Game Name: Quantum Theory
Platforms: Xbox 360
Publisher(s): Tecmo Koei America
Developer(s): Tecmo
Genre(s): Shooter
Release Date: 9/28/2010
ESRB Rating: M (Mature) Blood and Gore Strong Language Violence
Price: $59.99(USD)
Story
“A dark tower looms over a wasted world. Infected by the Diablosis, the living battlefields within shift and twist while a lone warrior, Syd, fights his way to the top.
Immerse yourself in an organic world as you make Syd climb on living platforms and throw his partner Filena in powerful melee attacks against colossal enemies. Merging intense combat with fast-paced action, experience a rich unique journey like you have never seen in Quantum Theory™. Only from Tecmo. Are you ready for the tower?” [via Xbox.com]
A menacing tower looms overhead, and it is up to Syd to destroy it. The Diablosis infects everything it touches, and in turn mutates people into enemies and shifts the land all around you. It is a slow and ceaseless fight to the top, and with your partner Filena you must reach the top to destroy the tower.
(Side Note: I just want to point out, how the Xbox.com description contradicts itself. The first paragraph has Syd as a “lone warrior” and then the second paragraph mentions your partner “Filena”. Quite humorous if you ask me. There is also the fact, that the combat isn’t really fast paced at all, but I’ll cover that in the gameplay section)
Gameplay
The gameplay is extremely similar to that of another famous game. I wouldn’t normally mark down a game on this factor, but in this case it is a clone of all the worst elements and picks up on almost nothing that made the other game enjoyable. There are a few “unique” additions that attempt to make this game fun, and while a few of them succeed, and majority of them fail. Other than the unique additions; a majority of the game consists of taking cover, picking up guns, and clumsily trying to shoot enemies. Sadly, due to the clumsy cover system and the low quality graphics, killing people is a slow ordeal.
Instead of grenades, you have the ability to throw your female partner. She uses a sword, and by throwing her right at the enemy you can easily dispatch almost any non boss creature in one throw. This is sadly, [pretty much] the strongest attack in the game; and that ruins the game slightly. There are also a few parts, that are actually fast paced; where you shoot people while your character runs and does things on his own. These parts seem like they would be fun, the hard aiming system and incredibly accurate enemies cause you die; a lot.
There is multiplayer in this game, but it is dead. I couldn’t even get into a game; and when I did manage to get in one or two, I lost connection instantly. I’m not going to say anything bad about the multiplayer, because it might actually be good (maybe…). On the other hand, I tried for a very long time just to get in a few games; but a series of connection issues and blatant lack of players halted me from experiencing it at all.
Audio & Graphics
The audio is terrible. The explosions are dull, gun fire seems muffled, and the voice acting is probably the worst. Constantly, you will have NPCs and your own player shouting out lame one liners, and most of the time it isn’t even enthusiastic. Monotone voices and repetitive one liners create an annoying atmosphere while you are actually trying to kill things.
The graphics are poor as well. The game is dark, gloomy, and quite blurry. Trying to shoot anything at a distance while behind cover is incredibly hard for many reasons. First it is difficult to tell where the enemies are since they blend in extremely well; and secondly, they teleport. Teleporting isn’t part of their design, they are actually glitching and the their cover system is causing them to be in plain sight and then suddenly teleporting into some random cover. The entire game was like that, and it simply got really annoying.
Achievements
The achievement list has an incredible amount of secret achievements, but these are all story based. The rest of the achievements either require you to kill an increasingly larger amount of enemies, find certain things within the game, or reach a certain rank online. The online ranks will take forever, and that is if you could even find a game. The kills don’t require much work, and should be able to be attained in one playthrough based on your skill. Finding the watchers, is annoying on the other hand. Many of them are located in secluded areas of the maps, or hidden in small locations that require you to snipe them from a distance. A few are even located in areas that you can never actually reach, and you must take them out from a distance or miss them completely. I have to admit that the achievement list isn’t actually bad, but the large amount of story based achievements, and online achievements take away from the value of the list itself.
Overview
Quantum Theory, by name alone, would sound like a extremely cool game. Sadly, the actual game falls far from cool and borders on just being really annoying. There are the few good moments within the game, but the bad far out weigh the good and suck all life that could have ever been in the game. Being able to throw a girl instead of grenades is fun, but it being the only actually good form of attack ruins everything. The game has a decent concept, but blurry and gloomy graphics ruins the atmosphere and all the levels. If you simply can’t wait for Gears of War 3 (I said it! It was hard but I couldn’t hold it in anymore), you might want to rent this title to get some sort of “fix”; but I can guarantee that you would enjoy yourself more just playing through the first two Gears of War games again. A game with a good premise was simply ruined by attempting to be too much like every other game out there, and failing at it.
I give Quantum Theory
