LTTP: Quantum Break (2016) via Xbox Series X Game Pass

EverydayBeast

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At the time I was on PS3/4 and I remember really wanting to play this one, that's the perspective I have of Quantum Break and fast forward to 2025 (no pun intended) and from someone who just finished Alan wake 2 you have a crazy good game.

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I can't go into detail but ultimately quantum break is about time travel, through access of time machines and the game makes time travel technology feel possible.

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The gun and combat aspect kinda exists, at the end of the day it's serviceable and operates from the third person perspective. From a high school understanding of physics, you have these x-men (no pun intended) energy blasts, with aspects of the super natural.

Without giving away spoilers I believe the story is very well written, with celebrity stars, and I believe it's linear gameplay in a world of open world I would argue is refreshing.

What did GAF think of quantum break?
 
it's been in my backlog for 9 years lmao

always seemed like a cool game but I was butthurt the Steam version was better than the MS app PC version was.
 
I bailed when I had to play a walk and talk section as the villain and never came back. Did not feel fully in control during the shoot outs in the first scenario either. The graphics were also not good on Series S. If it was a show I would likely binge watch it but it did not grab me as a game.
 
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Still my favorite Remedy game next to the Max Paynes. At the time, this was the game that pushed me to buy an Xbox One, because I'll do anything Remedy on day 1. It also released around the same time as Uncharted 4 and I remember I pretty much played them back to back. Back then and to this day I still prefer QB to UC if we're talking third person, shooty action games. Plus as being a diehard fan of The Wire it was so fucking cool to see Lance Reddick and Aiden Gillen together again.

Smart use of powers and avoiding cover was the name of the game, and people, particularly the idiots over at Giant Bomb just never seemed to understand this. It's NOT a cover shooter. The shooting, when it's there, is incredibly awesome and satisfying. The dash --> snap to slo mo aiming was beautiful and I remember being so let down that it wasn't included in Control.

I'd still give my left nut to have them bring this to PS5. The shooting, powers and time effects with the haptics could be something else.

They dont make em like this anymore. What a ride, except for that shit final boss fight, but let's be honest Remedy just sucks at boss fights. They've sucked at them since day 1.
 
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I tried to play through it multiple times. Not sure if i ever finished it. Combat was kinda cool looking, but unfinished in execution.
 
A good game that could have been great.

I honestly think most of it is better than Control. Control relied on two powers more or less the whole game, this had a far bigger arsenal of cooler time related powers.

If anything, all those live-action TV shows were the worst part about this game, just ruined the pacing of it completely.

Oh, and that final boss fight was just… bad.

But yeah, with a bit of tweaking here and there this game could and should have been better than it was even though I still liked it.
 
I played some of it on gamepass/xbox pc, but you can't watch the cutscenes with real actors on it so I dropped it. It was a nice game though, such a shame.
 
I loved Alan Wake, and I had high hopes for QB. Played a few hours of it and dropped it. I loved Control. I loved Alan Wake 2. QB is just a black sheep somehow. I go back to it every once in a while, hoping it'll finally click. Last time was right after I beat AW2. I was very conscious of the issue I have with QB: I just don't think the general combat feels good. Too clunky... especially compared to Control.
 
Tv bits are naff, but the gameplay is solid.
Last boss is crazy bad, with its horrible aoe attacks and cheesy screen filling explosion that wipes you out if you aren't a million miles away from it.
Spoilt it for me tbh.
 
One of those games that needs a sequel and improvements in specific aspects of a foundation with so much potential. And yes, the story, aesthetics, and characters are excellently realized.
 
The shooting was pretty fun aside from the final boss.
And the visuals were amazing, it honestly still looks great now, 9 years later. I specially like those parts where everything is frozen in time, I also remember there being some really impressive timelapse sequences too.

But the story was underwhelming. The live action stuff was wasted on what mostly felt like a boring side story, and a lot of key plot details are buried in between pages upon pages of documents, emails and memos. Because for some reason they refused to tell the whole story through in game story sequences, in engine cutscenes and full live action TV show episodes. Instead, they decided that having to pause the gameplay to read a document every 5 minutes is good storytelling and game design.
 
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The shooting was pretty fun aside from the final boss.
And the visuals were amazing, it honestly still looks great now, 9 years later. I specially like those parts where everything is frozen in time, I also remember there being some really impressive timelapse sequences too.

But the story was underwhelming. The live action stuff was wasted on what mostly felt like a boring side story, and a lot of key plot details are buried in between pages upon pages of documents, emails and memos. Because for some reason they refused to tell the whole story through in game story sequences, in engine cutscenes and full live action TV show episodes. Instead, they decided that having to pause the gameplay to read a document every 5 minutes is good storytelling and game design.
It's crazy how those PS4 era games still hold up, it was a big jump from PS3 to PS4, this gen hasn't really started yet i have the feeling, maybe GTA 6 will change that.
 
I played it like two years ago it was a great game. The TV show videos actually weren't as bad as I thought they would be but semi pointless to watch.
 
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The shooting was pretty fun aside from the final boss.
And the visuals were amazing, it honestly still looks great now, 9 years later. I specially like those parts where everything is frozen in time, I also remember there being some really impressive timelapse sequences too.

But the story was underwhelming. The live action stuff was wasted on what mostly felt like a boring side story, and a lot of key plot details are buried in between pages upon pages of documents, emails and memos. Because for some reason they refused to tell the whole story through in game story sequences, in engine cutscenes and full live action TV show episodes. Instead, they decided that having to pause the gameplay to read a document every 5 minutes is good storytelling and game design.
Totally agree about the overuse of documents used to fill in the blanks.
They should of been few and far between, tidbits to intrigue rather than exhaust with their frequency.
Control was guilty of this too imo.
 
Honestly i'm not a fan of live action videos to tell the story.
It's cool here and there, when is used as an easter egg or something. In this case it was too much and they could have used that budget to improve the game.
 
I gave it an honest shot 3 times and never could stick with it. Huge potential though, I bet a sequel would have been great.
Same for me. At the time it looked fantastic and the story started out quiet intriguing, but then... I don't know. I just dropped it for reasons I can't recall. You meet the main actor in AW2 if I'm not mistaken. Was a nice surprise.
 
It's crazy how those PS4 era games still hold up, it was a big jump from PS3 to PS4, this gen hasn't really started yet i have the feeling, maybe GTA 6 will change that.

It's the diminishing returns. IMO last get we got to the point where games started to look "good enough".
Newer games have more advanced and taxing tech but the result you are ultimately seeing on screen isn't all that more impressive. Specially when you consider these older games can run at high framerates and resolution on pretty modest hardware now, while with newer games you are often giving up IQ and performance for better graphics.

It's like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 2. You can point out a 100 ways in which modern movie VFX are more advanced, but in the end when you are watching the movie Davy Jones still looks great and totally believable.

Totally agree about the overuse of documents used to fill in the blanks.
They should of been few and far between, tidbits to intrigue rather than exhaust with their frequency.
Control was guilty of this too imo.

Exactly.
The worst part about their approach to documents is that the majority of them are just filler / flavor text, but then some have key story bits.
So instead of giving you 1-2 documents to read every hour that are actually relevant to the main plot, they bombard you with dozens of documents every hour which you have to read to figure out which ones are actually important.
 
It's like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 2. You can point out a 100 ways in which modern movie VFX are more advanced, but in the end when you are watching the movie Davy Jones still looks great and totally believable.
Thats true, when it comes to good CGI Davy Jones is always mentioned. Doesn't matter if the movie is older now, the artists made it look good, the same goes for Jurassic Park 1.
 
As a Codex nut I absolutely loved the world building done through documents and audio logs, alot of people hated that, but most of that was just world building, you could totally ignore every document and get Jacks story and call it a day without knowing all the backstory of everything going on in the world.
If it was force fed to you chances are youd actually be even more angry cuz you'd be wondering why the game is telling you about nobody characters or random shit happen in the world.
But just like with Control, Mass Effect or even Doom if you want to know more about the world theres a Codex for you, if you just want the story ignore them.


Same with the TV show sections.
You didnt need to watch those sections they added to the world but werent critical to the story.
I think they even been delisted now on some stores.


I always found it weird that the world building of Quantum Break was criticized because if you werent that interested, you could completely ignore it and get a pretty straight forward scifi action shooter.



People also made the mistake of trying to play the game like a cover shooter......it is not that, its a straight TPS, you are supposed to constantly be moving and only stopping to regen health, assuming you lost any cuz the game is piss easy. (till the final boss if you dont figure him out early).

The gunplay was tight enough and the powers actually useful if you played the game the way it was supposed to be played.


Unless im mistaken Microsoft has the IP rights to the game.....MS either sell it back to Remedy or let them make a sequel and include it in the Remedy-Verse.
There was so much good about the game and the world, and it still stresses machines out today if you turn off the upscaling.(They really should patch in DLSS).


We need to know where Jacks Choice ends up.
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Remedy pun name: Jack Joyce: Jacks Choice (As you make choices that affect the world(not the story))


RIP Lance Reddick, how unlucky we wont have him in a possible sequel.
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^Yes the GIF is from Quantum Break
 
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Even though it's pretty short, I still couldn't get through it.

On top of the crappy live-action cutscenes, there's too many emails/etc. to wade through.
 
It's a really good game. Probably the most under-rated in Remedy's arsenal.

The Sci-Fy channel quality TV show segments were genuinely good as well.

Wish it gets/got either FPS boost or a modern re-release.
 
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I've started it like 10 times but when I put it down I never pick it up again until it has been so long that I have to start over.
 
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Great game. Story was exceptional. I'm pretty sure I remember the combat being good with all of the powers. Incredibly stylish game.

Live action scenes were like watching Fringe or a cheesy SciFi channel show, right up my alley. Also the time travel elements were very well done. Took me less than 30 hours to fully beat it and get all the acheetos points. If this were a modern game that probably would have taken 60 🤮

Thread is making me want to reinstall Control and give it a good college try.
 
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As a Codex nut I absolutely loved the world building done through documents, alot of people hated that, but most of that was just world building, you could totally ignore every document and get Jacks story and call it a day without knowing all the backstory of everything going on in the world.
If it was force fed to you chances are youd actually be even more angry cuz you'd be wondering why the game is telling you about nobody characters or random shit happen in the world.
But just like with Control, Mass Effect or even Doom if you want to know more about the world theres a Codex for you, if you just want the story ignore them.


Same with the TV show sections.
You didnt need to watch those sections they added to the world but werent critical to the story.
I think they even been delisted now on some stores.


I always found it weird that the world building of Quantum Break was criticized because if you werent that interested, you could completely ignore it and get a pretty straight forward scifi action shooter.



People also made the mistake of trying to play the game like a cover shooter......it is not that, its a straight TPS, you are supposed to constantly be moving and only stopping to regen health, assuming you lost any cuz the game is piss easy. (till the final boss if you dont figure him out early).

The gunplay was tight enough and the powers actually useful if you played the game the way it was supposed to be played.


Unless im mistaken Microsoft has the IP rights to the game.....MS either sell it back to Remedy or let them make a sequel and include it in the Remedy-Verse.
There was so much good about the game and the world, and it still stresses machines out today if you turn off the upscaling.(They really should patch in DLSS).


We need to know where Jacks Choice ends up.
lQmtLXl.png



kJuRyXg.png



Remedy pun name: Jack Joyce: Jacks Choice (As you make choices that affect the world(not the story))


RIP Lance Reddick, how unlucky we wont have him in a possible sequel.
EZASQ5H.gif

^Yes the GIF is from Quantum Break
I wish the xbox/playstation apps had a feature to read codex entries discovered from games you played. I could catch up on lore i would normally skip on a train ride for example.
 
The games biggest issue (outside the tv episodes) is that its combat only becomes decent once you have a good selection of the powers and weapons, and that happens far too late. The shooting doesn't feel quite good enough at all, which makes those early combat scenarios far worse than they otherwise might have been.

The story within the game think is very good, but the tv episodes were awful and didn't help the game at all. Even the idea of having to watch a tv show between levels just to get to the next section of gameplay and have a complete understanding of the narrative is incredibly stupid from a design/pacing perspective, skippable or not.

You have to watch them at least once to at least understand that you should skip them entirely, so that first time through the game is much worse than replays.
 
It was never bad game, the Devs made some dumb decisions though.

There was a whole series in the game right? That didnt help. Plus performance was terrible (still is ?).
 
Performance was a struggle on my 1080 at the time. It brought every GPU to it's knees.

Might have to try again on the 5090.

Can it hit 4k 60fps and can you disable the temporal reconstruction I wonder
 
I replayed it recently and really enjoyed.
Still looks fine in 4k, too bad it doesnt have 60fps patch. I think its really underrated.
Fighting sections were really satisfying, aspecially after upgrading some extra powers.
Now, with massive amount od open world games, QBs linear story driven gameplay was kind of refreshing.
 
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