Quantum Break developed by Remedy games is a story that explores what happens when irresponsible and crazy science goes horribly wrong. A fracture in time is formed; which leads to all sorts of bizzare outcomes - time stutters, and the control of fictional chronon particles lead being able to navigate moments frozen in time.
The game calls these "zero state", where time has halted its inevitable march; and it makes for some dramatic moments. This forces you to view the game world, universe, and reality in a very different light.
In much scientific and philosophical literature, discourse about whether the universe is discrete or continuous (ie can be chopped up into single moments, or not) is fascinating, and while Quantum Break doesn't go much depth into this, the visual splendour off an explosion, frozen in time, a crowd being dispersed by security personnel, in an interactive "mannequin challenge" type setting is fascinating and breath taking the first time you encounter such a moment early in the game.
There's also puzzles you must solve along the way, which involve either rewinding the impact of time, movement, or in one particularly elaborate scene, navigating the collapse of a bridge in slow motion, while rewinding and fast forwarding certain moments in ordet to traverse otherwise impassable obstacles.
We follow Jack Joyce (Shawn Ashmore) reuniting with good friend Paul Serene (Aidan Gillen) - this is where time fractures, and everything goes to shit. He quickly meets Beth Wilder (Courtney Hope), who inexplicity begins assisting him, even though she appears to be working for Monarch Solutions, who have guns and want to kill you.
Easily mistakable for simple "collectibles" placed purely to pad out the game's length, Quantum Break's narrative items (in most cases, documents you have to actually read) add copious amounts of depth, intrigue and insight to the story. The in game emails, in particular, show Monarch Solution's internal company politics, with staff members treated like chess pieces. Few people know what they want, or what they're doing, and fewer know how their part in it matters. Reading each of the individual elements builds a deeper understanding, and dapples the game's plot with incredible attention to detail.
There's so much depth in the story, its sub-plots, and intricate fan-service; there's copies of Alan Wake spread throughout the game world, as well as one man speaking in slow motion "I hate Rockstar" - an obvious dig at the fact Max Payne 3 wasn't developed by Remedy.
The game also tells its story through intense action sequences. And what elaborate action scenes that they are. As Jack Joyce, you get the ability to stop time in a localised area, "time vision", which lets you see temporal anomalies, time dodge, which lets you dodge bullets, time shield, which lets you soak up bullets, and time rush, which lets you run really, really fast.
This, combined with third person action - gunplay gets you a vast, and incredibly cinematic way of dealing with enemies. It opens up tactical opportunities such as stopping time in a localised area, moving quikcly to flank your enemies, then unloading a barrage of bullets to ensure they're dead when time starts back up again.
PC vs XBOX
Poorly optimised on PC, Quantum Break won't even let time travel help you. A 1080ti manages a highly variable frame rate between 45-70, while only loading the GPU at 59%-61% - suggesting that the game engine scales poorly. Textures, particle effects and lighting are all objectively superior on PC, but you have to look very closely to notice some of these differences. The image on PC is also sharper, owing to higher resolution textures. See the below screen shots I took while playing across each platform for a comparison.
XBOX One
PC, ultra settings
In this screenshot comparison you can see the PC version has more detailed particle effects, and sharper textures. This is particularly noticeable on the female character model in shot, with aliasing starting to look more obvious on the Xbox version, in particular around the eyes and mouth.
XBOX One
PC, Ultra Settings
In this screenshot comparison, you can again see that the details on the ground textures are much sharper on the PC, with much more detail coming through. While not in shot on the PC screenshot, that van's taillight looks terrible, and out of place on the XBOX screenshot. Lighting has more depth on the PC version, and the texture on the crates in the background is far superior on PC.
The XBOX version (played for this review on an XBOX One S), is pretty impressive, provided you're not sitting half a centimetre away from the screen. There is noticeable blurring that is not present on the PC version, and textures are less detailed.
This is disappointing, given the game play experience is superior on PC, even with all the shortcomings in terms of optimisation. There's even the fact that the PC version is so much better to control, owing to increased responsiveness, and the mouse and keyboard configuration remaining superior to the dual stick controls of the XBOX.
Is it worth it though?
Clocking in at about 10-12 hours, with reasonable replay value (I'm sure there's parts of the story that I missed first time round), Quantum Break, to me, presented exceptional value for money - I picked up the PC version for AUD$10 via a sale at a local games store, and had previously purchased the XBOX One version (with Alan Wake digital copy included) for AUD$30. At $4/hour for entertainment, I definitely can't complain; as I thoroughly enjoyed trying to fix time.
If you're into anything remotely linked to time, and find it a fascinating subject, Quantum Break offers a digestable, detailed story that you can enjoy again and again. It loses points for poor technical choices made by the development team regarding the streaming of the "show", product placement (Microsoft and Nissan products are everywhere) but gains an infinite number of points for story, splendour and originality.
There's even scope for a sequel (oh, a man can wish, where the plot plays out differently) but I'm sure I am not the only person with such ideas. I might write a post about how that could work sometime.
All screenshots and images used in this article were captured by myself during gameplay.