Teardown is perhaps the ultimate example of how a game with great mechanics, cool aesthetics and a really unique idea can be utterly destroyed by terrible design and execution. How you can make a game with this concept this mind-numbingly boring and repetitive is beyond me.
3 / 10
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I remember hearing about this one years ago, and thinking that the concept sounded really cool. Being able to destroy literally every single object in a game world sounds awesome. It would be far from the first game to play around with this concept, in fact just last year I played “Perfect Vermin”, a free game which similarly features fully destructible objects which you can blow into increasingly smaller bits with a giant mallet. The big difference being that Perfect Vermin is actually a competent game, instead of a glorified tech demo. Admittedly, the tech that Teardown demos is much more elaborate. However, it’s not much of a video game. I’m really glad that I got it on PS+ for free, if I had paid actual money for this, I’d be pretty miffed, considering it costs something like 30 $/€ normally.
Before I go into anything else in more detail, I will mention that - as of now - I could not bring myself to actually finish this game’s campaign, I dropped it after mission 8 or so. Typically, I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing an actual review/critique about a game I’m only about halfway through, but in this case I feel like it is warranted, since there truly doesn’t seem to be all that much to it beyond what the game presents you with in the first couple of missions. What’s more is that, to be fair, the campaign mode isn’t really what this game is about. At least, that’s what you would assume, based on all the extra modes, but we’ll get to that.
From what I’ve read from interviews with the dev team and other reviewers on various platforms, Teardown’s development started with what ultimately became it’s most recognisable aspect and selling point, the fully destructible environments, and got built up from there. In case you’re unfamiliar, the game uses voxel-based tech similar to Minecraft, only the voxels are way smaller and as such allow for more complexity when you break the game objects up into their individual voxel components. Think of a building made of LEGO that can break up into all the individual pieces, with different materials like bricks, wood or rock having different properties. Now, credit where it’s due, this system works very well - for the most part. The way that individual voxels all break apart and remain as smithereens in the environment, which can themselves be crushed down more and more, is really impressive. The way different materials react to different stimuli is also very well made. The sledge hammer (your starting weapon) can break up wood, glass, dirt and other “softer” materials, while not really doing anything against metal or buildings made of brick and mortar. For that, you’ll need something with more damage potential, like an explosive propane tank, or a big vehicle that you can crash into it, or one of the tools you’ll unlock during your playthrough, ranging from blowtorches and spray cans to rocket launchers and canisters of nitroglycerin. It mostly makes sense, and blowing shit up and watching all the little pieces fly everywhere is very cool. What’s especially impressive is how nicely fire works in this game, how well it spreads by itself, how realistic it looks and just how natural it feels. Teardown also just looks very good in general. The best way to describe it would be something like “Minecraft with shaders”. I’m sure you know what I mean. The lighting is great and the game runs at a very stable 60fps pretty much no matter what’s happening on screen. The background music within the levels is a little… understated, but it’s pretty chill and works well as your typical “music to study to” or whatever.
So, what’s the problem here? If I had to sum up my problems up into a single phrase, it’d be that: Teardown has no idea what kind of game it wants to be. If you haven’t played this game for yourself you might think “What are you talking about? It’s obviously a demolition simulator where you can blow shit up.” Yes, that’s what you would think. But it’s not. In actuality, this game, whose entire mechanical framework is ostensibly built upon destroying objects, is really more of a heist game. And sadly, not a very good one at that. You’re basically playing Thief with destructible environments. This game, whose entire marketing, online-presence and trailers ALL make it seem like this game is primarily about messing around with a pretty advanced physics engine, the game whose name is literally “TEARDOWN” really just wants you to to steal documents or cars. That’s got to be the biggest bait and switch I’ve seen since the days of MGS2, but not in a good way. And this is where I have to come back to what I said before about how the devs started with the physics engine and tried to build their way up from there, because they clearly didn’t really know how to construct an actual game around that concept. Again, you might think to yourself “This doesn’t sound so bad, that sounds kinda fun!” But the problem is less that the devs made a very strange decision to merge two very different game experiences with each other, it’s more that they clearly didn’t know how to design an actually fun heist game in the first place.
The weird thing is, the game’s first mission even starts out with you simply demolishing some building, handing you a couple of tools and letting you go crazy with them. Just try them out. Whenever you’re finished destroying the building you’ve been tasked with, you jump into your escape vehicle. The second mission does the same, with additional objectives thrown into the mix. It’s starting with the third mission that things take a very weird turn. So, up until now you’ve been given basically complete freedom in how to tackle your missions. Take however long you need, do what you want, just get it done. But starting now, the game begins introducing increasingly annoying gameplay elements and rules that run completely antithetical to the experience I just described. For starters, you’re not really tasked with destroying buildings anymore, rather you’re supposed to steal documents, cars, safes, valuables, etc. Very occasionally this also includes raising a building, but - for reasons that will become apparent shortly -this becomes less and less relevant the further the game goes. I realise this is beginning to sound very abstract, so let me give you an example:
A typical Teardown mission will look like this: You’re tasked with stealing 3 documents as your main objectives. Each of these documents are stored in different locations throughout the level, often as far away from each other as possible. Beyond that you typically also have optional objectives, which are mostly just more valuables to steal, let’s say 2 additional documents in this case. The mission takes place within a closed off, but openly designed space, and lets you tackle any objective first if you want to. There is no time limit, and there are no enemy NPCs (as far as I can tell, like I said I haven’t finished the campaign) But here’s the thing: Each and every one of these objects is trapped with a 60 second timer that ends with you getting arrested - and that goes for the whole run. Yes, you have to steal all 3 objects within 60 seconds starting from the first one and get to your escape vehicle before the timer runs out. The alarm cannot be deactivated by any means. The idea here is to utilise your ability to destroy the environment to create an “optimal path”, as it were. Except that all the buildings in most levels are now also equipped with fire alarms, meaning they’re heavily restricting your ability for maximising destruction, subsequently robbing you from what is by far the most entertaining aspect of this game. So you want me to destroy everything.. but not too much? So, what this boils all down to is this: You load into the level, you do nothing but scouting for the first 5 minutes and just study the map on where everything is. Then you go and, with pinpoint precision, create a little path of destruction (but not too much!!) with your frustratingly underpowered tools for usually 15-30 minutes depending on the level only to THEN rush the actual “game” part within 60 seconds. Only, if you made the mistake of not quick saving before actually starting your run, and you make some tiny mistake or the physics decide to fuck you over - and they WILL - you get to do it all over again. Yes, the entire thing. If you actually decided to use the spray paint like a good little boy to mark your optimal path or whatever, guess what, that’s gone too.
I wish I could at least compliment Teardown on being a somewhat decent destruction simulator, but even there I have to qualify my statements a bit. The controls for grabbing and throwing objects don’t work very well and I feel like explosives are way too underpowered. Generally, I’m not sure why this game seems to shun the idea of grand scale destruction for its own sake, but I feel like I’m repeating myself. What’s worst is the fact that any building - literally no matter how much you’ve already destroyed and burned it - will absolutely, categorically refuse to fall over if there’s so much as a single line of voxels forming a pillar still standing. The way the game just switches to Minecraft-physics for this is just jarring. The game already features relatively realistic gravity for any object that is already detached from a larger structure, so I just don’t understand it. It ruins the whole experience - even more than the things I already mentioned.
So the missions aren’t great. The story mode isn’t the only mode this game comes with. What about creative mode? Surely this could salvage this? Maybe, I don’t know. I might know if they didn’t make the harebrained decision to make you unlock both all levels AND tools in the story mode before you got to properly use it. Seeing how I don’t feel compelled to go and play this game’s terrible missions any more than I already forced myself, I guess I’m not qualified to really talk about it. Just when you thought they couldn’t make any more calls like that. I know there are even more aspects to the game, like a co-op mode or something but again, it really isn’t giving me any actual incentive to go and find out.
Ultimately I don’t even really know what else to say about Teardown. It’s a game that should’ve been great, a game all about appeasing that most primal parts of our brains that just want to see things go boom. It’s a game I really wanted to love, I wanted to have a great time with it. But instead, it’s a half-hearted tech demo that is so shockingly bereft of any solid gameplay foundation to stand on that it barely even meets the requirement for me to call it a “video game”.
I really can’t say much more than this: There is potential here, and I hope that the dev team behind it can utilise more of it in the future. If they use the tech from this project and attach it to a game that actually fits it thematically, they could have a hit here. But there is a lot of work to be done. Might just be that they have to (pardon the pun) tear this whole thing down and start from scratch.
3 / 10
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I remember hearing about this one years ago, and thinking that the concept sounded really cool. Being able to destroy literally every single object in a game world sounds awesome. It would be far from the first game to play around with this concept, in fact just last year I played “Perfect Vermin”, a free game which similarly features fully destructible objects which you can blow into increasingly smaller bits with a giant mallet. The big difference being that Perfect Vermin is actually a competent game, instead of a glorified tech demo. Admittedly, the tech that Teardown demos is much more elaborate. However, it’s not much of a video game. I’m really glad that I got it on PS+ for free, if I had paid actual money for this, I’d be pretty miffed, considering it costs something like 30 $/€ normally.
Before I go into anything else in more detail, I will mention that - as of now - I could not bring myself to actually finish this game’s campaign, I dropped it after mission 8 or so. Typically, I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing an actual review/critique about a game I’m only about halfway through, but in this case I feel like it is warranted, since there truly doesn’t seem to be all that much to it beyond what the game presents you with in the first couple of missions. What’s more is that, to be fair, the campaign mode isn’t really what this game is about. At least, that’s what you would assume, based on all the extra modes, but we’ll get to that.
From what I’ve read from interviews with the dev team and other reviewers on various platforms, Teardown’s development started with what ultimately became it’s most recognisable aspect and selling point, the fully destructible environments, and got built up from there. In case you’re unfamiliar, the game uses voxel-based tech similar to Minecraft, only the voxels are way smaller and as such allow for more complexity when you break the game objects up into their individual voxel components. Think of a building made of LEGO that can break up into all the individual pieces, with different materials like bricks, wood or rock having different properties. Now, credit where it’s due, this system works very well - for the most part. The way that individual voxels all break apart and remain as smithereens in the environment, which can themselves be crushed down more and more, is really impressive. The way different materials react to different stimuli is also very well made. The sledge hammer (your starting weapon) can break up wood, glass, dirt and other “softer” materials, while not really doing anything against metal or buildings made of brick and mortar. For that, you’ll need something with more damage potential, like an explosive propane tank, or a big vehicle that you can crash into it, or one of the tools you’ll unlock during your playthrough, ranging from blowtorches and spray cans to rocket launchers and canisters of nitroglycerin. It mostly makes sense, and blowing shit up and watching all the little pieces fly everywhere is very cool. What’s especially impressive is how nicely fire works in this game, how well it spreads by itself, how realistic it looks and just how natural it feels. Teardown also just looks very good in general. The best way to describe it would be something like “Minecraft with shaders”. I’m sure you know what I mean. The lighting is great and the game runs at a very stable 60fps pretty much no matter what’s happening on screen. The background music within the levels is a little… understated, but it’s pretty chill and works well as your typical “music to study to” or whatever.
So, what’s the problem here? If I had to sum up my problems up into a single phrase, it’d be that: Teardown has no idea what kind of game it wants to be. If you haven’t played this game for yourself you might think “What are you talking about? It’s obviously a demolition simulator where you can blow shit up.” Yes, that’s what you would think. But it’s not. In actuality, this game, whose entire mechanical framework is ostensibly built upon destroying objects, is really more of a heist game. And sadly, not a very good one at that. You’re basically playing Thief with destructible environments. This game, whose entire marketing, online-presence and trailers ALL make it seem like this game is primarily about messing around with a pretty advanced physics engine, the game whose name is literally “TEARDOWN” really just wants you to to steal documents or cars. That’s got to be the biggest bait and switch I’ve seen since the days of MGS2, but not in a good way. And this is where I have to come back to what I said before about how the devs started with the physics engine and tried to build their way up from there, because they clearly didn’t really know how to construct an actual game around that concept. Again, you might think to yourself “This doesn’t sound so bad, that sounds kinda fun!” But the problem is less that the devs made a very strange decision to merge two very different game experiences with each other, it’s more that they clearly didn’t know how to design an actually fun heist game in the first place.
The weird thing is, the game’s first mission even starts out with you simply demolishing some building, handing you a couple of tools and letting you go crazy with them. Just try them out. Whenever you’re finished destroying the building you’ve been tasked with, you jump into your escape vehicle. The second mission does the same, with additional objectives thrown into the mix. It’s starting with the third mission that things take a very weird turn. So, up until now you’ve been given basically complete freedom in how to tackle your missions. Take however long you need, do what you want, just get it done. But starting now, the game begins introducing increasingly annoying gameplay elements and rules that run completely antithetical to the experience I just described. For starters, you’re not really tasked with destroying buildings anymore, rather you’re supposed to steal documents, cars, safes, valuables, etc. Very occasionally this also includes raising a building, but - for reasons that will become apparent shortly -this becomes less and less relevant the further the game goes. I realise this is beginning to sound very abstract, so let me give you an example:
A typical Teardown mission will look like this: You’re tasked with stealing 3 documents as your main objectives. Each of these documents are stored in different locations throughout the level, often as far away from each other as possible. Beyond that you typically also have optional objectives, which are mostly just more valuables to steal, let’s say 2 additional documents in this case. The mission takes place within a closed off, but openly designed space, and lets you tackle any objective first if you want to. There is no time limit, and there are no enemy NPCs (as far as I can tell, like I said I haven’t finished the campaign) But here’s the thing: Each and every one of these objects is trapped with a 60 second timer that ends with you getting arrested - and that goes for the whole run. Yes, you have to steal all 3 objects within 60 seconds starting from the first one and get to your escape vehicle before the timer runs out. The alarm cannot be deactivated by any means. The idea here is to utilise your ability to destroy the environment to create an “optimal path”, as it were. Except that all the buildings in most levels are now also equipped with fire alarms, meaning they’re heavily restricting your ability for maximising destruction, subsequently robbing you from what is by far the most entertaining aspect of this game. So you want me to destroy everything.. but not too much? So, what this boils all down to is this: You load into the level, you do nothing but scouting for the first 5 minutes and just study the map on where everything is. Then you go and, with pinpoint precision, create a little path of destruction (but not too much!!) with your frustratingly underpowered tools for usually 15-30 minutes depending on the level only to THEN rush the actual “game” part within 60 seconds. Only, if you made the mistake of not quick saving before actually starting your run, and you make some tiny mistake or the physics decide to fuck you over - and they WILL - you get to do it all over again. Yes, the entire thing. If you actually decided to use the spray paint like a good little boy to mark your optimal path or whatever, guess what, that’s gone too.
I wish I could at least compliment Teardown on being a somewhat decent destruction simulator, but even there I have to qualify my statements a bit. The controls for grabbing and throwing objects don’t work very well and I feel like explosives are way too underpowered. Generally, I’m not sure why this game seems to shun the idea of grand scale destruction for its own sake, but I feel like I’m repeating myself. What’s worst is the fact that any building - literally no matter how much you’ve already destroyed and burned it - will absolutely, categorically refuse to fall over if there’s so much as a single line of voxels forming a pillar still standing. The way the game just switches to Minecraft-physics for this is just jarring. The game already features relatively realistic gravity for any object that is already detached from a larger structure, so I just don’t understand it. It ruins the whole experience - even more than the things I already mentioned.
So the missions aren’t great. The story mode isn’t the only mode this game comes with. What about creative mode? Surely this could salvage this? Maybe, I don’t know. I might know if they didn’t make the harebrained decision to make you unlock both all levels AND tools in the story mode before you got to properly use it. Seeing how I don’t feel compelled to go and play this game’s terrible missions any more than I already forced myself, I guess I’m not qualified to really talk about it. Just when you thought they couldn’t make any more calls like that. I know there are even more aspects to the game, like a co-op mode or something but again, it really isn’t giving me any actual incentive to go and find out.
Ultimately I don’t even really know what else to say about Teardown. It’s a game that should’ve been great, a game all about appeasing that most primal parts of our brains that just want to see things go boom. It’s a game I really wanted to love, I wanted to have a great time with it. But instead, it’s a half-hearted tech demo that is so shockingly bereft of any solid gameplay foundation to stand on that it barely even meets the requirement for me to call it a “video game”.
I really can’t say much more than this: There is potential here, and I hope that the dev team behind it can utilise more of it in the future. If they use the tech from this project and attach it to a game that actually fits it thematically, they could have a hit here. But there is a lot of work to be done. Might just be that they have to (pardon the pun) tear this whole thing down and start from scratch.
2 Comments
no idea what you're saying homie but i wish you a great day
Vaportaro420
4 months ago