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| http://www.breachgame.com/images/shipping-screens/screenshot-11.jpg |
Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Platform: PC Steam (Also on Playstation 3 & Xbox 360)
Release Date: January 25, 2011
Genre: Tactical First-Person Shooter
Pros:
-Implementation of active-cover and destructible environment
-Lots of perks, gadgets, and equipment to purchase
-Strategy and tactics is much more emphasized
-The slower pace of the game is relaxing
-Some games make you feel very satisfied
Cons:
-Obvious glitches, lag, and bugs within online gameplay
-Unruly controls in aiming movement
-Items, perks, and attachments are expensive and take forever to earn
-Unfriendly user-interface for the main menu, character customization, and help section
-Only 5 maps for the 5 modes within the game for the $15
With an emphasis on tactical active-cover with the combination of destructible environments, the game sounds like it has a lot of potential for a unique experience for those who are looking for a more authentic experience in their first-person shooters. The game suffers from graphic glitches, hit-box lag, and experience ruining bugs with controls that feels very loose and slippery unfortunately. The game also only contains 5 maps and 5 game modes for the $15 the players have to pay for. With an over saturation of digitally sold first-person shooters in the market, can this faulty shooter with great potential hold up in the market?
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
Graphics
The graphics aren't too bad for a $15 shooter, though it could have some polish to it. The models aren't too bad, the colors are easy on the eyes, but the textures are archaic and look like they came out of Counter-Strike 1.6. The game clearly does it what it says and have destructible environments blown off with pieces of it flying off, but that's only if the settings for the debris are set high enough. The game does require a bit of resources and processing power in order to run smoothly with full settings on high; however, it greatly affects the gameplay in terms of movement and aiming. I purposely turned everything to the lowest settings in order to play somewhat efficiently. There can be improvements to optimization to avoid graphics lag in smoke, quick turning, and explosions. Other bugs should be addressed and fixed such as floating walls and objects and syncing up the models with the actual hit-boxes to each player. Graphics: 6/10
User-Interface
The main menu, customization screen and help screen all have a monotonous tone and size to it and makes it a bit more confusing to navigate. During in-game, the only way to resume game is to click resume or back without the option of pressing escape. I had to do a lot of adjustments to mouse sensitivity because of how little control I felt I had when aiming, and it was difficult getting in and out of the option menu. In order for the player to customize their weapons, gadgets, and perks is to leave their game and go back to the main menu to access the screen for doing the purchases and equipping. This isn't too much of a bother for me, but it has been a problem for others. What I like about it is that the game is on-going. There isn't an intermission or waiting for players. The only waiting in-between rounds and games is the loading screen, which doesn't take very long, and spawning time. Getting around the game's menu isn't terrible, but it could be much better. User-Interface: 4/10
Audio
The audio is decent for an FPS. I've heard much worse in shooters before and so far everything has been satisfactory in terms of recording. The audio programming is a bit strange though. Sometimes I hear gunshots from behind me when the shots are coming from above. The directional programming needs closer inspection to ensure that they're giving accurate feedback for the players that use sound and direction as a tactic judging proximity. The one-liners are a bit humorous, and there hasn't been anything distracting with dialogue so far. Overall, I thought the audio was okay. The directional audio system should be fixed though. Audio: 6/10
Controls
This is my biggest gripe about the game that could change the way I feel about it entirely. When I first hopped into the game, I realized how difficult it was to aim towards ANYTHING I was looking at focusing on. The aiming had a delay in reaction and felt loose and uncontrollable. This led to difficulty in following moving enemies, sniping, shooting with a pistol, shotguns or anything single burst firing methods. I was able to improve it tremendously by turning the sensitivity down to the lowest setting and turning Vsync on. Even then, I had trouble aiming towards where I wanted to. Aiming down sight is fine, and I'm so glad it's not toggle; however, the motion delay still applies when ADS. Movement was okay, but it's a bit difficult to strafe while running. The active-cover really works and it really adds to the strategy in the game. Crouching is limited to only toggle and not hold, which is fine for this game. Jumping is useful for certain places such as lunging over objects and gaps. The game was developed with the console in mind, but I hear the controls for the consoles are a bit unruly as well. I tried using a gamepad, but it wasn't compatible with the game. I think it only accepts an Xbox 360 controller since the key settings is by default for Xbox 360 and can't be customized (3 different defaults). The aiming motion delay can't be ignored as it's a pivotol factor in a shooter, and so I can't give the controls much more praise than for its succesful execution of the active-cover. Controls: 4/10
Level Design
The three game modes I played were Team Death Match, Infiltration (capture points), Convoy (Escort mission). The other two modes (Retrieval and Sole Survivor) with the three I mentioned is played on five maps and most of these maps are medium to large sized terrains with lots of open spaces and some close-quarters. Most of the maps are designed to have long areas which bring players to snipe more than often. In close quarters, player resort to RPGs. This may all sound cheap and unbalanced, but the maps are oddly fair for the most part. Because of the destructible environments, it's difficult to really find a safe area. I haven't found or seen anyone else with a godly area where they kill everyone, despite the game being camp heavy (meaning there are a lot of players sitting in one area waiting for the opponent to appear and make a mistake. The levels are distinctive and it's fairly easy to get around after a few rounds, and they're pretty fun to play on; however, despite being a small team development sold with only $15, five maps seem rather limited. Blacklight: Tango Down was also a digitally sold FPS at $15 a sale and it had 12 maps for players right off the bat. I like the maps, but it'd be nice to have more. Perhaps they can add more with no extra cost, or is Valve the only company doing that in the industry? Level Design: 7/10
Gameplay
I'm going to be straight forward with this game and say that "I like it." I hate how I can't aim right, how I get killed by snipers or RPGs from across the map, and the crazy teleportation of players from graphical glitches and online lag, but oddly enough I enjoyed playing the game. The game has a slow-paced flow that makes it much more suspenseful or relaxing (depending on the situation) compared to every other FPS emphasizing the non-stop action and gunfire. To be honest, I bought the game because I thought it was going to be action intensive with explosions and lots of gunfire exchanges (whoever made that trailer in the video above did a good job of getting the viewer pumped up and excited). The slower-paced gameplay is due to the large maps, squad/team intensive approach, frequent camping with the utilization of the active-cover and how easy it is to die when running around. This gave me a lot of time to think and look around to choose my targets rather than bum rushing blindly like I usually do. The mechanics used in the game is similar to Rainbow Six's Vegas with their cover system and Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Red Faction Guerrilla's destructible environment system combined together in a modern day shooter similar to games like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. Though the mechanics aren't new, they're pretty fun within the context of the game. If they weren't there, this would probably be another generic FPS out in the market with nothing new to deliver. The community so far is okay. The first few hours I played, I got to chat with a lot of the players and asked their opinions about the game and made justifiable comparisons to other FPS out in the market. A few people said that they really liked the game and enjoyed the unique gameplay. Those that didn't like the game addressed the poor controls like I did. Overall, it was a very friendly environment, and I enjoyed it. The past 2 hours I played before I started this review, people were angry and violent natured with each other. It's not surprising to see such immaturity in a online game, but I much preferred the games where everyone acknowledged each other (even when I was getting owned). Gameplay: 7/10
Replay Value
I'm going to continue to play this game and hope that the flaws within the game is acknowledged by the developers and patched up like the dev team working on Magicka has been doing. Magicka and Breach came out on the same day and I bought both the day after. Ever since my purchase a week ago, Magicka has gone through 3-5 patches already and Breach has gone through none. I already see a decline in players after a week and fear for the well-being of this game's market life. It's really hard to defend an FPS such as this when it's up against retail games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and this year's up coming releases such as Brink, Homefront, and Killzone 3 (not to mention all those free Korean Online FPS). Unfortunately, Breach is a multiplayer only game and will have no luck staying in the market if people don't continue to play it. Blacklight Tango Down has at least a single player Mission mode that allows the player to still have some interaction with the game. Unless the player has some buddies to play with online, Breach is going to be defunct by next month. Atomic Games, please come and save your game for the sake of your company and the sake of the players who still want to play it! Replay Value: 2/10 (If everything gets fixed and people still play it, I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10).
Overall
I still can't determine whether I regret buying the game or not. I think I'd feel less ripped off if it was $5-$10 rather than $15. The game has a ton of potential, and I sincerely enjoy playing it; however, there won't be any way of playing it anymore very soon if the developers don't take action and satisfy the players by fixing the glitches and solving the problems addressed by the players. I never heard of Breach until I saw it on Steam, and it has been announced even before I knew about Blacklight: Tango Down. It was supposedly to be released early summer 2010, but I guess it got delayed. I can't recommend this game yet, not until I know that the game will continue to grow. If there is a decent amount of players still on by the time this game gets a $5-$10 deal, then I say go ahead and buy it. I can only hope that the game can be improve and continue to have the support of the players. Good Luck to you Atomic Games! Overall: 5.14/10
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