The reviews are finally in and it seems Quantum Break has made a big splash. In terms of metacritic, we’ve seen scores range from a full 10/10 to more meagre 4/10s. While an easy explanation as to why this is the case would be to put it down to the general statement that perhaps the game just wasn’t as good as it was hyped up to be but for me that would be over-simplifying things. You see, for me, Quantum Break’s polarising review scores merely reflect Remedy’s position in the gaming industry as a studio that’s not afraid to take risks and push the boundaries of what we come to expect from traditional video games.
Putting their previous games aside for now, it was clear from the very reveal of Quantum Break that Remedy weren’t interested in making a ‘safe’ game. Then CEO Matias Myllyrinne explained that “You need to take risks, we need to take risks. Both creatively and to do things differently to what we’ve done before. Doing things the way you’ve done them in the past… you’ll stagnate and die.”
We see this type of risk manifest itself in Quantum Break with the merging of real time gameplay and live action TV sequences as the driving force behind the narrative. Whereas most traditional video games will be constrained to in-game cut scenes in order to drive their narratives, thanks to their partnership with Microsoft Remedy instead decided to 5ake it one step further and include live action TV episodes that will help push the narrative of the game in a more visceral way than we are used to with video games
There’s no saying that Remedy are the first to do this live action tie in element but they are definitely the team that have taken it the furthest in the case of Quantum Break’s cast which included high profile Hollywood actors such as Shawn Ashmore and Aidan Gillen. It’s with Quantum Break that we see the remnants of Microsoft’s since closed Xbox Entertainment Studios that perhaps suggests that we won’t see another game that incorporates TV elements as heavily as Quantum Break does and some will be split whether this is a good thing or not.
However, I do have a gripe with the people on the internet or in reviews that say that the TV elements of the game ‘ruin’ what otherwise would’ve been a good game. Since the TV episodes are optional, there’s no actual forcing anyone to sit through them. This isn’t recommended however since all you’ll be doing is limiting yourself to the narrative depth that the TV episodes provide. The simultaneous co-existence between the game itself and the TV episodes is something truly unique and it’s a shame when people who haven’t even played the game bash this unique feature of Quantum Break.
There will inevitably be some who will call this article an attempt to ‘spin’ or ‘defend’ Quantum Break’s divisive review scores but I can say openly that with the exception of a few sites whose content I regularly follow and whose opinions often imbue a certain amount of reliability that keeps me going back to such sites, I really couldn’t care much for reviews. While they’re a joy to read, it ultimately comes down to your own tastes and preferences that will dictate whether or not you will enjoy something. For instance, just the other day I went to see Batman vs. Superman and I actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t phenomenal, but I enjoyed it far more than what the critics had been saying about it.
As someone who is a major film and TV buff, it was really exciting for me when I heard about the direction that Quantum Break was heading in back in 2013 and it’s exactly that high-production TV tie-in element that kept Quantum Break as one of my most anticipated games since 2013. And that’s why it bothers me when people who haven’t even played the game, mostly people who own the other system to the one which the game is coming out on, proceed to bash it.
Let’s be clear that this isn’t only the case with Quantum Break and it’s actually a much wider problem within gaming as a whole. Far too many people proceed to bash games that they’ve never even played or even had any intention to play for the simple reason that it isn’t releasing on their preferred console. In a day and age where we live in such a connected world, it’s clear that this sort of unwarranted bashing can lead to a negative air around a game which is completely unjustified and unfair to the developers who spend years making these games for us.
That’s not to say that games shouldn’t be critiqued. After all, how would developers improve themselves and their games if no constructive criticism was offered? But when it’s a slew of toxic bashing on behalf of those who have never even tried the game in question it’s simply sad to witness.
Do you feel like Quantum Break was bashed too harshly for including TV elements? Do you agree that it’s a wider problem in gaming when people bash a game for the sake of bashing a game? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
jacksjus
The meta score is a 78 and if you look at what is being said about it in most reviews is quite consistent. Some just took off for it and some ignored it.
Those 4/10 scores are surely to low for any game that works. However you equally have to look at the 10/10s because just like the 4/10s the majority were in the middle.
Last thing regarding risk. There are good risk and there are bad risk. A TV show inside of a video game that is rendered semi-important was one of those bad risk.
Get over it and play it for yourself. Seems to me the biggest problem is the $60 asking price day one.
avi
4/10 scores are generally reserved for broken games, completely useless and full of glitches that render the game unplayable.
That 4/10 score is one from jeff from giantbomb. jeff is a guy who has gone on record saying that he hates third person shooters. why on earth would he then go on to review a third person shooter if he inherently dislikes such titles?? of course he’s going to give out a 4/10 for qb. completely ridiculous.
and don’t you find it completely odd that two negative scores (4/10 from giantbomb and 6/10 from gamespot) are both owned by CBS and share the same offices?? seems like an agenda to get more clicks from CBS, imo.
jacksjus
Then if the author has in fact been playing ban 8 to 10 hour game for the last 3 weeks as he claims, then his mind should be well made up. Why let others opinions effect him?
Again just like everyone else I look at the 4/10 and the 10/10 the same. Both are extreme and should be taken with a grain of salt. Obviously based on the average the game is around an 8/10.
Now if that’s bad then It’s bad. If it’s good it’s good.
J.j. Barrington
There are more 6/10 scores than that for this game. Sad that you want it to be some kind of conspiracy, but the consensus is that the game is decent.
Don’t YOU find it completely odd that this is the same site that was all over condemning The Order before it came out, and before anyone at the site had played the game? If I remember correctly, wasn’t it the same author? Isn’t this the very same author who is full of negativity for the flimsy rumors of the PS4.5, but has nothing but praise for the potential future of the Xbox?
Pick and choose your battles, avi. This isn’t one you can win.
FearTheSponge
“there is a conspiracy going on because a game on the console I fanboy which isn’t that good got a score that reflected it’s actual quality”
Sheldon Prescott
The complaints didn’t change my mind. The reviews basically said what I thought would happen going into this game. Awesome game, with a not so awesome show tied in. I’m still buying it.
avi
except that the majority of the reviews state that the tv show is actually pretty great and would want to see more of it. Heck, a review went even as far as to list out a negative of the game for not having enough of the tv show in it.
J.j. Barrington
And yet most of those same reviews don’t particularly care for it breaking up the game.
HAppY_KrAToS
How can this be ‘cool’, ‘amazing feature’, true innovation’, fantastic addition’, excellent idea’,:
playing quantum break for 10 minutes, and after that, watching a 20 minutes recorded show, that must either be installed locally (75gb, at a 10mb line, that requires 24 hours, but because servers will be dying with so many connections, one can easily multiply that by 2x, which makes 50 hours to fully download it), or it can be streamed, with all the compression effects, stuttering, etc.
20 crazy minutes.
Then, another 10 or 15 minute gameplay, and another 20 minute video.
How the hell can someone find it great, or ‘normal’ ?
again, the press ignores an huge issue, that almost breaks the game, just to give it the 9.5 score it needs to boost sales and reduce the Sony advantage and advance.
With The order 1886, SUDDENLY, even the little journalist living in that 300 people village in Africa that had Internet, felt the need of writing a negative comment or article about the game, because the Quick Time Events became, with the order 1886, a real issue for the human kind and planet earth.
suddenly, QTE’s became the worst thing ever, and everybody had to write their 4/10 review.
but that same press, with games like forza 5 , they ignored all the issues, like empty tracks, awful micro transactions, where a car could cost 60 real dollars, huge graphics downgrade, low resolution textures, flat 2d public, useless lens flare effects, among other issues, and only focused on the shiny cars and colors, to finally give it a 5/5 score.
like the retired Adam sessler did, with his 5/5 biased review.
the trend is, whenever an exclusive Xbox title comes out, the press, 95% made of US journalists, just praise the hell out of it, ignore most issues, focus on the positive things, to justify another 9 or 10/10 score.
but when a Sony exclusive title is out, the smallest thing is analyzed, put out of context, to look even worse, and those little 3 or 3 ‘bad’ things, compared to the ’17’ good ones, will take 80% of the review, to make it look like huge issues, to justify another 7.5/10.
that’s the current and older press. That’s the US press. Sorry for the US guys who read this but don’t agree.. because to them, it’s just normal that a national press praises a national product much more than a foreigner one:
How many chances for an Xbox console to get a higher score, in Japan, than a Japanese console? Of course, 0. That would never happen, even if the Xbox was 5 times more powerful than a Sony console.
the same way,
WHY WOULD the US press highly praise a Sony console or game, instead of praising a national product and brand like Xbox ?
again, it’s impossible, that can’t happen.
that’s why, since 2005, the press will AL WAYS give a higher score to the Xbox version, even by 0.01 points, so the Xbox version is the WINNER and THE VERSION gamers should buy.
and because of the 2.5-1 advance in sales, from Sony, and because the entire world now is aware the ps4 is more powerful, among other advantages,
whenever an exclusive titles goes out, it’s always the same movie:
The ps4 games will be bashed, websites and press will do anything to discredit it and make it look bad, flawed, ugly, etc, accompanied of a low 7.5/10 score, instead of the 8.5 or 9 it deserves,
.. if it’s an Xbox, everybody will praise it, ignoring ALL the issues, just to give it a 9.5. That, in a hope to make gamers go and buy that version/game.
all the perfect scores, just to make it sell.. to games like sunset overdrive, titanfall, forza5, etc etc… to make people buy it.
any Xbox exclusive title will be ANOTHER opportunity to convince gamers to believe in that fantastic 9.5/10 score, and go buy it. BECAUSE it is good for the brand, it’s good for the nation, is good for the fans.
of course, for those who don’t live outside the US, you can’t understand this, all I say is crap, and a huge conspiracy.
But believe me, this is the truth. Reality.
when I sad above, that huge influent websites went up to hiding the huge xbox360 issues, like heating, RROD, among many other issues, that would kill the console sooner or later. .
Websites like GameSpot kept hiding the truth to gamers, so they wouldn’t buy a ps3, instead.
If you don’t believe me, go to GameSpot, and search for ‘RROD’. No results.
Instead of warning people about those issues, those websites kept on praising the X360 (just like, still today, a website like polygon won’t have the balls to publicly say ‘OK, yes, the ps4 haS WON’).
just imagine how many million dads and kids, went home, with a ‘soon-to-die’ x360 system, maybe 4, 6, maybe 10 millions, because they blindly trusted their national press, who have praised their national brand and product, because buying a foreigner ps3 system wasn’t a great thing, for the nation, fans, everybody. Those dads and kids trusted them, and went home with an almost-dead x360 console.
WHEN, if those websites weren’t biased, and over-patriotic, they might have had the decense to warn those millions future buyers, by telling them about those critical issues, AND by telling them to buy a ps3, instead, that was rock solid, future proof, and a far better investment (swappable hard drive, free online, tons of free full games via ps+, etc etc).
again, why would the US press promote a Japanese console ? …
big comment, but maybe a few will understand.
HAppY_KrAToS
I down know how long the author has been playing games, but.. let me tell you a story:
Since the x360 was out, millions of articles and pro Xbox journalists tried to destroy the ps3.
The same with the psvita, doom and gloom articles were published every 5 minutes.
The Xbox did something bad? Fans would turn those things into positive features.
Even sites like gamespot did everything to hide the x360’s RROD fiasco. Still today, a search on their website ‘rrod’ give no results. All that, so the US dads and kids kept buying a doa x360, instead of going and buy a ps3.
These sites and journalists would try to spot a bad texture on the ps3 version, just to give it a 8.9, instead of a 9.0 to the x360 version, that would become ‘the definite version to buy’.
Just check how the press went to kill Sony, when they announced the removal of ‘otherOs’…
Don’t want to type 10 pages..
Just check how those journalists tried to bash the ps4 launch titles, while giving perfect scores to all the x1 exclusive games.
Check how, despite the ps4 being much more powerful, better features, power chord-less, among many other things, the US press still gave a higher score to the x1, by praising the fantastic kinekt, and the vcr/media/TV features that wouldn’t work outside the USA.
Check how still today, the press does everything, to bash a Sony exclusive title, like the millions negative articles, just to destroy ‘the order 1886’, and each x1 game that comes out, that press give it the highest score, to make the x1 owners buy it: quantum break, with a 6/10 from gamespot, isn’t that great. But the US press will grab that opportunity, to try to sell more consoles and games, to reduce the ps4 success.
Just check Forbes ‘Kain’ dude, or polygon, and see how they hate Sony, and how they love and praise everything from Microsoft. ..
In one year, remedy might shut down their servers, and quantum break owners won’t be able to download the 75 gigas of videos the game uses… and the game will become unplayable. Sure, that deserves a 10/10, for sure.
And then, the next ps4 exclusive titles that comes out, the press will once again grab the 2 or 3 little negative things about it, and turn them into game-game-breaking issues… to justify another 6.5/10 score.
That’s life. That’s the US press. Nothing will never change.
Ifrinpls
I know it’s a bit late, but there is just a tiny bit of truth in your rant, most of it is just fanboy nonsense, like Trump supporters think media is “biased” against him for asking him questions and calling him out for being a reckless prick.
The “PS3 is doomed” issue was a REAL THING, Sony fucked up big time when the last generation started, big, expensive console with a hard to take advantage of hardware which wasn’t THAT great to start with, it wasn’t a texture most of the time but also performance issues, because of this, instead of the PS3 having a 15-20% advantage over the Xbox 360, it was the Xbox 360 the one that had such advantage over PS3 for almost the entire generation.
It wasn’t until around the second half of 2010 that the PS3 started to take off, with Sony having a lot of marketing campaigns, exclusives and PS+ and the console wasn’t 600 bucks anymore.
Polygon hates Sony? And yet they gave Uncharted 4 a 9 and Infamous: Second Son an 8.5, that Polygon? Oh I get it, they didn’t praise TLoU as the pinnacle of gaming, such bias.
it must be the TLoU review, yeah, that extremely formulaic game with a nice story and actors which is always good for giving snobs a boner when your game is nothing special, except for the people who plays them, they are a special crowd of smart uncomprehended people with an exquisite taste in games, nah.
That being said, I don’t agree with the article, that game is being bashed for a fair reason, these kind of games remind me that this industry is in pampers, well, in its teens, trying too hard to be different and at the same time copying older guys, sometimes their own older brothers they see as “Cool” (movies and series). This game tried too hard to be “different” that it was the only thing it was actually able to achieve. It is such a shame because It had this interesting mechanic (although arguably it isn’t new when games like Singularity and Timeshift already had pretty similar, if not the same mechanic but with different graphical effects), but it was such a wasted opportunity and resources in a forgettable product.
The final product Remedy delivered ended up being just an “ok” game, but that’s a total failure considering the fact that it was a AAA game.