Ephemeris of the Mind (Game Review) Quantum Break
Time to read: 3 min read
Game Cover
I'm living in a cycle that cannot be broken, and I know where it leads.
Past Remedy review:
Platform played on: Xbox One (One X Enhanced), PC
Review
I’m a sucker for a good time traveling story and Quantum Break did not disappoint. The protagonist is Jack Joyce (Shawn Ashmore), who returns to his hometown of Riverport at the behest of Paul Serene (Aidan Gillen), his friend and also the head of a tech conglomerate called Monarch Solutions. Paul and William (Dominic Monaghan), Jack’s brother, have built a time machine. When Paul and Jack activate the machine, they unknowingly create a fracture in time, threatening to stop time for all eternity.
Riverport is ravaged by the effects of the Fracture, such as experiencing stutters, where time randomly stops. Jack has been dosed with Chronon particles, so he’s able to harness time-based abilities, such as traveling through the stutters. There are some pretty cool levels, where Jack has to use his time abilities to traverse an environment where time glitches.
Time stutter
The core gameplay involves Jack fighting Monarch forces as he tries to prevent the End of Time. Jack has access to a variety of weapons as well as different time abilities. The shooting gameplay feels polished and varied with solid, but linear, level design. Jack enters into cover automatically but the AIs are pretty intelligent and will flank to try to get to Jack even while he’s in cover.
Combat gameplay with time abilities
The lore is my favourite aspect of the game. The collectibles are meaningful and explore different side stories in the world. The performances of the cast, which includes Courtney Hope’s Beth Wilder, Lance Reddick’s Martin Hatch, and Patrick Heusinger’s Liam Burke, are all really solid. My favourite characters are probably Gillen’s Paul and Hope’s Beth, as they both have great character development. There is also a live-action TV show which ties into the game and shows the outcomes of the decisions made in-game. The TV show is clearly sponsored by Nissan and is decent but not amazing.
TV show
The game is very polished but I did encounter some issues. The TV show often was unavailable in-game for me, so I had to watch it on Youtube. There were also some minor gameplay glitches, where certain collectibles cannot be collected once a checkpoint is triggered. The biggest issue I’ve encountered, however, is with the PC version of the game. There is a widespread issue where the lighting glitches and the entire screen is filled with bright lights, making the game basically unplayable. I’ve been playing the game between my Xbox and my PC, and I encountered this bug frequently on the PC. The Xbox version, however, runs fine.
Conclusion
A solid action adventure game with a good plot and decent acting.