As your body slowly awakes from sleep, you notice that you are lying in a hospital bed, not being able to recognize who you are or why you are here. A loudspeaker clicks on, and a voice conducts you through a training sequence, getting yourself acquainted with the controls. The voice directs you back to your room, where a hearty hamburger and pop are awaiting next to your bed. Unfortunately, the provided lunch has been drugged, and you gag and fall down onto the bed, your vision becoming disoriented. A group of soldiers march into the room, and through the hazy stupor you see their guns pointed at your face and hear their plans to execute you. Suddenly, a woman dressed in a tight fitting black suit materializes out of nowhere and deftly slaughters the three marines with a variety of matrix-style moves. She introduces herself as Alex, and the adventure begins.

Oh, by the way, every second of that introduction was from the first person perspective. The entire game, in fact, takes place in the role of your character. This concept, along with the idea of first person fist fighting, results in Namco’s Breakdown being one of the most innovative titles to come out in the past few years. How well are these ideas executed in the final product? Read the rest of this review to find out.

Early on in the game, the action is limited to guns only. While this would be fine in a regular first person shooter, in Breakdown, the shooting system is incredibly flawed. First of all, there is no aiming involved whatsoever; simply pressing A will lock your view onto an enemy, removing all the excitement of spraying guards with bullets. Also, the wide variety of four or five weapons leaves much to be desired. Finally, and best of all, many of the weapons are not effective against the enemies, and some, such as the machine gun, don’t hit their targets unless you are right up next to them.

Soon, however, your character can disregard the gun-based gameplay in favor of beating the crap out of enemies with a collection of flying punches and kicks. The L button is used for the left side of your body, and R for the right. A locks onto enemies, and clicking your left thumb will block. That is basically it, and although you can rack up some impressive combos, the fighting gets repetitive fast. Beating the thousandth moronic enemy (thanks to unimpressive A.I.) to progress the story is not too exciting. Also, since the fighting is from a first person perspective, it becomes a challenge to fight multiple enemies at once, because once you begin your beat down on one enemy, the other has a tendency to punch you in the back of the head. While not completely broken, the fighting system in Breakdown is decent at best.

The graphics in Breakdown are passable at best. Basically, the game looks like a first or second generation Xbox game in terms of textures and the environment. However, character models and animation are done reasonably well, with fluid movements in the first person perspective. The sound effects and music are one of this game’s saving graces, with sounds that immerse you into the location and music that raises the tension created by being in the character’s shoes.

The best part of Breakdown, however, is easily the creative story. While the game immerses you in the first person view throughout the duration of the game, the sci-fi plot, albeit a bit cliché, is interesting enough to keep ones attention. Overall, Breakdown is an attractive concept, but lacks the gameplay dynamics and technical capabilities to rise above the crop of mediocre games.

Visit the official Breakdown site