The vast majority of time in Quantum Break is spent watching the lengthy cutscenes, low levels of interaction in walk-and-talk scenes between characters, and looking around an environment for small story items. If it seems like I've gone on for quite a while treating this video game as if it's a more passive media like a movie or show, that's because the product itself feels split into distinct parts. I still never got used to Monaghan's greased-over hair, though. It's almost imperceptible, and rare, so as a whole it's a testament to how good Remedy's facial tech has gotten since Alan Wake. The facial capture is impeccably animated with even the slightest tick, but occasionally Ashmore or Monaghan's cheeks or lips will slip into looking melted or doughey. The in-engine cutscenes fall just short of seamless from their real-life counterparts. But like all but the best time travel stories, it collapses under its own weight, especially given that we have to keep track of multiple versions of multiple characters, each with their own ever-changing level of knowledge about what's going on. The episodes are pretty nicely produced, roughly on-par with a sci-fi show you might find on network TV. ![]() Your choices dictate which ones you see, along with some minor gameplay branches. These choices affect the game proper in some ways, but the bigger impact comes in the form of the lengthy, live-action TV episodes that punctuate each act. Each of the choices presented in the game are from Paul's perspective, as he determines how to manage the affairs of his evil empire. His character is barely one-and-a-half notes, going from cocksure but harmless bravado to outright supervillainy in almost literally the blink of an eye. That may be because all of the real agency in the story comes from Paul Serene, played with hand-wringing megalomaniacal glee by Aiden Gillen. His agency is strictly relegated to fumbling through this insane situation he's found himself in, and when he does develop a motivation of his own it feels left-field and unearned. We understand that he's the family screw-up compared to his brother Will's (Dominic Monaghan) twitchy, nervous intelligence, and that's about it. Jack is well-acted, inasmuch as Shawn Ashmore has room to explore the character, but there's simply not much to him. In Quantum Break, it's a throwaway line to justify why our hero can stand toe-to-toe with a paramilitary organization in combat encounters. In any other Remedy game, this would likely be a lynchpin of character development. Conflicts serious enough to necessitate a gun implies more than schoolyard hijinks, so the revelation seems ominous and implies a greater degree of depth to explore in his past. ![]() In the opening act, he mentions that he's familiar with guns because he's been in some scrapes before. Game FaceĬase in point: our protagonist, Jack Joyce. The narrative, story-driven TV tie-in and the compelling, cover-based shooter never merge into one cohesive whole as they should, leading to compromises in both. The two directions are at odds with each other in such a way that they can't coexist at the same time, leading the whole experience to feel bisected. In Quantum Break, a time travel experiment gone wrong leads to a tear in time, as possible realities crash into each other in shattered pieces throughout the world. The game itself exemplifies the same problem.
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