You can (and at times must) also fight your enemies with your fists. Hand to
hand battles fare better than gunfights in Breakdown – you have a number of
punch, kick, and dodge moves to draw upon giving you a greater feeling of
control. It works pretty well for one on one battles, but will cause you some
aggravation when facing multiple foes. The problem is that there is no way to
attack foes to the side or behind you, and it is difficult to keep track of all
of your attackers with the game’s viewpoint. You may gain the upper hand on an
enemy, but end up being beaten to a pulp from behind in the process. To succeed
you’ll have to employ the ever popular run around all over the place while
trying to get a punch in tactic.
You’d think that with the effort spent to make the game seem like such a first
person experience that the game’s levels would be highly interactive. Sadly,
that’s not the case. There are surprisingly few things with which you can
interact in the game and when you do come across one the game prompts you to
press X to initiate the action. There’s not much of a feeling of control or
immersion if you just move along until the game tells you to interact with
something. The feeling of riding on a rail is further reinforced by the game’s
very linear level design. There’s never any doubt as to which way to go because
you won’t have to choose. It all serves to completely detract from the feeling
of immersion that the game tries to foster in the first place.
Breakdown could have been a great game, but something got lost between the
drawing board and the game disc. It doesn’t succeed in making you feel like you
are a part of the game’s world, but rather that you are involved in a tedious
and repetitive exercise over which you have very shaky control. Most of us can
get that feeling by just going to work and would rather not have it as a part of
our time spent gaming.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
67%. Breakdown’s interesting approach to first person gaming breaks
down in the execution.
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