WEBVTT

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"This is what you need to know."

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"Time broke, a growing fracture leading to

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the end of time."

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"And of course,

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time travels."

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"Jack!"

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"Going too fast for you?"

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Quantum Break is the latest third-person

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shooter from Remedy, the same studio that

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that brought us Max Payne way back in 2001,

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and boy, does that lineage show.

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Like that game, this one revolves around a

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flashy gimmick that serves to differentiate

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its gameplay a bit from that of other, more

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straightforward third-person shooters.

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And like Max Payne, as well as Remedy’s

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2010 game Alan Wake, it stars a dude

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who cannot stop narrating his story for us.

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Sadly, Quantum Break’s story is just a mess.

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Because of reasons, time is fractured,

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stuttering with increasing frequency and

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possibly approaching a point at which

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it just breaks down completely.

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Different men have different ideas

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about how to deal with this problem,

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and they fight with each other while

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uttering standard lines of dialogue like

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“It doesn’t have to end like this.”

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There are very few clear rules established

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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.

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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

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the story in a game like this isn’t all

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that important, but the thing is that

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Quantum Break really wants you to

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care about its story.

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You see, Quantum Break is one part game,

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one part live action TV show,

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and a good chunk of your time is spent

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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

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relief tech geek hacker type that seems

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to be a necessity these days in every

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mediocre crime drama.

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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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But the most that decent acting can do

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here is serve as a smokescreen to distract

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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

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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

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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.

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Both Will and Paul’s characters are just

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recycled archetypes without any new flavoring.

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Quantum Break doesn’t even try to break

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from traditional male-dominated convention here.

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The TV show portion of this game also

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spends a lot of time on a supporting character

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named Liam Burke. Burke gets into weird

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escalator kick fights!

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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!

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Burke has a pregnant wife who he would

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do anything—ANYTHING—to protect.

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Games and other mainstream media often

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reinforce the false notion of women as fragile

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and men as protectors whose role and

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responsibility requires them to do anything

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to either protect or avenge their families

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—Max Payne was definitely in this mold, too—

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but Burke is a particularly bland and

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formulaic take on this character type,

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and that’s really saying something.

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In Quantum Break, men are the prime actors

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and doers. Men are the ones with vision and

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ambition, who set things in motion and who

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then do whatever they can to make things

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go their way. The only female character

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who gets any real development is Beth Wilder,

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who helps Jack for reasons that aren’t

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immediately clear. In one of the game’s

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only moments that even come close to generating

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actual interest in its characters, we do

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eventually get to know Beth’s history and

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her motivations. Her main purpose here,

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though, is to serve as a love interest for

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Jack, and she’s ultimately more important

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for the emotional impact she has on him

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than she is as an individual in her own right.

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It’s also worth noting that like most of

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the enemies, Beth works security for the

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Monarch corporation. She must be the only

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woman on a team otherwise made up of

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hundreds of men, because there are no

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female combatants in the game.

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As for the combat, there’s a certain novelty

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for a little while to the spectacle of

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Quantum Break’s action.

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Seeing environments shatter in slow motion

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and seeing people get stuck in time looks pretty cool.

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But that’s all it does. Quantum Break’s

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structure feels overly familiar and predictable,

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from the heavy enemies it introduces with

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the weak points on their backs to the

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checkpoints near the end in which it throws

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so many enemies at you that you just

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want it all to be over.

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It’s unfortunate that Quantum Break’s

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ambition to tell video game stories in a

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new way is wasted on a story that doesn’t

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do anything new.

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The game doesn’t seem to care if it makes

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any sense or if its story actually tries to say anything.

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All it cares about is being “awesome” in

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the most insubstantial way possible,

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in the sense that it’s “awesome” to watch

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a locomotive crash again and again and again.

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There’s nothing underneath. Maybe, maybe

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in 2001 when Max Payne came out, a flashy

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gimmick was enough to make the mere act

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of filling hundreds of dudes with bullets

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more than a hollow exercise. But not now.

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We’re not actually stuck in time. But playing

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Quantum Break, it sure feels like we are.