In preparation for Alan Wake 2, I decided to catch up on the Remedy Games I’ve not yet played, which is… all of them except Alan Wake and American Nightmare. I’ll try to fit in Max Payne 1 and 2 but we’ll see how the schedule is looking come October!
[MINOR SPOILERS FOR ALAN WAKE TOWARDS THE END]
Took a little bit of tweaking to get the game running at 4K on PC (game is locked to 1080p otherwise) but overall it was a pretty smooth experience from start to finish.
Quantum Break leans into heavy sci-fi, a departure from Alan Wake’s horror – although the game includes a healthy amount of references to Alan Wake, especially in Act One (which were appreciated). Every time I saw something I recognized from Alan Wake I started giggling and kicking my feet like a schoolgirl. It’s harmless fun. The game eventually carves out its own style and tone as it continues.
I can definitely see the through-line from Alan Wake to this. The moments where you’re trapped inside a “stutter,” (stopped time) and platforming across debris reminded me of the Alan Wake DLC, but realized in context and not just through reality-bending eldritch magic.
The shooting is good… for the most part. Jack Joyce’s time powers are fun to play around with – though not as robust or tactical as some players might like. I played on the hardest difficulty and even then I thought the game was too easy. There’s not a huge roster of enemies, either. The only way the game evens the playing field, so to speak, is by having enemies that can neutralize, or aren’t affected by, Jack’s powers. At first, I thought this was a clever way to mix things up; then, as more enemy types were introduced, I think that illusion fell flat.
Designing difficulty probably isn’t easy. I don’t envy the people who decide how much damage each bullet does, or how many bullets an enemy takes before they’re dead, but this game’s hardest difficulty felt very weird to me. Enemies are spongy, but they also don’t deal substantial damage – so they kinda need to be extra durable to be challenging by default. Then, there’s the actual tanky enemies which aren’t annoying until the Juggernaut variants appear, which can only be damaged from behind – you can’t freeze them, so you have to either dash or dodge behind them, and hit their weak point in “focus time” (QB’s equivalent of bullet time) to do any real damage. This wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t have to do it 4-5 times, waiting for my time powers to recharge between attacks. Juggernauts aren’t common, but their presence in an arena was always more eye-rolling than frustrating.
Then, there’s the snipers, which are definitely the most annoying enemies. Every other enemy at least feels balanced around a minutes-long firefight, whereas snipers are just the Jackal snipers from Halo 2 on Legendary – once you see that laser beam from across the map, if you’re not behind cover in 0.5 seconds, you’re DONE. One bullet means instadeath. Never felt fun fighting these guys but, again, they’re not very common so it was never a dealbreaker.
The final boss is also kinda silly, amounting to two waves of enemies while being hounded by the game’s antagonist, Paul Serene. Paul can hit you with an instakill blast from anywhere on the playing field, but as long as you use your dash ability once you see him charging a shot, you’ll survive.
Quantum Break also allows players to make decisions during key moments known as “junctions” between levels; however, you don’t make decisions as Jack. You actually take control of Paul Serene. I thought this was a really cool inversion of the idea of “choices matter,” because you’re not picking choices for yourself here, you’re picking choices that the villain makes instead. Because the player has more information available to them than Paul does, sometimes you’ll ask yourself, “Should I make a smart decision because I want Paul to be more threatening?” or “Should I make a dumb decision because I want to have an upper hand against him later?” Ultimately I don’t think these choices matter much in the end, but it’s such an interesting concept that I’d like to see it explored more elsewhere.
One of the game’s main selling points, and one that I’ve been dancing around until now, is the live action segments. Remedy is no stranger to live action. Alan Wake had “Night Springs,” mini Twilight Zone-esque vignettes which were unobtrusive and diegetic short films, serving to establish tone more than do any actual worldbuilding. These were fun! Quantum Break double-triple-quadruples down on the live action bits to the point where 2-3 hours of the game are just watching the show Quantum Break.
YMMV on this. The first two episodes were boring to me, although the latter half of the series wasn’t bad; quality is noticeably choppy (in more ways than one, more on this later) and some characters literally go nowhere. If they’re not dead by the final cutscene, you’d at least think they’d get proper sendoffs – they don’t. Almost every major player in the series is left behind unceremoniously, their fates ambiguous.
There are genuine moments of pathos and a good amount of “Oh shit!” moments but I think a lot of people will find these segments serviceable at best and unnecessary at worst. Lance Reddick hard carries the live action series to an absurd degree. Although many actors feel like they’re phoning it in half the time, Reddick’s steadfast presence and intimidating delivery almost elevates the series to match its lofty ambitions… almost.
Even now, I think most people can agree that Quantum Break was nothing if not a failed experiment. I still have to respect Remedy for having the chutzpah to put a gosh darn movie in their story-driven third-person shooter game. You don’t see Naughty Dog doing that, man! They keep their games and their HBO prestige series separate!
Quantum Break the TV series is only thwarted by two things: its interplay with in-game events, and your internet connection.
Almost all of the series is inconsequential. You can safely ignore it, but you’ll miss 90% of Lance Reddick, which is extremely unfortunate.
Secondly, and more importantly, however, is the fact that you aren’t watching Quantum Break the TV series – you’re streaming it inside the game. Depending on your internet, the quality of the show may be awful. My internet can be pretty spotty, so the entire first episode looked genuinely bad; bad compression, bad artifacting, you get the idea. There were some times when the show would pause to buffer. There were even some times where playback stopped and the game only gave me the option to “skip” or “replay” (this option should’ve been called “resume,” the wording of “replay” is misleading).
Still, I can’t really think of any other workaround that doesn’t involve streaming. Even including 2-3 hours of 1080p video in a video game is enough to tack on a lot of extra GBs. Streaming makes sense, but it’s not ideal, either.
Additionally, if at some point Remedy decides to sunset the servers for these live action bits, you'll probably be left to find them on YouTube between missions. Not great.
The game wraps everything up a little quicker than I’d’ve liked. This feels better than Alan Wake’s ultra-ambiguous non-ending, but also leaves the door open for any potential sequels. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a second Quantum Break! It’s a very endearing game. It’s got that Remedy special sauce and for some people that’s all it needs to be. Warrants at least one revisit someday down the line.
[MINOR SPOILERS FOR ALAN WAKE TOWARDS THE END]
Took a little bit of tweaking to get the game running at 4K on PC (game is locked to 1080p otherwise) but overall it was a pretty smooth experience from start to finish.
Quantum Break leans into heavy sci-fi, a departure from Alan Wake’s horror – although the game includes a healthy amount of references to Alan Wake, especially in Act One (which were appreciated). Every time I saw something I recognized from Alan Wake I started giggling and kicking my feet like a schoolgirl. It’s harmless fun. The game eventually carves out its own style and tone as it continues.
I can definitely see the through-line from Alan Wake to this. The moments where you’re trapped inside a “stutter,” (stopped time) and platforming across debris reminded me of the Alan Wake DLC, but realized in context and not just through reality-bending eldritch magic.
The shooting is good… for the most part. Jack Joyce’s time powers are fun to play around with – though not as robust or tactical as some players might like. I played on the hardest difficulty and even then I thought the game was too easy. There’s not a huge roster of enemies, either. The only way the game evens the playing field, so to speak, is by having enemies that can neutralize, or aren’t affected by, Jack’s powers. At first, I thought this was a clever way to mix things up; then, as more enemy types were introduced, I think that illusion fell flat.
Designing difficulty probably isn’t easy. I don’t envy the people who decide how much damage each bullet does, or how many bullets an enemy takes before they’re dead, but this game’s hardest difficulty felt very weird to me. Enemies are spongy, but they also don’t deal substantial damage – so they kinda need to be extra durable to be challenging by default. Then, there’s the actual tanky enemies which aren’t annoying until the Juggernaut variants appear, which can only be damaged from behind – you can’t freeze them, so you have to either dash or dodge behind them, and hit their weak point in “focus time” (QB’s equivalent of bullet time) to do any real damage. This wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t have to do it 4-5 times, waiting for my time powers to recharge between attacks. Juggernauts aren’t common, but their presence in an arena was always more eye-rolling than frustrating.
Then, there’s the snipers, which are definitely the most annoying enemies. Every other enemy at least feels balanced around a minutes-long firefight, whereas snipers are just the Jackal snipers from Halo 2 on Legendary – once you see that laser beam from across the map, if you’re not behind cover in 0.5 seconds, you’re DONE. One bullet means instadeath. Never felt fun fighting these guys but, again, they’re not very common so it was never a dealbreaker.
The final boss is also kinda silly, amounting to two waves of enemies while being hounded by the game’s antagonist, Paul Serene. Paul can hit you with an instakill blast from anywhere on the playing field, but as long as you use your dash ability once you see him charging a shot, you’ll survive.
Quantum Break also allows players to make decisions during key moments known as “junctions” between levels; however, you don’t make decisions as Jack. You actually take control of Paul Serene. I thought this was a really cool inversion of the idea of “choices matter,” because you’re not picking choices for yourself here, you’re picking choices that the villain makes instead. Because the player has more information available to them than Paul does, sometimes you’ll ask yourself, “Should I make a smart decision because I want Paul to be more threatening?” or “Should I make a dumb decision because I want to have an upper hand against him later?” Ultimately I don’t think these choices matter much in the end, but it’s such an interesting concept that I’d like to see it explored more elsewhere.
One of the game’s main selling points, and one that I’ve been dancing around until now, is the live action segments. Remedy is no stranger to live action. Alan Wake had “Night Springs,” mini Twilight Zone-esque vignettes which were unobtrusive and diegetic short films, serving to establish tone more than do any actual worldbuilding. These were fun! Quantum Break double-triple-quadruples down on the live action bits to the point where 2-3 hours of the game are just watching the show Quantum Break.
YMMV on this. The first two episodes were boring to me, although the latter half of the series wasn’t bad; quality is noticeably choppy (in more ways than one, more on this later) and some characters literally go nowhere. If they’re not dead by the final cutscene, you’d at least think they’d get proper sendoffs – they don’t. Almost every major player in the series is left behind unceremoniously, their fates ambiguous.
There are genuine moments of pathos and a good amount of “Oh shit!” moments but I think a lot of people will find these segments serviceable at best and unnecessary at worst. Lance Reddick hard carries the live action series to an absurd degree. Although many actors feel like they’re phoning it in half the time, Reddick’s steadfast presence and intimidating delivery almost elevates the series to match its lofty ambitions… almost.
Even now, I think most people can agree that Quantum Break was nothing if not a failed experiment. I still have to respect Remedy for having the chutzpah to put a gosh darn movie in their story-driven third-person shooter game. You don’t see Naughty Dog doing that, man! They keep their games and their HBO prestige series separate!
Quantum Break the TV series is only thwarted by two things: its interplay with in-game events, and your internet connection.
Almost all of the series is inconsequential. You can safely ignore it, but you’ll miss 90% of Lance Reddick, which is extremely unfortunate.
Secondly, and more importantly, however, is the fact that you aren’t watching Quantum Break the TV series – you’re streaming it inside the game. Depending on your internet, the quality of the show may be awful. My internet can be pretty spotty, so the entire first episode looked genuinely bad; bad compression, bad artifacting, you get the idea. There were some times when the show would pause to buffer. There were even some times where playback stopped and the game only gave me the option to “skip” or “replay” (this option should’ve been called “resume,” the wording of “replay” is misleading).
Still, I can’t really think of any other workaround that doesn’t involve streaming. Even including 2-3 hours of 1080p video in a video game is enough to tack on a lot of extra GBs. Streaming makes sense, but it’s not ideal, either.
Additionally, if at some point Remedy decides to sunset the servers for these live action bits, you'll probably be left to find them on YouTube between missions. Not great.
The game wraps everything up a little quicker than I’d’ve liked. This feels better than Alan Wake’s ultra-ambiguous non-ending, but also leaves the door open for any potential sequels. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a second Quantum Break! It’s a very endearing game. It’s got that Remedy special sauce and for some people that’s all it needs to be. Warrants at least one revisit someday down the line.