I love time travel. I love thinking about its possibilities. It's one of those concepts that i love seeing being handled extremely well in any piece of media, and Quantum Break is exactly that. However lacking this game may be in any other area it handles its core theme in such a meticulous way that i can't help but admire.

Anyways, this is an interesting one. I'd probably find the tv show gimmick lame as hell considering this came out in the Xbone era if it was made by ANYONE but Remedy, it just makes sense y'know? They've always incorporated live action elements in their games that merging a game with a tv show to tell the story just feels like the natural progression to their way of making stories.

So Remedy is perfect for this kind of concept, surely it's gonna be great right? right? well............eh?

I like a lot about this game, I'm not gonna give 3.5 stars to something i disliked or thought was just okay. I just feel like it could've been...so much more. The time travel shenanigans are handled extremely well, and fits really well with the general aesthetic. The game looks pretty as hell and the stutters are always cool whenever they happened. However, I just feel like they could've included that stuff in the gameplay so much better than just, helping you shoot people better. It feels like such a missed opportunity.

Not that I dislike the shooting and everything, i think it's fun (except for that final boss fight fuck that). But that only really makes me sadder that it's not used for much beyond that bar some of the coolish platforming.

I mentioned how great the writing is, but the dialogue kinda leaves a lot to be desired, a lot of it just does not flow well at all and most of the time i just wanted Jack to shut up and stop talking forever. The characters are pretty great overall though. While Jack as a character isn't all that great his role in the story is pretty perfect for the game's theme of time travel not being able to change major events whatsoever. Serene, Beth, Martin, and Burke are also some of the other highlights.

Speaking of the writing, I love reading documents and side material in games i'm intrigued by as much as the next guy but it's kinda ridiculous in this game how much stuff you can miss by simply avoiding it. My brain is built incorrectly so i couldn't progress any of the areas until I read every single piece of document in those and let me tell you, there's a LOT.
don't get me wrong they're good! a lot of them are written really well, I just feel like a lot of that stuff should've just been included in the main story. However i'm not gonna nitpick on this too much to not come off as hypocritical considering I'm one of those people that think the cassette tapes in Peace Walker/MGSV is the best type of side content in the Metal Gear Games.

The ending is probably the best i could've asked for, it could be interpreted as a lame sequel hook but I'd honestly prefer if a sequel never gets made. It'd make the ending so much less cooler IMO.

But yeah, cool game! The Alan Wake references were pretty cute. I don't know when i'm gonna exactly play Control but it does seem pretty similar to this one so i'm pretty excited for that eventually.