0:00:02.389,0:00:04.422
"(Jack)This is what you need to know."
0:00:06.213,0:00:08.613
"Time broke, a growing fracture leading to
0:00:08.613,0:00:09.839
the end of time."
0:00:10.589,0:00:12.562
"And of course,
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time travels."
0:00:17.846,0:00:20.110
"(Jack) Going too fast for you?"
0:00:15.314,0:00:16.756
"(Clarice) Jack!"
0:00:27.527,0:00:29.148
Quantum Break is the latest third-person
0:00:29.148,0:00:30.915
shooter from Remedy, the same studio that
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brought us Max Payne way back in 2001,
0:00:33.186,0:00:35.418
and boy, does that lineage show.
0:00:35.418,0:00:37.418
Like that game, this one revolves around a
0:00:37.418,0:00:38.861
flashy gimmick that serves to differentiate
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its gameplay a bit from that of other, more
0:00:41.340,0:00:43.013
straightforward third-person shooters.
0:00:43.013,0:00:44.847
And like Max Payne, as well as Remedy’s
0:00:44.847,0:00:47.519
2010 game Alan Wake, it stars a dude
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who cannot stop narrating his story for us.
0:00:50.180,0:00:52.425
"Paul has always been hungry for success."
0:00:52.425,0:00:54.187
"Time, is going to end."
0:00:54.187,0:00:56.996
"That was the first time my powers started to manifest."
0:00:56.996,0:00:59.776
Sadly, Quantum Break’s story is just a mess.
0:00:59.776,0:01:02.347
Because of reasons, time is fractured,
0:01:02.347,0:01:04.214
stuttering with increasing frequency and
0:01:04.214,0:01:05.931
possibly approaching a point at which
0:01:05.931,0:01:08.472
it just breaks down completely.
0:01:08.472,0:01:09.950
Different men have different ideas
0:01:09.950,0:01:11.489
about how to deal with this problem,
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and they fight with each other while
0:01:12.945,0:01:14.697
uttering standard lines of dialogue like
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“It doesn’t have to end like this.”
0:01:17.345,0:01:19.014
There are very few clear rules established
0:01:19.014,0:01:21.086
in Quantum Break about how time works.
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It just behaves in whatever way it needs
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to behave to throw the characters into
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another complication or to give the
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main character new powers.
0:01:28.892,0:01:30.482
Things just happen because they’re
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convenient for the story, so there’s
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nothing clearly at stake.
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You might argue that the quality of
0:01:35.957,0:01:37.765
the story in a game like this isn’t all
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that important, but the thing is that
0:01:39.221,0:01:41.506
Quantum Break really wants you to
0:01:41.506,0:01:42.929
care about its story.
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You see, Quantum Break is one part game,
0:01:45.339,0:01:47.895
one part live action TV show,
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and a good chunk of your time is spent
0:01:49.810,0:01:51.747
watching the four live-action episodes
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that play out over the course of the game.
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And they’re just such generically bad TV,
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filled with cliché dialogue and cookie
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cutter characters, right down to the comic
0:02:00.791,0:02:03.147
relief tech geek hacker type that seems
0:02:03.147,0:02:04.881
to be a necessity these days in every
0:02:04.881,0:02:07.028
mediocre crime drama.
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"(Brenner) That's pretty awesome."
0:02:08.472,0:02:12.003
"(Charlie) laughs it's... cell phone rings shit."
0:02:12.003,0:02:14.619
There are a few fine actors here, including
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Lance Reddick, who proves he can bring
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gravitas to even the goofiest material.
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"(Martin) Do I look threatened to you?"
0:02:21.831,0:02:23.884
But the most that decent acting can do
0:02:23.884,0:02:25.770
here is serve as a smokescreen to distract
0:02:25.770,0:02:29.298
us from just how bad the story actually is.
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Quantum Break is, at its core, a tale of
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three men. You play as Jack Joyce, a man
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who comes away from a time travel mishap
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with the ability to manipulate time in specific ways.
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It’s sort of like last year’s adventure game
0:02:40.961,0:02:43.050
Life Is Strange, only instead of using its
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concept to explore relationships and
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serious, real-life issues like bullying and
0:02:46.891,0:02:49.316
suicide, Quantum Break just uses it as a
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source for spectacle.
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Jack’s brother Will is an eccentric genius,
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and the villain, Paul Serene, is a powerful
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CEO of a massive corporation named Monarch.
0:02:59.506,0:03:01.642
Both Will and Paul’s characters are just
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recycled archetypes without any new flavoring.
0:03:04.099,0:03:06.154
Quantum Break doesn’t even try to break
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from traditional male-dominated convention here.
0:03:08.471,0:03:10.516
The TV show portion of the game also
0:03:10.516,0:03:12.606
spends a lot of time on a supporting character
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named Liam Burke. Burke gets into weird
0:03:14.776,0:03:16.689
escalator kick fights!
0:03:16.689,0:03:18.900
Burke unleashes manly screams while
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strangling someone to death in a hospital
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as a bunch of people just stand around and watch!
0:03:23.435,0:03:24.991
Burke has a pregnant wife who he would
0:03:24.991,0:03:28.273
do anything—ANYTHING—to protect.
0:03:28.273,0:03:30.924
Games and other mainstream media often
0:03:30.924,0:03:33.117
reinforce the false notion of women as fragile
0:03:33.117,0:03:35.990
and men as protectors whose role and
0:03:35.990,0:03:38.223
responsibility requires them to do anything
0:03:38.223,0:03:40.508
to either protect or avenge their families
0:03:40.508,0:03:43.558
—Max Payne was definitely in this mold, too—
0:03:43.558,0:03:45.859
but Burke is a particularly bland and
0:03:45.859,0:03:48.162
formulaic take on this character type,
0:03:48.162,0:03:50.114
and that’s really saying something.
0:03:50.114,0:03:52.540
In Quantum Break, men are the prime actors
0:03:52.540,0:03:55.010
and doers. Men are the ones with vision and
0:03:55.010,0:03:57.453
ambition, who set things in motion and who
0:03:57.453,0:03:59.306
then do whatever they can to make things
0:03:59.306,0:04:02.025
go their way. The only female character
0:04:02.025,0:04:04.170
who gets any real development is Beth Wilder,
0:04:04.170,0:04:05.902
who helps Jack for reasons that aren’t
0:04:05.902,0:04:08.109
immediately clear. In one of the game’s
0:04:08.109,0:04:10.627
only moments that even come close to generating
0:04:10.627,0:04:13.062
actual interest in its characters, we do
0:04:13.062,0:04:14.919
eventually get to know Beth’s history and
0:04:14.919,0:04:17.340
her motivations. Her main purpose here,
0:04:17.340,0:04:18.930
though, is to serve as a love interest for
0:04:18.930,0:04:21.272
Jack, and she’s ultimately more important
0:04:21.272,0:04:23.258
for the emotional impact she has on him,
0:04:23.258,0:04:25.896
than she is as an individual in her own right.
0:04:25.896,0:04:29.580
"(Beth) My ride, my music. Deal with it."
0:04:29.580,0:04:31.559
It’s also worth noting that like most of
0:04:31.559,0:04:33.649
the enemies, Beth works security for the
0:04:33.649,0:04:35.980
Monarch corporation. She must be the only
0:04:35.980,0:04:37.697
woman on a team otherwise made up of
0:04:37.697,0:04:39.626
hundreds of men, because there are no
0:04:39.626,0:04:41.840
female combatants in this game.
0:04:41.840,0:04:44.008
As for the combat, there’s a certain novelty
0:04:44.008,0:04:45.850
for a little while to the spectacle of
0:04:45.850,0:04:47.203
Quantum Break’s action.
0:04:47.203,0:04:49.550
Seeing environments shatter in slow motion
0:04:49.550,0:04:53.709
and seeing people get stuck in time looks pretty cool.
0:04:53.709,0:04:55.792
But that’s all it does. Quantum Break’s
0:04:55.792,0:04:58.549
structure feels overly familiar and predictable,
0:04:58.549,0:05:00.737
from the heavy enemies it introduces with
0:05:00.737,0:05:02.500
the weak points on their backs to the
0:05:02.500,0:05:04.402
checkpoints near the end in which it throws
0:05:04.402,0:05:06.328
so many enemies at you that you just
0:05:06.328,0:05:08.363
want it all to be over.
0:05:08.363,0:05:10.028
It’s unfortunate that Quantum Break’s
0:05:10.028,0:05:12.087
ambition to tell video game stories in a
0:05:12.087,0:05:14.537
new way is wasted on a story that
0:05:14.537,0:05:16.471
doesn’t do anything new.
0:05:16.471,0:05:18.167
The game doesn’t seem to care if it makes
0:05:18.167,0:05:21.763
any sense or if its story actually tries to say anything.
0:05:21.763,0:05:23.789
All it cares about is being “awesome” in
0:05:23.789,0:05:25.726
the most insubstantial way possible,
0:05:25.726,0:05:27.823
in the sense that it’s “awesome” to watch
0:05:27.823,0:05:31.476
a locomotive crash again and again and again.
0:05:31.476,0:05:34.448
There’s nothing underneath. Maybe, in 2001
0:05:34.448,0:05:36.558
when Max Payne came out, a flashy gimmick
0:05:36.558,0:05:38.058
was enough to make the mere act of
0:05:38.058,0:05:39.835
filling hundreds of dudes with bullets
0:05:39.835,0:05:42.709
more than a hollow exercise. But not now.
0:05:42.709,0:05:46.059
We’re not actually stuck in time. But playing
0:05:46.059,0:05:49.649
Quantum Break, it sure feels like we are.
0:05:49.649,0:05:51.142
"(Will) If time is an egg, then that egg"
0:05:51.142,0:05:54.376
"is fucking broken. The time egg is fucked."
0:05:54.376,0:05:57.586
"(Jack) What? Why is there an egg in this?"