Quantum Break (Xbox One) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
56A playthrough of Remedy Entertainment and Microsoft Studios' 2016 action-adventure game for the Xbox One, Quantum Break.
Recorded from an Xbox One S via HDMI at 1080p60 with an XCapture-1 capture card.
Quantum Break is a thoroughly enjoyable, thoroughly high-budget third-person shooter that goes light on the shooting and heavy on the story line. The plot revolves around Jack Joyce (played by Shawn Ashmore) and his brother Will (Dominic Monaghan) and their attempts to stop their over ambitious childhood friend Paul Serene (Aiden Gillen) from destroying the very universe as we know it. Serene, piggybacking off of Will's breakthroughs in quantum physics, has built a "time machine" of sorts, but when they attempt to use it, it "fractures" time. It sounds a bit hokey when summarized as such, but there is a lot to the story and I don't want to give anything meaningful away here. Suffice it to say, it's interesting, exciting at many moments, and far more intelligent in it's treatment of time travel than most Hollywood films tend to be.
From a gameplay standpoint, it is a fairly traditional third-person action/adventure game, following in the footsteps of Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and another of modern game that follows the same general pattern. This one has a few elements that set it well apart from those games though: the abilites you use in combat and in environmental puzzles all revolve around the manipulation and distortion of time, and lead to some really cool effects in fights. It's also nice that these echo fairly closely the ripple and fracture effects in time during the story segments.
The other big change from the norm here is the structure of the entire presentation: Quantum Break is nothing if not cinematic, and it wants you to know that fully well. At the end of the first four (of five) acts, you arrive at a critical "junction." These moments ask you to make a decision that will alter the course of the entire plot from that moment forward, and each of them give some pretty dramatic changes to the course the game will follow. I've played through the game twice and had very different experiences on both playthroughs. Different people live and die, different events transpire between conspirators - it's well worth multiple playthroughs to see the possibilities. This video only shows one potential path of the many possible.
After you've made the choice at the junction, the game kicks into an FMV segment, but get this: they aren't merely clips to fill in a few plot gaps. They are full-length, live-action TV style episodes that provide continuity between the player-controller segments in each act. They're all fairly high budget and well done - at least on par with your typical made-for-TV production on a cable network - and though some people have criticized the decision for how it takes some control away from the player, I thought it was a pretty brilliant move. It's a novelty, certainly, but it does provide more depth to the characters and the plot than most game's 3-5minute in-game pre-rendered cutscenes tend to. I also really liked that they were done with live-actors - it felt more natural, and the in-game character models are more than good enough that the shift isn't anywhere near as jarring as you might imagine.
Finally, the presentation on this game is phenomenal. The graphics are excellent throughout, and the fracture effects were incredibly well done. Nothing stupid or cheesy or cheap looking - they really sell many of the environments and the plot events through the special effects that at times can be pretty stunning.
Overall, I loved the game. I hardly ever do modern games on my channel, so that should tell you something! It's not so expensive anymore either, so if you have a powerful PC or an Xbox, I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi, good writing, or games that want to entertain without being annoying, frustrating, or lame.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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