the "japanese take on half life" idea of breakdown is kind of hard to write off completely honestly, though it is different. want to call this an immsim even though that's not really correct, values realism of the choreography of your individual actions over providing a large multitude of possible interactions that're more streamlined in how they are perceived than they would be here. there's 3 kinds of food that are most of the health items in the game that aren't collected but eaten on the spot right then and there with very long animations, and a lot of exposition that isn't from character dialogue is exclusively in the form of clipboards your character flips each page of methodically, pretty much foregoing any system shockian wall scrawls or audio logs or other more varied conveyances of information. it really isn't concerned with "immersion" in how you perceive the world as much as being within derrick.

this kind of embodiment is also centered in the emphasis on hand to hand combat which requires an up close approach, with attention to enemy tells and your own attack distance/speed (and a surprising amount of combos/special attacks you can pull off if you experiment, even if their application can feel kind of crude), over controlling the level and utilizing varied modes of firepower that fpses prioritize. there are guns of course and you'll need them, but only 4 (except for THESE BABYS [fists][strong]) and they amount to locking on and hoping the bullets hit. and its definitely a slog at times with just how much you are fighting guys in empty corridors, but this was mostly not enough to be a big dealbreaker for me. in fact there is one point getting near the end of the game that i actually think it uses tedium pretty effectively, to emphasize how strong you become later on. that being said the un-lock-onable stealth t'lan are bad and FUCK that gauntlet in the big white room near the end in particular!!! shockwaves and neckbreakers are your only friends in this world.

i think the game is kept from being truly great partly from the above but mostly from a lack of strong connective tissue altogether. it has quite a few impactful moments and there's some interesting ideas within the twists of its sci fi story i think, but i feel disappointed with how little of it ties together satisfyingly. despite that i think its still largely good, this game feels kind of ahead of its time in its own immersive qualities and shows some ambition at times i find admirable, yet has a dumb fun wonky spirit that is irreplaceable. there's a part early on where you come into a cafeteria decorated with limp bloodied corpses, soft piano muzak playing from speakers to highlight the grimness of the scene, and then happen upon a hamburger on one of the tables for your character to aggressively grab, inspect with fascination like its an alien artifact, and then take a few chomps of in front of your camera and toss away. stuff like that is the heart of breakdown and puts its in stark contrast with the western fpses its compared with; its not so beholden to its representational atmosphere that it doesn't have a silly time with itself.