Breakdown

Namco has certainly been busy, with so many potentially top-notch titles on the way - including this hot-looking sci-fi Xbox exclusive. We take a closer look.

	Version Xbox	Developer Namco	Publisher Namco	Genre Action

By Joseph Jackson

Having checked out the trailer of Breakdown at E3 and trying to keep close tabs on the game's development, we can say that gaming fans are definitely in for a treat later this year. Breakdown is looking to be quite hot and was thrown up on the Kikizo list of highly anticipated games of the year.

However, upon closer inspection, the built up anticipation and enthusiasm of some of our staffers dropped quickly. Noticing that it was a first person beat-em up our thoughts quickly raced back to the old, first-generation, below average Neo-Geo first person beat-em up game, The Super Spy, a game we'd prefer to forget. In The Super Spy, your character made his way through an enemy compounds, punching, kicking and blasting his way through in First-person view. The game lacked polish in every area and just wasn't very fun. In some ways, the first-person action in Breakdown does remind us quite a bit of The Super Spy which is what we found scary in a bad way at first.

But despite our initial fears we have faith in Namco's ability to provide an engaging gaming experience. After all, they weren't the ones who created the dismal Super Spy'.

Utilizing the power of the Xbox, Breakdown will sport some highly detailed and immersive 3D worlds full of intense, high octane action and high-quality real-time rendered graphics to help drive the compelling science fiction storyline.

The Storyline of Breakdown is one filled with mystery and intrigue, one that puts players in the role of Derrick Cole, an unfortunate soul who falls prey to scientific experiments and wakes up trapped inside of a mysterious laboratory. Unable to remember his past Derrick soon discovers his extraordinary powers and puts them to good use as he fights for his life against a relentless military faction and a legion of big, bad, and ugly, seemingly invincible super-human warriors while trying to prevent a disastrous event from bringing about another holocaust.

Talk about having your work cut out for ya. Fortunately Derrick isn't alone as he is reunited with his female comrade and they both embark on a mission to kick a whole lot o' ass and find out just what on Earth, Venus, and Mars is going on!

Sounds like your typical Sci-fi action thriller, but in a good way. To assist in the storytelling will be some surreal dream sequences throughout the game to help answer some questions while creating more at the same time.

The gameplay of Breakdown looks to provide some great action and adventure gaming elements, combining cool looking first-person view beat 'em up action (smack enemies around with combo attacks) and fierce weapon-based FPS combat against enemies enhanced with advanced AI.

As you make your way through the vast futuristic world, both your character's physical and mental attributes will be put to the test as you attempt to solve a series of puzzles to help uncover the truth and engage in some jaw-jacking first person fisticuff action as well as mowing down the legion of ugliness headed your way in FPS mode.

The graphics shown of Breakdown so far look really good with highly detailed and immersive 3D worlds sporting some great looking lighting effects, smoke effects, particle effects, and plenty of areas throughout the game filled with intricate details, there's even a cute little kitty in one of the areas. The character designs also look top-notch with each character exhibiting a great amount of texture detail and smooth animations. A lot of the characters in this game just look cool. But coming from the likes of Namco, the quality of the visuals shouldn't be a surprise at all.

On the music and sound effects front, Breakdown will contain a nice variety of music, as well as featuring licensed music supposedly from one of today's hottest bands, "Trust Company". Just check out the "Take it All" song in the latter half of the E3 trailer for an audio sampling of one of Breakdown's great musical offerings, Really good stuff!

The voice acting heard so far is solid work and the sound effects also sound pretty good, featuring great sounding punching and kicking sounds as well as other convincing sounds such as water splashing sounds, windows shattering, machine gun discharges and many more.

Do yourself a favor - if you haven't seen the awesome trailer, check it out below now. It's so well done, it's almost like cruel punishment to have to wait so long for something so... ahem... enticing. Breakdown is set for a Q4 2003 release on the Xbox, and we'll keep you updated of the game's progress.