Quantum Break

I had always been interested in playing through this gaming experience. I could never get the will to purchase it. I played this with GamePass on the One X.

I played the first couple chapters then fell off of it. Recently, I played through Control. Upon the completion of the main story of Control, I was blown away with the story telling and universe. I felt compelled to finish my Quantum Break playthrough. I only did a single playthrough, although I have been curious to the variety of endings and cinematics based on the intermission choices. The gameplay along side the live action shorts was an interesting story telling method. I found them to be well done and add to the overall unique experience. It is easy to imagine they are not for everyone. They break up gameplay and are pretty hefty, around 30-40 minutes between each chapter. They fill in the side stories of some other characters who are not really present in the game but are on the periphery of the main story. Not needed to play through the game, but a nice break for something completely different.

The gameplay is a typical third person shooter with time based powers. One power lets you essentially stop time and run up on enemies for some close quarters take-downs. Another power reminded me of F.E.A.R. It was a time slow that also allowed you to compound bullet damage. Later in the game, there are enemies who can fight through some of the time stops using equipment. When they are killed, they become stuck in time and remain in their death pose. Very cool.

Broad views: It is an older, clunkier version of Control that uses time powers and abilities instead of telekinetic based abilities. It is very grounded to the ground. All and all, a fine game. A cool story with some interesting cinematography. "BETTER NOT, JACK" is scarred into my brain. Although, I had to look up some footage to remember the exact phrase. That last boss fight is a mess. It was the only real frustrating aspect of the game. I probably watched/skipped the intro-cinematic to that fight more times than I was killed in the rest of the game. I only had one game breaking bug that forced me to do a hard reset, as seen in the photo above. The time machine area failed to load, and I was unable to complete the platforming.

A note: I forgot to grab a second screenshot before uninstalling the game and the additional 100GB of live action cinematics. Hence, the broken image reused.