This review contains spoilers
Remedy's most ambitious game but sadly their worst.
If I can give anything unanimously postive for QB it'd easily be its visuals, with the time effects remaining pretty impressive almost a decade later (this is the first game on Remedy's Northlight engine and it really shows). Performances are also pretty solid around the board, with Shawn Ashmore and Lance Reddick being the standouts. Gameplay is also pretty fun throughout, with the time powers making for combat that remains good (though I do wish the powers were spread out better).
If i had to say the biggest issue with QB it's one of the standout features: the TV show. After the end of every act (besides the finale) you will play as the villain and decide what choices they will make. This concept is really interesting because it allows you to actively control just how smart/incompetent the villians are and these choices translate well into the game portion. The main issue is all the episodes are extremely terrible and feel written from a different team. Cheap looking throughout with incredibly stilted performances (besides Lance Reddick who is wonderful) make sitting through them all an absolute chore. The game pass version also suffers because you have to STREAM the episodes in game which is completely borked (also some graphics make things seizure inducing so avoid at all costs). I would say the in game story makes up for the shows shortcomings but it's not much better, with the entire time gimmick being a cool backdrop but not utilized to the extent it needed to be. This is mainly because besides Jack and Beth the rest of the cast is really fucking boring, with Paul Serene being an absolutely dogshit villian that doesn't do much. It also feels way too short, with the ending feeling extremely abrupt with so much unresolved (an obvious sequel bait but with how its looking for Remedy I don't see that happening). I praised the combat earlier and while I still stick to that the puzzles/exploration needed some serious work, mainly because the platforming feels like absolute shit and some time powers feel clunky to use leading to repeated deaths (checkpoint system is terrible). This culminates in one of the absolute worst final bosses I've had the displeasure of fighting, with a bullshit instant kill that makes you have to reset from the very beginning. Its such an odd difficulty spike because the rest of the game is piss easy and possibly the easiest Remedy game.
I had somewhat middling expectations going into Quantum Break but at the same time I still felt let down. To end this review on a more positive note it was neat to see things like the implementation of live action be used much better in Control and Alan Wake II (alongside the Northlight engine looking insane). Would only reccomend this for super cheap or if you're a Remedy superfan and want to see how things improved.
4/10
If I can give anything unanimously postive for QB it'd easily be its visuals, with the time effects remaining pretty impressive almost a decade later (this is the first game on Remedy's Northlight engine and it really shows). Performances are also pretty solid around the board, with Shawn Ashmore and Lance Reddick being the standouts. Gameplay is also pretty fun throughout, with the time powers making for combat that remains good (though I do wish the powers were spread out better).
If i had to say the biggest issue with QB it's one of the standout features: the TV show. After the end of every act (besides the finale) you will play as the villain and decide what choices they will make. This concept is really interesting because it allows you to actively control just how smart/incompetent the villians are and these choices translate well into the game portion. The main issue is all the episodes are extremely terrible and feel written from a different team. Cheap looking throughout with incredibly stilted performances (besides Lance Reddick who is wonderful) make sitting through them all an absolute chore. The game pass version also suffers because you have to STREAM the episodes in game which is completely borked (also some graphics make things seizure inducing so avoid at all costs). I would say the in game story makes up for the shows shortcomings but it's not much better, with the entire time gimmick being a cool backdrop but not utilized to the extent it needed to be. This is mainly because besides Jack and Beth the rest of the cast is really fucking boring, with Paul Serene being an absolutely dogshit villian that doesn't do much. It also feels way too short, with the ending feeling extremely abrupt with so much unresolved (an obvious sequel bait but with how its looking for Remedy I don't see that happening). I praised the combat earlier and while I still stick to that the puzzles/exploration needed some serious work, mainly because the platforming feels like absolute shit and some time powers feel clunky to use leading to repeated deaths (checkpoint system is terrible). This culminates in one of the absolute worst final bosses I've had the displeasure of fighting, with a bullshit instant kill that makes you have to reset from the very beginning. Its such an odd difficulty spike because the rest of the game is piss easy and possibly the easiest Remedy game.
I had somewhat middling expectations going into Quantum Break but at the same time I still felt let down. To end this review on a more positive note it was neat to see things like the implementation of live action be used much better in Control and Alan Wake II (alongside the Northlight engine looking insane). Would only reccomend this for super cheap or if you're a Remedy superfan and want to see how things improved.
4/10