Quantum Break is so much more than just another shooter. It, quite possibly, is the future of gaming. Remedy, the studio behind one of my personal all-time favourite games, Alan Wake, have been working on Quantum Break for a fair bit now. The seamless integration of a video game with a live-action miniseries mustn’t have been easy, but all the hard work has been worth it. The game plays beautifully and looks even better.
Quantum Break’s story, while engaging, could’ve been a little less complicated. I often had to stop and retrace the steps the protagonists took to make sense of what is happening in the timeline. However, that doesn’t take anything away from the exhilarating gameplay Quantum Break has to offer. Playing as Jack Joyce, the boy-next-door-turned-time-bending-superman, you have the power to teleport, slow time down, create a force field against oncoming bullets, to name a few. While that makes combat – always one of the things I most look forward to in a Remedy game – great fun, the one grouse I had against this game was the lack of a progression system in Jack’s ability to earn those powers. He went from someone who had never shot a gun to someone who was wielding a tactical sub machine gun in a matter of hours.
Starring The Wire’s Aidan Gillen as the antagonist Paul Serene and Lance Reddick as the scheming Martin Hatch, Quantum Break’s production values – both in the game and the miniseries – are at par with the best TV shows out there. Made up of five gameplay acts, the game puts you in the shoes of Hatch at the end of each act, where you have to make a decision on how’d like to progress in the game. Your decision will determine how the episode of the miniseries will pan out. Truly, the future of gaming.
All in all, Quantum Break is one of the better Xbox exclusives out there. If you are on the Xbox, you must pick this game up, and that’s not all. If you pick up the Special Edition bundle, you get to play Alan Wake on your One. Now, if that’s not reason enough to invest on two amazing games, nothing will!
