New Review Posted: Breakdown

[Dale Weir]

Brad Gallaway reviews Breakdown

"I like games that are bold, and not afraid to take risks. I especially like ones using new ideas to shake up stale genre formulas. However, there's a certain threshold that must not be crossed."

http://www.gamecritics.com/review/breakdown/main.php

[Boy]

I really have to buy this game.

[PeteJ]

Good review, I agree with almost everything there. It's an awful game, yet strangely enough it has been getting good reviews almost across the board. I think perhaps that people are confusing originality - which the game does have some, with quality - which the game lacks entirely.

Breakdown does try to do some interesting stuff, and in some ways it works well, but the experience as a whole is so utterly flawed and lifeless that any 'good idea' is made virtually redundant.

Regarding the level design, I do agree that it features some of the worst ever in the FPS genre. I don't agree however that it betters Doom, at all.

The biggest, most unforgivable offense is that the level design is astoundingly archaic. It's almost as if the game's developers haven't played a FPS since Doom, and have no concept of how much the genre has changed. Actually, Doom's level design is better than Breakdown's in some areas.

I'd say that Doom betters most FPS's for level design, not just Breakdown. Although it was obviously technically restricted, it never really felt that way at the time. The level design made incredible use of what the engine could provide, and some of the traps have become almost a standard within the genre. Everything was so very tight and had a reason, these days I find many FPS' are drawn out and dull. The Medal of Honor series, for example...

[Hypatia93]

Thanks, Brad. I've knocked it off my "wishlist." I don't have enough time to play the games I have, so I don't like buying ones that aren't worth the time or the purchase.

[Brad Gallaway]

Originally posted by PeteJ
Regarding the level design, I do agree that it features some of the worst ever in the FPS genre. I don't agree however that it betters Doom, at all.

>>>snip<<<

I'd say that Doom betters most FPS's for level design, not just Breakdown.

hey Pete.

just wanted to clarify.. do you think Doom's level design is better than Breakdown's, or no? I thought it was, but i was confused by your post.

and BTW, i was also pretty mystified by its generally good-to-very-good reviews across the board. i wonder if we're even playing the same game... either that, or we failed to receive our Namco hush money for the month.

; )

[PeteJ]

Strange thing is I really like Namco, which is possibly why I'm so harsh on the game - they should know better than to release this trash. I scored it 3/10. Nice to know there is another review down with mine on gamerankings now though

I do think Doom's level design is far better than Breakdown's in every single way. Your review states that Doom is better in some ways, which I don't agree with. The level design in Doom is fab!

The level design in Breakdown just doesn't make sense. There is no logic to the buildings with endless, deadend corridors without even a locked door to give it reason.

The moment I realised the game was really pap was when you come face to face with 2 hard enemies and 3 shooty-hard enemies at the same time. Although you can just run passed (not that I realised this at first), trying to kill them is so bloody irritating and it just highlights every flaw in the combat system. This is only about 4 hours in too, which doesn't set a good impression...

[Daniel Weissenberger]

Walter Kim takes a second glance at Breakdown, and uses it as an opportunity to put down dolphins:

"In the last half-century, Western philosophers and scientists began to realize the true extent of the body's relationship with the mind. Only in the last century have they begun to realize that we live in a world full of affordances, the psychologically constructed availability of things. Our minds don't merely require a body to exist; thinking itself is fundamentally shaped by the particular form and workings of the body. For a quick example, take a look at the controller you use to play videogames, but don't touch it. The controller isn't simply a colored piece of plastic with a particular shape and size, but an object that, in psychological terms, "affords" handling. It sits there ready for us to grasp it by the sides, its buttons ready to be pushed, triggers (if it has them) ready to be pulled. A dolphin couldn't possibly look at the controller in the same way; it has no hands and no mind structured to use them. "

The rest of the second opinion is right over here, should you be interested.

[Hypatia93]

Walter! I didn't know you were a dolphin hater! *tsk-tsk-tsk*

I don't know if I read the "correct" version of your review, but it was excellently done!