Quantum Break: Phenomenal story, Mediocre combat, bad checkpoints
I loved Remedy's Control so much that I had to go back and play Quantum Break. I generally enjoyed Quantum Break a lot. I played this on my PC with mouse and keyboard.
I didn't stop to read everything at first, but after the story made some turns, I had to stop and read all the emails and soak in the episodes because I was hooked. In my opinion, Quantum Break is up there with some of the better time travel stories. Even the FMV episodes didn't bother me, and in fact I generally enjoyed them as it ended up being a nice break from the mediocre gameplay. The performances were generally fine for a TV series. There was one scene in particular where I was rolling my eyes at how bad the writing was, but overall the episodes were well-written, shot, and performed.
The combat controls, however, seemed to lag a little even at my constant 60 fps. I had trouble nailing precise shots with my gaming mouse and keyboard, but I think Remedy means for us to miss sometimes due to the time-shifting effects. I hated some of the check-pointing, especially around bosses, where it would set you back so far sometimes that you'd have to retrace your steps through a level and watch multiple cut-scenes just to restart a boss fight. The combat for me was merely a means to absorb more of the story. I'm a longtime PC gamer, but I should have played Quantum Break on Easy instead of Normal. After a while I didn't care for the challenge of it, unlike most games for me.
Along with the story, I enjoyed the slight amounts of exploration and I wish there was more of it. It was often limited to small rooms or floors of buildings. It was pretty clear they wanted to make a cool interactive movie rather than a carefully planned game progression. They make good on some of the exploration in their next game, Control, but Quantum Break is a little lacking.
Even with its flaws, I enjoyed the story and the game was gorgeous even 4 years later. The performances were fantastic, and the sound design was unparalleled. Overall, a great experience and I would recommend playing it on Easy, even for gaming veterans.
