And if they were actually developed in a way that complements the gameplay sections instead of as an addon that feels more like an afterthought.
At least the game itself, removed from the “TV show”, is a banger. The story is pure dumb fun sci-fi, with just the right amount of science mumbo jumbo, compelling characters, interesting macguffins and awesome set pieces. I didn’t really care for the “decisions” you can take in between acts, but it ties well into the whole time-travel/multiverse concept that the narrative goes for. Overall, great writing, great performances from a well-known cast, pretty much perfect pacing, I had a blast with it.
Graphically it’s a spectacular game. It looks gorgeous and way ahead of its time, especially the facial animations of the main cast. But it’s the overall visual design that really stands out here. Every location feels like a real space instead of a combat arena, populated with little dumb things everywhere to really sell them as real. The whole visual language they developed for the fractures and “time powers” is simply gorgeous looking and adds a lot of punch to the action. Great architecture and lighting too.
The gameplay is so much fun that it’s kind of a pity that combat encounters feel so short and few and far between. It feels as kinetic and engaging to move around and shoot as it did in Max Payne. Some of the powers available here are clear callbacks to the bullet time shooting present in those games. Everything here pushes you to zoom around the arena, evading baddies and just wrecking them. A blast to play through, I just wished there were more combat opportunities in it.
One other very minor gripe. While it is very much improved here, and there’s a little puzzle aspect to it, Remedy should really cool it with the platforming sections. Not their forte.
Great game brought down a peg because of the terrible “TV show” addon. Honestly, I’d say to skip them altogether when playing if the first couple of minutes don’t grab you, because the game is very much worth seeing through.
TL;DR: This doesn’t feel like a Remedy game.
The experience is difficult from the very beginning - the initial 30 minutes or so are surprisingly sloppy. We’re dividing our attention between Jack dumping exposition regarding his brother and Paul, future Jack dumping exposition during his deposition, at the same time slowly walking around and gathering notes and memos to read more exposition, then following Paul and listening to him providing to us, you guessed it, more exposition. There’s even an actual PowerPoint presentation. This does not encourage players to jump into this world, quite the opposite. And the worst part is - all that exposition is in service of an extremely bland, uninteresting story.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t enjoy time traveling as a narrative concept. I think it’s inherently broken and writers often abuse various implications from characters being able to travel between different periods in time. And yeah, I couldn’t get into this story either, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s only due to my dislike of this particular genre. I couldn’t care less about the time travel machines, the implications of ‘ripples’, etc. mostly because the characters were not at all interesting. The game attempts to build this rivalry between Paul and Jack and does so sloppily. Whenever these two would face off I felt nothing, including the shockingly anticlimactic conclusion. Hatch rides on Reddick’s charisma and nothing else, Beth is kind of a wet blanket, and some other supporting characters like Liam, Charlie or Fiona (present almost exclusively in the show) mostly fall flat as well. The game wants you to believe that total annihilation is what’s at stake - that if Jack doesn’t succeed then ‘the end of times’ will take place. But this is such a vague and abstract concept that I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about what happens to this world, also due to my not sympathizing with even a single character in the story.
Also, the game takes itself too seriously which makes the whole experience funnier, listening to cheesy lines about chronon fields, the end of time and whatnot uttered with straight faces. I’m pretty sure it would’ve worked better if the writers tried to lean into the cheesiness of the material they were working on.
Gameplay wise, it feels like squandered potential. Jack’s superpowers can be fun to use and even though they’re not overly original it feels good to slow down time, sprint between enemies and take them out one by one or to throw ‘time grenades’. However, in addition to those powers Jack is required to shoot his enemies down and I’m sad to report that the gunplay is simply unsatisfying. Most guns feel like peashooters with no punch, and some annoy with ridiculous recoil. I really wish Remedy had removed the ability to use firearms altogether and just focused on developing the time powers to make them the only available way to fight. Also, enemy design is just lazy.
The game doesn’t play great, but looks even worse. To be clear, I don’t mean the quality of the animations or character models - these all hold up well, although I’ll never believe that Aidan Gillen is below 30, even with that ridiculous glow up he’s given in the opening chapter. But ‘Quantum Break’ probably includes the most boring art direction I’ve seen in a AAA game. Every location is extremely bland, just a generic city with generic buildings and generic interiors. That includes even some areas where the creators could’ve potentially employed some more unusual concepts, like the time machine and all the relevant macguffins like weapons, armours, labs, etc. Instead, every little visual detail looks like something that’s been included in a dozen other games and shows with a similar minimalist, ‘clean’ aesthetic. Maybe it was done purposefully in order to be consistent with the show which looks equally bland, but I wish they’d showed some more creativity in that department regardless.
Another disappointing element was the level design. I struggle to recall any memorable set pieces or combat arenas or any of the like (there are some ‘platforming’ sections, but I’ll do the devs a favor and refrain from elaborating on those). Everything seemed very straightforward, with a couple of very simple puzzles thrown in to break up the monotony of the main gameplay loop. These aren’t too difficult also because the game uses its own version of ‘witcher vision’ (I just double checked and yes, it’s called ‘Time Vision’, Jesus Christ). So you don’t even need to think too much about what to do next, you just click a button and receive a solution instantly. I doubt I’m the only one who hates this mechanic as it makes the games just too easy and level designers too lazy (why bother directing the player through environmental clues? Just click a button to highlight all important parts, or spray the only available route among the rubble with yellow paint - there are many offenders in this area, this game naturally being one of them).
The time mechanic could’ve been used in a million ways to create some clever puzzles or obstacle courses for Jack to solve between shooting down Monarch guards. The only ones we’re given boil down to “hold Y to reverse time for a bit” and voila. It’s also infuriating how limiting the game is, e.g. only allowing you to climb specific objects that the devs wanted you to climb and whenever you want to get up an object of the same or even lower height, Jack just bumps off them. This is really detrimental to any attempt at building immersion.
One thing that I liked from the narrative standpoint was allowing you to make decisions as Paul. These then influence which of two episodes of the show you will see. It’s a neat idea and gives you some feeling of power over the story, but if I’m not mistaken it only changes things in the show - the game stays the same regardless of your choices, which is a bit disappointing.
A large part of the game’s marketing campaign was that Quantum Break was an experience combining a video game with an ‘equally important’ TV show. And yes, there are four short (around 22-24mins) episodes that delve more into the events behind the scenes and focusing mostly on characters not given significant time in (or absent at all from) the game. First of all - it’s very clear that the video game was the primary focus of the creators and the show is filling in gaps that otherwise would’ve been either included as cutscenes or as memos/e-mails/notes (boy, do Remedy love those). And I think it would’ve been fine, because the show’s production value is one of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s mostly actors walking around large, empty, cheap-looking sets and exchanging exposition. It’s a shame, because they clearly spent some money to get people like Aidan Gillen or Lance Reddick, but even their charisma can’t save this vapid, sometimes straight up dumb script. The inclusion of the poorly made TV show makes the whole experience feel cheaper and cheesier than if the information from the show was given to the player using in-game methods.
The game clearly wanted to be a blockbuster - a high budget story with high stakes and some recognizable faces playing the main characters. But the whole experience is so bland and uninteresting it’s almost hard to believe that it was Remedy who was behind it. This doesn’t feel like a product of a developer with almost two decades of experience in groundbreaking storytelling. It feels like a copout, a safe, focus group-driven product delivered to a major publisher who was in his TV era (yes, Xbox, we remember) and needed a showcase for the ideas behind his newest toy.
I also encountered some problems in the technical department, like how is this game locked at 30fps in such a low resolution on Series X? Many cutscenes included some odd stutters. Also, the episodes aren’t available to stream anymore which is disappointing - I had to watch them in pisspoor quality on Youtube. There was one cutscene that anytime I wanted to skip it would just crash the game. One little detail I also need to mention - this one time when Jack was talking on the phone I zoomed in to see whether I could see the phone screen. I could and I only saw the menu - why are you pretending to be on the phone, Jack?!
So yeah, it’s a skip.
The experience is difficult from the very beginning - the initial 30 minutes or so are surprisingly sloppy. We’re dividing our attention between Jack dumping exposition regarding his brother and Paul, future Jack dumping exposition during his deposition, at the same time slowly walking around and gathering notes and memos to read more exposition, then following Paul and listening to him providing to us, you guessed it, more exposition. There’s even an actual PowerPoint presentation. This does not encourage players to jump into this world, quite the opposite. And the worst part is - all that exposition is in service of an extremely bland, uninteresting story.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t enjoy time traveling as a narrative concept. I think it’s inherently broken and writers often abuse various implications from characters being able to travel between different periods in time. And yeah, I couldn’t get into this story either, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s only due to my dislike of this particular genre. I couldn’t care less about the time travel machines, the implications of ‘ripples’, etc. mostly because the characters were not at all interesting. The game attempts to build this rivalry between Paul and Jack and does so sloppily. Whenever these two would face off I felt nothing, including the shockingly anticlimactic conclusion. Hatch rides on Reddick’s charisma and nothing else, Beth is kind of a wet blanket, and some other supporting characters like Liam, Charlie or Fiona (present almost exclusively in the show) mostly fall flat as well. The game wants you to believe that total annihilation is what’s at stake - that if Jack doesn’t succeed then ‘the end of times’ will take place. But this is such a vague and abstract concept that I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about what happens to this world, also due to my not sympathizing with even a single character in the story.
Also, the game takes itself too seriously which makes the whole experience funnier, listening to cheesy lines about chronon fields, the end of time and whatnot uttered with straight faces. I’m pretty sure it would’ve worked better if the writers tried to lean into the cheesiness of the material they were working on.
Gameplay wise, it feels like squandered potential. Jack’s superpowers can be fun to use and even though they’re not overly original it feels good to slow down time, sprint between enemies and take them out one by one or to throw ‘time grenades’. However, in addition to those powers Jack is required to shoot his enemies down and I’m sad to report that the gunplay is simply unsatisfying. Most guns feel like peashooters with no punch, and some annoy with ridiculous recoil. I really wish Remedy had removed the ability to use firearms altogether and just focused on developing the time powers to make them the only available way to fight. Also, enemy design is just lazy.
The game doesn’t play great, but looks even worse. To be clear, I don’t mean the quality of the animations or character models - these all hold up well, although I’ll never believe that Aidan Gillen is below 30, even with that ridiculous glow up he’s given in the opening chapter. But ‘Quantum Break’ probably includes the most boring art direction I’ve seen in a AAA game. Every location is extremely bland, just a generic city with generic buildings and generic interiors. That includes even some areas where the creators could’ve potentially employed some more unusual concepts, like the time machine and all the relevant macguffins like weapons, armours, labs, etc. Instead, every little visual detail looks like something that’s been included in a dozen other games and shows with a similar minimalist, ‘clean’ aesthetic. Maybe it was done purposefully in order to be consistent with the show which looks equally bland, but I wish they’d showed some more creativity in that department regardless.
Another disappointing element was the level design. I struggle to recall any memorable set pieces or combat arenas or any of the like (there are some ‘platforming’ sections, but I’ll do the devs a favor and refrain from elaborating on those). Everything seemed very straightforward, with a couple of very simple puzzles thrown in to break up the monotony of the main gameplay loop. These aren’t too difficult also because the game uses its own version of ‘witcher vision’ (I just double checked and yes, it’s called ‘Time Vision’, Jesus Christ). So you don’t even need to think too much about what to do next, you just click a button and receive a solution instantly. I doubt I’m the only one who hates this mechanic as it makes the games just too easy and level designers too lazy (why bother directing the player through environmental clues? Just click a button to highlight all important parts, or spray the only available route among the rubble with yellow paint - there are many offenders in this area, this game naturally being one of them).
The time mechanic could’ve been used in a million ways to create some clever puzzles or obstacle courses for Jack to solve between shooting down Monarch guards. The only ones we’re given boil down to “hold Y to reverse time for a bit” and voila. It’s also infuriating how limiting the game is, e.g. only allowing you to climb specific objects that the devs wanted you to climb and whenever you want to get up an object of the same or even lower height, Jack just bumps off them. This is really detrimental to any attempt at building immersion.
One thing that I liked from the narrative standpoint was allowing you to make decisions as Paul. These then influence which of two episodes of the show you will see. It’s a neat idea and gives you some feeling of power over the story, but if I’m not mistaken it only changes things in the show - the game stays the same regardless of your choices, which is a bit disappointing.
A large part of the game’s marketing campaign was that Quantum Break was an experience combining a video game with an ‘equally important’ TV show. And yes, there are four short (around 22-24mins) episodes that delve more into the events behind the scenes and focusing mostly on characters not given significant time in (or absent at all from) the game. First of all - it’s very clear that the video game was the primary focus of the creators and the show is filling in gaps that otherwise would’ve been either included as cutscenes or as memos/e-mails/notes (boy, do Remedy love those). And I think it would’ve been fine, because the show’s production value is one of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s mostly actors walking around large, empty, cheap-looking sets and exchanging exposition. It’s a shame, because they clearly spent some money to get people like Aidan Gillen or Lance Reddick, but even their charisma can’t save this vapid, sometimes straight up dumb script. The inclusion of the poorly made TV show makes the whole experience feel cheaper and cheesier than if the information from the show was given to the player using in-game methods.
The game clearly wanted to be a blockbuster - a high budget story with high stakes and some recognizable faces playing the main characters. But the whole experience is so bland and uninteresting it’s almost hard to believe that it was Remedy who was behind it. This doesn’t feel like a product of a developer with almost two decades of experience in groundbreaking storytelling. It feels like a copout, a safe, focus group-driven product delivered to a major publisher who was in his TV era (yes, Xbox, we remember) and needed a showcase for the ideas behind his newest toy.
I also encountered some problems in the technical department, like how is this game locked at 30fps in such a low resolution on Series X? Many cutscenes included some odd stutters. Also, the episodes aren’t available to stream anymore which is disappointing - I had to watch them in pisspoor quality on Youtube. There was one cutscene that anytime I wanted to skip it would just crash the game. One little detail I also need to mention - this one time when Jack was talking on the phone I zoomed in to see whether I could see the phone screen. I could and I only saw the menu - why are you pretending to be on the phone, Jack?!
So yeah, it’s a skip.
La propuesta de Xbox One inicialmente era no tener solo una consola, si no un sistema de entretenimiento. La televisión era una gran parte de la experiencia de Xbox One, y Quantum Break venía a reforzar eso: un juego sobre saltos temporales estructurado de forma que, tras jugar cada uno de sus 5 actos, hubiese un capitulo de televisión que avanzaría la trama, uniendo videojuego y serie en una misma experiencia. Esta idea de "consola" hizo en su día enfadar a más de uno. Microsoft tenía una apuesta muy grande por lo digital, su enfoque en el entretenimiento y en los servicios generó en su día notable rechazo. Es interesante ver esto en retrospectiva, donde estamos en una era crecientemente digital en los videojuegos, donde durante años usé mi PS4 como forma de ver Netflix y donde he jugado a Quantum Break en el servicio de Xbox de Game Pass, el "Netflix" de los videojuegos. Y es que pocas cosas me describen Quantum Break mejor que "un videojuego Netflix".
No solo la naturaleza episódica y sus capítulos televisivos hacen de Quantum Break un juego que remite a ver una serie de Netflix. Es que tiene la filosofia de un producto de Netflix. Un producto muy entretenido hecho para grandes masas, visualmente llamativo, con ideas refritas pero que añaden un par de conceptos interesantes, que luego resultan en un producto bastante genérico. La historia de Quantum Break parte de una premisa genérica como lo son los viajes temporales, tiene a unos personajes planos y clichés pero fácilmente identificables y le añade la propuesta interesante de que la historia no parece que vaya a ir tanto de ir dando saltos temporales si no de que el mundo inevitablemente va a terminar, ya que el tiempo literalmente se ha roto en el mundo de Quantum Break, dando lugar a momentos donde el tiempo se detiene en todo el mundo, donde el tiempo se aceleran y se desacelera, absolutamente roto. Todo esto se plantea como un cataclismo inevitable por parte del antagonista Paul Serene, que ha visto el futuro, sabe como va a terminar de forma inevitable, y quiere intentar salvar a los pocos que pueda. La propuesta, aunque sin ser nada del otro mundo, es interesante, dando un espacio muy bueno para desarrollar ideas interesantes. Y visualmente explora ideas interesantes (ver toda una estructura caerse a pedazos, mientras el tiempo se va deteniendo, retrocediendo y avanzando es un espectaculo visual increible), pero Quantum Break no aprovecha apenas su mundo ni explora bien el dilema de la inevitabilidad del tiempo. Al final todo se reduce a un buenos contra malos, con personajes genéricos (y en caso de algunos, como Liam Burke, absurdamente genéricos y malos), con una trama que acaba cayendo en los mismos clichés de las historias temporales (las maquinas del tiempo, los cientificos, el dispositivo capaz de salvar todo), y en general, toda su propuesta se queda en algo insustancial, algo entretenido, pero en lo que no profundiza. Y su serie no mejora la cosa.
Al final de cada uno de los 5 actos, antes de ver la serie, hay un "interludio" donde controlamos al antagonista, Paul, y podemos elegir una entre dos decisiones que "afectarán a la trama" (lo cierto es que afectan mas bien poco). Es una propuesta interesante, pero que acaba por ser una idea bastante regulera. Siempre suele haber una opción "buena" para el protagonista y otra opción "buena" para el antagonista. Nosotros como jugadores podemos saber información crucial que el antagonista no sabe, y poder hacer decisiones de una forma meta-narrativa. Se le podría perdonar esto si las decisiones fuesen realmente interesantes en ambas opciones y si realmente hubiesen consecuencias tangibles, pero no las hay. En mi caso, siempre intentaba elegir la opción que beneficiaba al antagonista, porque es lo que me parecía más interesante a un nivel dramático, pero estas decisiones se sienten como poco más que una falsa sensación de tener control sobre la historia.
Después de esos interludios vienen los capitulos de la serie, algo a lo que si soy sincero le tenia bastantes ganas (tengo debilidad con los juegos que exploran ideas de mierda, ya lo siento), pero para sorpresa de nadie, pues está ejecutado regular. La serie apenas tiene presupuesto, los personajes no son interesantes y a nivel de dirección es mediocre. Es una serie mala de Netflix, casi pensada para verse de fondo mientras comes algo. Y aún así hay un algo que me ha hecho disfrutar de ella. Supongo que es por la casi ternura que da que un videojuego intente experimir parte de su presupuesto a hacer una serie. Claro que va a salir mal, se nota que no supieron o no se pudo hacer gran cosa, pero aún así lo hicieron. Y hay cierto valor en eso, y se nota que intentan profundizar en ciertos personajes, pero eso no quita que efectivamente, la serie sea incluso más mediocre que el videojuego.
Los tiritos es seguramente la mejor parte de Quantum Break. Son muy satisfactorios y los poderes son muy interesantes, haciendo de base a lo que más tarde seria el sistema de combate de Control. Y para mi sorpresa, hay partes del gameplay que prefiero en Quantum Break sobre Control. Creo que QB tiene una mejor variedad de poderes (detener el tiempo en una zona, esquivar y relantizar el tiempo, lanzar una explosión de tiempo, correr a toda velocidad) y generalmente los disparos me han resultado más satisfactorios aquí que en Control, y esto me ha sorprendido gratamente y ha sido una de las cosas que más he disfrutado jugando, comparar ambos sistemas de combate. Lo que sin duda Control hizo mejor es dinamizar el combate gracias a las físicas y lo mucho más vertical que es el combate en Control. En contra, Quantum Break es un juego de coberturas en tercera persona mucho más tradicional, pero no por ello menos pulido que Control, simplemente tienen una base de diseño distintos, y capacidades tecnologicas distintas.
En fin, que Quantum Break es una serie de Netflix. Está hecho para ser entretenido, y te entretienes jugandolo. Tiene un par de ideas interesantes que tampoco acaban de llegar a ningún lado, lo terminas y te quedas con la sensación de no haber visto nada del otro jueves. Aún así he disfrutado de mi tiempo con Quantum Break, he disfrutado de sus experimentos raros y fallidos con la televisión, de ver la base jugable de lo que se convertiría en Control, y por qué no decirlo, porque disfruto de los juegos lineales en tercera persona con espectáculo visual con ideas reguleras. Me he pasado el juego en apenas 3 dias, como si de un maratón de una serie se tratase. Es el juego de Remedy menos Remedy de todos, también uno de los más "redondos" de jugar, pero también uno de los menos interesantes.
No solo la naturaleza episódica y sus capítulos televisivos hacen de Quantum Break un juego que remite a ver una serie de Netflix. Es que tiene la filosofia de un producto de Netflix. Un producto muy entretenido hecho para grandes masas, visualmente llamativo, con ideas refritas pero que añaden un par de conceptos interesantes, que luego resultan en un producto bastante genérico. La historia de Quantum Break parte de una premisa genérica como lo son los viajes temporales, tiene a unos personajes planos y clichés pero fácilmente identificables y le añade la propuesta interesante de que la historia no parece que vaya a ir tanto de ir dando saltos temporales si no de que el mundo inevitablemente va a terminar, ya que el tiempo literalmente se ha roto en el mundo de Quantum Break, dando lugar a momentos donde el tiempo se detiene en todo el mundo, donde el tiempo se aceleran y se desacelera, absolutamente roto. Todo esto se plantea como un cataclismo inevitable por parte del antagonista Paul Serene, que ha visto el futuro, sabe como va a terminar de forma inevitable, y quiere intentar salvar a los pocos que pueda. La propuesta, aunque sin ser nada del otro mundo, es interesante, dando un espacio muy bueno para desarrollar ideas interesantes. Y visualmente explora ideas interesantes (ver toda una estructura caerse a pedazos, mientras el tiempo se va deteniendo, retrocediendo y avanzando es un espectaculo visual increible), pero Quantum Break no aprovecha apenas su mundo ni explora bien el dilema de la inevitabilidad del tiempo. Al final todo se reduce a un buenos contra malos, con personajes genéricos (y en caso de algunos, como Liam Burke, absurdamente genéricos y malos), con una trama que acaba cayendo en los mismos clichés de las historias temporales (las maquinas del tiempo, los cientificos, el dispositivo capaz de salvar todo), y en general, toda su propuesta se queda en algo insustancial, algo entretenido, pero en lo que no profundiza. Y su serie no mejora la cosa.
Al final de cada uno de los 5 actos, antes de ver la serie, hay un "interludio" donde controlamos al antagonista, Paul, y podemos elegir una entre dos decisiones que "afectarán a la trama" (lo cierto es que afectan mas bien poco). Es una propuesta interesante, pero que acaba por ser una idea bastante regulera. Siempre suele haber una opción "buena" para el protagonista y otra opción "buena" para el antagonista. Nosotros como jugadores podemos saber información crucial que el antagonista no sabe, y poder hacer decisiones de una forma meta-narrativa. Se le podría perdonar esto si las decisiones fuesen realmente interesantes en ambas opciones y si realmente hubiesen consecuencias tangibles, pero no las hay. En mi caso, siempre intentaba elegir la opción que beneficiaba al antagonista, porque es lo que me parecía más interesante a un nivel dramático, pero estas decisiones se sienten como poco más que una falsa sensación de tener control sobre la historia.
Después de esos interludios vienen los capitulos de la serie, algo a lo que si soy sincero le tenia bastantes ganas (tengo debilidad con los juegos que exploran ideas de mierda, ya lo siento), pero para sorpresa de nadie, pues está ejecutado regular. La serie apenas tiene presupuesto, los personajes no son interesantes y a nivel de dirección es mediocre. Es una serie mala de Netflix, casi pensada para verse de fondo mientras comes algo. Y aún así hay un algo que me ha hecho disfrutar de ella. Supongo que es por la casi ternura que da que un videojuego intente experimir parte de su presupuesto a hacer una serie. Claro que va a salir mal, se nota que no supieron o no se pudo hacer gran cosa, pero aún así lo hicieron. Y hay cierto valor en eso, y se nota que intentan profundizar en ciertos personajes, pero eso no quita que efectivamente, la serie sea incluso más mediocre que el videojuego.
Los tiritos es seguramente la mejor parte de Quantum Break. Son muy satisfactorios y los poderes son muy interesantes, haciendo de base a lo que más tarde seria el sistema de combate de Control. Y para mi sorpresa, hay partes del gameplay que prefiero en Quantum Break sobre Control. Creo que QB tiene una mejor variedad de poderes (detener el tiempo en una zona, esquivar y relantizar el tiempo, lanzar una explosión de tiempo, correr a toda velocidad) y generalmente los disparos me han resultado más satisfactorios aquí que en Control, y esto me ha sorprendido gratamente y ha sido una de las cosas que más he disfrutado jugando, comparar ambos sistemas de combate. Lo que sin duda Control hizo mejor es dinamizar el combate gracias a las físicas y lo mucho más vertical que es el combate en Control. En contra, Quantum Break es un juego de coberturas en tercera persona mucho más tradicional, pero no por ello menos pulido que Control, simplemente tienen una base de diseño distintos, y capacidades tecnologicas distintas.
En fin, que Quantum Break es una serie de Netflix. Está hecho para ser entretenido, y te entretienes jugandolo. Tiene un par de ideas interesantes que tampoco acaban de llegar a ningún lado, lo terminas y te quedas con la sensación de no haber visto nada del otro jueves. Aún así he disfrutado de mi tiempo con Quantum Break, he disfrutado de sus experimentos raros y fallidos con la televisión, de ver la base jugable de lo que se convertiría en Control, y por qué no decirlo, porque disfruto de los juegos lineales en tercera persona con espectáculo visual con ideas reguleras. Me he pasado el juego en apenas 3 dias, como si de un maratón de una serie se tratase. Es el juego de Remedy menos Remedy de todos, también uno de los más "redondos" de jugar, pero también uno de los menos interesantes.
Quantum Break is a decent game, but it has some major issues. First of all, the story isn't the best, and you have to literally watch a show within the game. I'm talking 20-25 minute episodes. The story does get interesting at times, but also boring and cliché at other times. The game looks very good though. That's definitely a positive, but it runs terribly. I have a high end card from 2023, but the game keeps stuttering like crazy, even though it originally ran on a 900p/30fps Xbox One console. It makes no sense why the game runs this bad on PC. For the stuttering alone, I have to give it a negative review. Might be worth it on a deep sale, however.
Jogo muito bom. O gameplay tem alguns problemas e o ritmo não é legal o tempo todo, mas a história brilha muito aqui. Talvez uma das melhores sobre viagem no tempo. Mantém o interesse no jogo o tempo todo.
with interesting storytelling and a very satisfying gameplay loop, quantum break is a common yet welcome retelling of the immutability of time.
There is a pretty cool time travel story in here... somewhere. You just have to read like 8 000 pages of text to experience it, because the stuff in the cutscenes and, god forbid, live action episodes, is whack.
The inability to shoot without aiming in a Remedy game felt like being castrated.
The inability to shoot without aiming in a Remedy game felt like being castrated.
Not Remedy's best game, but it is still a Remedy game. Story is at least interesting even if not always working and the time twisting combat is pretty fun
I sure love having 1h to play games and spending half of it watching a bad Netlix series
The Xbox One's focus on TV over classical video games is widely accepted as one of the key factors that cost Microsofts the last console generation. Quantum Break almost feels like the embodiment of every weird idea Microsoft executives came up prior to the console's launch: It's a third-person-shooter that periodically interrupts its gameplay with TV show episodes detailing what the story's villains were up to.
In my opinion, the concept doesn't even sound that good on paper, and the execution is severely flawed. The live-action parts barely hide the lack of budget, with scenes often taking place in hallways, stairwells, and warehouses. The first episode is the worst offender in that regard, presenting the viewer with boring locations and offensively uncharismatic characters. Later episodes improve somewhat and the high profile actors manage to deliver on the acting side of things, but that doesn't change the fact that I only continued watching because the game expected me to.
Weirdly enough, the ingame parts look way better than the TV show. Setpieces are bigger and even lighting is improved. The TV show parts feel claustrophobic and held back in comparison. The game also already has a lot of slower paced narrative segments in its ingame parts, with lots of slow walking while listening to exposition and rooms upon rooms filled with text, video, and audio collectibles.
Unfortunately, Quantum Break doesn't manage to use all those narrative tools to create a compelling story. Things are happening, but between all the clichés and tropes (an evil corporation secretly plotting and taking over a city, never heard that one before) it's hard to find a reason to actually care about what's going on. Even worse, a lot of plot points have appeared in movies like Back to the Future or Terminator before, but where handled much better. Plus, the atmosphere is not nearly as thick as in other Remedy titles.
That leaves us with the actual gameplay. Puzzles are even easier than those in Life is Strange, consisting mainly of holding down a button or following a yellow cable. Platforming feels terrible. Jack will try to climb pretty much anything when you press the corresponding button, I'll give him credit for that, but a lot of the time he gets stuck on environmental objects or fails jumps necessary to progress.
Fortunately, combat is pretty fun. Jack doesn't have a lot of health, so relying on his powers is necessary to win. Those supernatural powers are all very loosely related to time (it's not a bomb or shield, it's time bomb and time shield) and feel powerful, especially when used against standard enemies. Mechanics never get too complex, but they don't need to for such a short game. There's very heavy auto aim, and since the game is clearly optimized for a controller, I'd recommend using one.
With the good and bad mentioned, that leaves us with the ugly: the game is not in a state that I would consider polished. The Windows Store version never received the latest updates, and even the patched Steam version still has major animation bugs. Reload animations dont even remove the magazine, and weapons teleport in and out of hands in cutscenes. Annoyingly, the final boss fight is an incomprehensible mess that covers everything in effects and even focuses the camera on areas players should run away from (making you run towards the screen).
By default, the game also uses horrible upscaling, rendering at two thirds of the display resolution with terrible results. While upscaling can be disabled in the settings, many of the other heavily featured post processing effect are mandatory, meaning the game often looks worse than it would without. Colors are washed out and greyish, it's just not pleasant to look at. The streaming quality of the cutscenes is also debatable. Aiming for streaming in a high resolution is great, but the stream starts buffering even on fast connections, with no option to download the TV show episodes. I also wonder how long the servers for this game will remain online - in a worst case scenario, half of the product will be missing in a couple of years.
Out of all the Remedy games I've played, Quantum Break was clearly the worst, and I doubt it'll ever get the sequel its ending set up. There's still Remedy DNA in here, but I have a hard time recommending the game over the studios' other works or other third-person-shooters like Max Payne 3 or Uncharted.
In my opinion, the concept doesn't even sound that good on paper, and the execution is severely flawed. The live-action parts barely hide the lack of budget, with scenes often taking place in hallways, stairwells, and warehouses. The first episode is the worst offender in that regard, presenting the viewer with boring locations and offensively uncharismatic characters. Later episodes improve somewhat and the high profile actors manage to deliver on the acting side of things, but that doesn't change the fact that I only continued watching because the game expected me to.
Weirdly enough, the ingame parts look way better than the TV show. Setpieces are bigger and even lighting is improved. The TV show parts feel claustrophobic and held back in comparison. The game also already has a lot of slower paced narrative segments in its ingame parts, with lots of slow walking while listening to exposition and rooms upon rooms filled with text, video, and audio collectibles.
Unfortunately, Quantum Break doesn't manage to use all those narrative tools to create a compelling story. Things are happening, but between all the clichés and tropes (an evil corporation secretly plotting and taking over a city, never heard that one before) it's hard to find a reason to actually care about what's going on. Even worse, a lot of plot points have appeared in movies like Back to the Future or Terminator before, but where handled much better. Plus, the atmosphere is not nearly as thick as in other Remedy titles.
That leaves us with the actual gameplay. Puzzles are even easier than those in Life is Strange, consisting mainly of holding down a button or following a yellow cable. Platforming feels terrible. Jack will try to climb pretty much anything when you press the corresponding button, I'll give him credit for that, but a lot of the time he gets stuck on environmental objects or fails jumps necessary to progress.
Fortunately, combat is pretty fun. Jack doesn't have a lot of health, so relying on his powers is necessary to win. Those supernatural powers are all very loosely related to time (it's not a bomb or shield, it's time bomb and time shield) and feel powerful, especially when used against standard enemies. Mechanics never get too complex, but they don't need to for such a short game. There's very heavy auto aim, and since the game is clearly optimized for a controller, I'd recommend using one.
With the good and bad mentioned, that leaves us with the ugly: the game is not in a state that I would consider polished. The Windows Store version never received the latest updates, and even the patched Steam version still has major animation bugs. Reload animations dont even remove the magazine, and weapons teleport in and out of hands in cutscenes. Annoyingly, the final boss fight is an incomprehensible mess that covers everything in effects and even focuses the camera on areas players should run away from (making you run towards the screen).
By default, the game also uses horrible upscaling, rendering at two thirds of the display resolution with terrible results. While upscaling can be disabled in the settings, many of the other heavily featured post processing effect are mandatory, meaning the game often looks worse than it would without. Colors are washed out and greyish, it's just not pleasant to look at. The streaming quality of the cutscenes is also debatable. Aiming for streaming in a high resolution is great, but the stream starts buffering even on fast connections, with no option to download the TV show episodes. I also wonder how long the servers for this game will remain online - in a worst case scenario, half of the product will be missing in a couple of years.
Out of all the Remedy games I've played, Quantum Break was clearly the worst, and I doubt it'll ever get the sequel its ending set up. There's still Remedy DNA in here, but I have a hard time recommending the game over the studios' other works or other third-person-shooters like Max Payne 3 or Uncharted.
A história é boa mas é W+Atirar
this game is an almost perfect, exist little problems but that not remove your merit, i played through Game Pass and was is incredible
Review EN/PTBR
Imagine a game where it doesn't hold you back at all, yeah, that's the game
Not that the game is bad but nothing that makes it good, with only Alan Wake's Easter eggs and Sam Lake's face appearing in the game being memorable, this game doesn't captivate at all
The game tries to structure itself around the idea of being a game and a series at the same time and failing both in terms of keeping the viewer on screen.
I wasn't captivated by the game's gunplay and the game's difficulty only escalating in a way that turns enemies into bullet sponges absorbing all the damage and I wasn't even won over by the game's story, but everything within this experience comes down to what you would find in the early hours of the morning looking for what to play on gamepass.
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Imagina um jogo aonde ele não te prende em nada, pois é, esse é o jogo
Não que o jogo seja ruim mas nada que o faça ser bom, tendo de memorável apenas os easter egg's de Alan Wake e o rosto do Sam Lake aparecendo esse jogo não cativa em nada
O jogo tenta se estruturar em uma ideia de ser um jogo e uma série ao mesmo tempo e falhando nos dois na percepção de manter o espectador em tela
Não fui cativado pelo gunplay do jogo e a dificuldade do jogo só escalando de forma que transforma os inimigos em esponja de balas absorvendo todo o dano e nem fui conquistado pela história do jogo mas se tudo dentro dessa experiência se resume ao que você acharia numa madrugada procurando o que jogar na gamepass.
Imagine a game where it doesn't hold you back at all, yeah, that's the game
Not that the game is bad but nothing that makes it good, with only Alan Wake's Easter eggs and Sam Lake's face appearing in the game being memorable, this game doesn't captivate at all
The game tries to structure itself around the idea of being a game and a series at the same time and failing both in terms of keeping the viewer on screen.
I wasn't captivated by the game's gunplay and the game's difficulty only escalating in a way that turns enemies into bullet sponges absorbing all the damage and I wasn't even won over by the game's story, but everything within this experience comes down to what you would find in the early hours of the morning looking for what to play on gamepass.
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Imagina um jogo aonde ele não te prende em nada, pois é, esse é o jogo
Não que o jogo seja ruim mas nada que o faça ser bom, tendo de memorável apenas os easter egg's de Alan Wake e o rosto do Sam Lake aparecendo esse jogo não cativa em nada
O jogo tenta se estruturar em uma ideia de ser um jogo e uma série ao mesmo tempo e falhando nos dois na percepção de manter o espectador em tela
Não fui cativado pelo gunplay do jogo e a dificuldade do jogo só escalando de forma que transforma os inimigos em esponja de balas absorvendo todo o dano e nem fui conquistado pela história do jogo mas se tudo dentro dessa experiência se resume ao que você acharia numa madrugada procurando o que jogar na gamepass.
Jogo bom demais, historia sensacional, mas odeio a xbox que mesmo fazendo 100% não pipocou troféu
Another unique narrative experience from Remedy. Like I’ve said before in other Remedy reviews, their games are so narrative heavy that you’re either in it or you’re not, and I’m all the way in. The gameplay was fast and exciting, and the episodic segments helped to build on the world that Remedy is creating. A must play for anyone who enjoyed Control and Wake. The only thing that kept this from five stars is how it ran on the Xbox One. Some cg stuttering in cutscenes and noticeable load times. Fingers crossed that Remedy gets access to this game from Microsoft and maybe a release for current gen hardware
Took me over 3 years to finally roll credits here, but it was a good time overall. When I first began, I had not played any Remedy games, but now at this point, I am a huge fan of their work, which definitely recontextualized things. This game is pretty great with storytelling, and has some interesting and fun mechanics, though its characters and overall narrative let it down just a bit. It's certainly unique, and definitely worth playing. RIP Lance Reddick.
The game is very different compared to the standard games we are used to playing.
I definitely recommend this game to everyone.
I definitely recommend this game to everyone.
the angstiest game ever created in the history of human civilization. pc game pass version is broken save yourself your sanity and play elsewhere.
Como todos los juegos de Remedy, tiene una estilo visual único y buenas ideas. Por desgracia todo se viene abajo con el gameplay de shooter pedorro con poderes y una serie que a alguien se le ocurrio que sería buena idea meter entre secciones del juego. Meh.
nothing like stopping your gameplay to get into a 20 minute long episode of a tv show. neat in concept but i found it pretty hard to constantly shift gears between the two different ways this games storry presented itself
lotta people don't realize that this is prolly the best Remedy game
Pretty fun linear action game. Underrated, but the ending left me wanting more.
It’s a game at the pure style of Remedy, and even if the show part wasn’t entirely necessary it was different and bold; gameplay-wise it’s standard but the powers are cool, although it lacked variety when it comes to enemies.
Still enjoyed it quite so. Hope they get to return to it at some point.
Still enjoyed it quite so. Hope they get to return to it at some point.
Бета версия Контрола. Ну реально
У нас тут у мега корпорация, которая имеет дела с паранормальщиной. Куча научных объяснений её.
ГГ, разбираясь с противниками, переворачивает всю локацию верх дном.
Отсылки на Алана Уейка)
Но Контрол мне импонирует больше. Бегать по зоне отчуждения в гнетущем одиночестве. И разбираться в устройстве мира с помощью интересных записок.
В Кванике же читать переписки персов (которые я почему-то могу открыть на любом компе) совершенно скучно. Перестал это делать уже после первой главы.
Геймплей здесь тоже всажен. Его мало и он однообразный. Но я дико рад, что они докрутили всё это дело в следующей игре
Ну а кинцо. Забавный эксперимент, но больше не надо. Хотя за Поперечного спасибо))
7 рюкзаков с патронами из 10
У нас тут у мега корпорация, которая имеет дела с паранормальщиной. Куча научных объяснений её.
ГГ, разбираясь с противниками, переворачивает всю локацию верх дном.
Отсылки на Алана Уейка)
Но Контрол мне импонирует больше. Бегать по зоне отчуждения в гнетущем одиночестве. И разбираться в устройстве мира с помощью интересных записок.
В Кванике же читать переписки персов (которые я почему-то могу открыть на любом компе) совершенно скучно. Перестал это делать уже после первой главы.
Геймплей здесь тоже всажен. Его мало и он однообразный. Но я дико рад, что они докрутили всё это дело в следующей игре
Ну а кинцо. Забавный эксперимент, но больше не надо. Хотя за Поперечного спасибо))
7 рюкзаков с патронами из 10
- 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.
Holy shit, I'm so mad I waited as long as I did to play this. I've been a huge Remedy fan for years as it is but wow, this really was an absolute blast and I wish it were more openly appreciated. I'm definitely gonna stop sleeping on Control now.
Um experimento interessante, mas um jogo bem falho. É um jogo de ação com até pouca ação, o que não seria o problema se a historia fosse mais intrigante mas ela nunca consegue te prender a esse ponto. Os episodios de tv não crescentam muito, apenas contam uma trama paralela que não vai para lugares interessantes e os documentos de texto são mais frequentes e longos do que deveriam, o que torna ler eles bem cansativo.
The combination of videogame and TV-show reveals strong sides of both of this media. Quantum Break has strong narrative, interesting characters, nice gameplay, lots of lore collectibles and stunning visual effects. Shadows, light and animations surprisingly good even at 2023. This game was ahead of its time
A pretty fun game overall with a really enjoyable story. I found this game to feel a little strange at first, being surprised by a full episode of a T.V. show when I was hoping to play more of the game. I can easily see these 4 T.V. episodes turning some people away, but I changed my expectations after the 1st episode and ended up enjoying this aspect and didn't feel like the last 3 episodes slowed the pacing. There is also an absurd amount of collectable readable objects that some people might find to slow the pace down, but I skimmed through most of them and only read some specific ones that I found interesting which didn't slow things down too much. I also really like how you get to make choices as the villain in each chapter that change the outcome of the story, these choices got me thinking and improved my experience, although I would need to replay the game to see how much these choices impact the story. The gameplay feels weird at first, because you have a lot more recoil on guns than most games, encouraging more close-quarters fighting with the exception of the sniper enemies who I found annoying to deal with. I also found some checkpoints to be spread thin and had to replay some sections by going much farther back than you would expect from a game released in the past 15 years which was frustrating. But other than those things, I liked the combat in this game, although I felt like it could've been better. I found that this game got more and more enjoyable as it went on and the story gained momentum, and my opinion on this went from iffy to finding it great. I also found the pc version to have the mouse cursor appear when a menu pops up despite me playing with a controller, which wasn't a big deal but was annoying. I also had the game crash once during my playthrough while skipping a cutscene, but I didn't lose any progress from this, so it wasn't a problem. I think this game is worth playing if you can get it for a good price.
In the aftermath of Alan Wake 2 and Control, there is a real "sophomore project" energy to Quantum Break. It's an almost obnoxiously of-its-time cinematic action shooter, complete with all of the requisite platforming jank and pixel hunting for too many hidden collectibles ("narrative objects," a name that's as great as it is bad).
Unfortunately, and evidently: this game was published by a version of Microsoft Studios that needed to sell the world on their Xbox One hardware and their bizarre vision of a directly television-inspired gaming medium. This narrative's "mass market" tone, casting, and "cool and detached" characterization felt so distracting to me. I sorely missed that "self-serious yet extremely not at all" demeanor that Remedy are known for. That said, what a gift it was to have Lance Reddick in here. Holy shit was he exactly as good as always in this! I miss him so much, still, as I'm sure all of us do.
Despite all of that, there is something here. The theming IS compelling, and zipping up to time-slowed enemies to blast them with a shotgun felt cool every time. I played with a controller, and the aim assist clearly kicks in when you quick scope...so that almost became its own mechanic to me. I'd blip about each arena, briefly stopping to pop shots while hammering the left trigger to "aim bot" my way through every fight. It felt right. But I don't know - unless you're a Remedy historian, maybe you should just go play Vanquish.
Unfortunately, and evidently: this game was published by a version of Microsoft Studios that needed to sell the world on their Xbox One hardware and their bizarre vision of a directly television-inspired gaming medium. This narrative's "mass market" tone, casting, and "cool and detached" characterization felt so distracting to me. I sorely missed that "self-serious yet extremely not at all" demeanor that Remedy are known for. That said, what a gift it was to have Lance Reddick in here. Holy shit was he exactly as good as always in this! I miss him so much, still, as I'm sure all of us do.
Despite all of that, there is something here. The theming IS compelling, and zipping up to time-slowed enemies to blast them with a shotgun felt cool every time. I played with a controller, and the aim assist clearly kicks in when you quick scope...so that almost became its own mechanic to me. I'd blip about each arena, briefly stopping to pop shots while hammering the left trigger to "aim bot" my way through every fight. It felt right. But I don't know - unless you're a Remedy historian, maybe you should just go play Vanquish.