So with that out of the way, let's start this blog off with my review of Quantum Theory for the PS3. Good god, why did I have to pick this game out of, well, anything?!?
This isn't going to end well.
I really don't know what drove me to go out and rent this from Gamefly. I had already played the demo of this game, and I ended up hating it. In fact, this blog post was initially going to be my thoughts on the demo instead, similar to what Blondeguygamer did on his blog. However, for some ungodly reason, I felt compelled to see if the full game was actually worse than the demo. After hearing reviews about certain parts of the game, I had to see it for myself. Unfortunately, there were almost zero videos on Youtube that showed those said segments in the game. So instead, I simply said, "Fuck it!" and decided to rent the PS3 version of Quantum Theory. After fully playing it, I can safely say that I wasted my time playing this game more than I did playing Terminator Salvation.
This game is made by Tecmo-Koei (when the hell did they merge together?). I never exactly played any games by either company, as I don't see the Ninja Gaiden series as appealing to me, and how Dynasty Warriors never changes with each iteration. Do I hate the developers? No, I just don't find any of their games to be fun, for me at least. Quantum Theory is apparently Tecmo-Koei's answer to Gears of War, and their way to appeal to western audiences. This may not seem like a bad thing, that is until you actually play the game. This game might give me a good enough reason to hate both developers now.
The story starts off with your typical generic buffed up soldier, Syd, and a woman named Nyx, escaping a tower after destroying it. They fight their way out, but Nyx stays behind and dies since she is actually connected to the tower itself. The game then fast forwards to Syd and a bunch of other soldiers fighting their way through hordes of enemies, known as the "Diablosis", while making their way to another tower. Syd's main mission is simple, destroy the tower. However, all the other useless soldiers get killed and Syd is the only one that manages to get inside and live. Along the way, he meets a woman named Filena, who is out to save the tower from "the erosion." He helps her out in a firefight with the Diablosis, the two almost shoot each other in a standoff, and they go their separate ways. They eventually meet up again, this time fighting each other to a stalemate. Once more of the Diablosis show up, however, they are forced to team up in order to get through the tower.
The only redeeming actor I found in this game was Steve Blum. First of all, he shouldn't be in this game. ANYTHING but this game. Second, despite being one of the only actors that seems to try with their roles, the dialogue is laughably bad. This includes the dialogue for everyone else in Quantum Theory. It is just poorly written and executed. One example of this is the first fight with Thanatos. If you take your time with what you are supposed to do in the fight, the dialogue ends up repeating itself. It ends up being very annoying, and it shows how lazy the developers were with this aspect. As for the music, I'm not to sure what to say about it. It maybe the only redeeming factor for the sound design. It's good enough to listen to in its own right, but it's still nothing that spectacular. All I can really say is that it fits with the game. That's about it. Overall though, the music alone isn't enough to save Quantum Theory's sound design from being bad.
You hold up to a total of three weapons, but are only able to switch two of them out for other armaments (the Revenant is basically your backup weapon). Most of the weapons are slightly generic, only looking interesting do to the art style, with only two or three weapons being unique. One weapon shoots saw blades at the enemies, another has lasers that can bounce off the wall, and one that shoot lighting at a very short range. Some weapons, however, are completely useless. I ended up using the shotguns and explosive weapons the least. The shotguns weren't even powerful as they should be, and the explosive weapons rarely had any ammo. Besides, you can beat the game using the more common weapons you find from enemies that decide to drop them once in a while.
Oh, I almost forgot about your partner, Filena. After you fight her for a little bit in the story, she ends up fighting alongside with you. While her AI is smarter than the actual enemies in the game, she can still act pretty dumb when you don't use her for attacks. Yes, you can use Filena for attacking enemies by throwing her at one enemy for a high damage attack, or throw her in the air to trap multiple enemies for a short time. If she gets downed in combat, all you have to do is walk right next to her and she'll get right back up. How the hell does that work? Syd doesn't do anything to help her get up, so why is able to get up after you WALK PAST HER? Nevermind, it's not like this game explains shit as it is. In short, Filena doesn't exactly serve a big purpose in combat like she should have. It just feels like she's just another weapon in your arsenal. I almost forgot, you can also do melee combos on enemies with her, simply by pressing the melee button at a specific time. There are a small number of combos, but they don't matter that much anyway. Speaking of melee combat, I can just say one thing about it. It's bad. It feels very stiff just simply punching an enemy as it makes you stop and attack in one direction. Getting into a fist fight with an enemy is mostly suicidal, as they can easily melee you when you are try to do so as well, canceling your attack. It's just better to sit back and shoot them instead of shouting "I AM A MAN!" and punching them in the gut.
Remember when I mentioned that evading was used for something other than dodging attacks in the last three paragraphs? Yeah, I should note that this game has platforming segments. Yes, FUCKING PLATFORMING SEGMENTS!
The story starts off with your typical generic buffed up soldier, Syd, and a woman named Nyx, escaping a tower after destroying it. They fight their way out, but Nyx stays behind and dies since she is actually connected to the tower itself. The game then fast forwards to Syd and a bunch of other soldiers fighting their way through hordes of enemies, known as the "Diablosis", while making their way to another tower. Syd's main mission is simple, destroy the tower. However, all the other useless soldiers get killed and Syd is the only one that manages to get inside and live. Along the way, he meets a woman named Filena, who is out to save the tower from "the erosion." He helps her out in a firefight with the Diablosis, the two almost shoot each other in a standoff, and they go their separate ways. They eventually meet up again, this time fighting each other to a stalemate. Once more of the Diablosis show up, however, they are forced to team up in order to get through the tower.
It's "Diablosis," not "Diablos."
The plot itself isn't exactly that hard to follow, but it is entirely forgettable and makes it hard for the player to care about any of it at all. The characters are all generic, especially Syd who tries to act badass with his terrible one-liners. As for Filena, she only serves as a typical sidekick with sex appeal (yes, she has breast physics. *sigh*). There technically is a villain, Thanatos, but he shows up roughly halfway through the game, and doesn't really affect the main plot at all. The game tries to be epic at times, adding in some big set pieces, but it falls apart mainly due to the gameplay, but I'll get to that later. The game even ends with an anti-climatic cliffhanger easily setting up for a sequel, which I hope to god NEVER gets made. In short, the plot is dumb, boring, and makes it hard for anyone to care about what happens in it at all.
When it comes to Quantum Theory's graphics, they are simply not that good. I'm not saying that they're bad either, it's just simply mediocre. The art style is a little interesting, but it also comes off looking a bit odd at the same time. For example, both the Diablosis' and Syd's armor looks like a bunch of black sea shells glued together. It also doesn't help that some of the textures look either bland or unpolished, for both the characters and the environments. At first, the game looks dreary and washed out, making the first few levels look like absolute crap. It gets better once you get inside the tower itself, but at the same time, it isn't particularly impressive either. The weapons have some interesting designs, but they also look low-res once you actually use them. The animations are very robotic and stiff at times, as if there is almost no fluidity to it all all. This shows up especially when you are either running or trying to take cover. Also, the game decides to randomly zoom in on an enemy whenever you get a headshot. This may seem cool at first, but gets tiresome after the fourth or fifth time you see it. In short, while it may not have the worst graphics ever, Quantum Theory's graphics falls a little short of simply being passable.
The game tends to look like this at points.
The sound design doesn't fare much better either. All of the weapons sound like they don't pack as much punch as they should. The only weapon that tries to sound powerful is the one you can't get rid of, the Revenant, but that still isn't saying much. The voice acting, however, simply sucks ass. As mentioned earlier, Syd tries to act like this badass, but simply fails at being one all together. His delivery is monotone for the most part, and the lines he spits out are just retarded. The best example of this is the line, "Damn, I can't hit anything.", which he ends up saying if you miss a couple of shots on an enemy sometimes. Yes, the game INSULTS you for missing a few shots on the enemy. Filena's voice actor is slightly better, but is still pretty bad. Everyone else, such as the useless soldiers at the start of the game, sound like they don't even try to act at points.
The only redeeming actor I found in this game was Steve Blum. First of all, he shouldn't be in this game. ANYTHING but this game. Second, despite being one of the only actors that seems to try with their roles, the dialogue is laughably bad. This includes the dialogue for everyone else in Quantum Theory. It is just poorly written and executed. One example of this is the first fight with Thanatos. If you take your time with what you are supposed to do in the fight, the dialogue ends up repeating itself. It ends up being very annoying, and it shows how lazy the developers were with this aspect. As for the music, I'm not to sure what to say about it. It maybe the only redeeming factor for the sound design. It's good enough to listen to in its own right, but it's still nothing that spectacular. All I can really say is that it fits with the game. That's about it. Overall though, the music alone isn't enough to save Quantum Theory's sound design from being bad.
After all this time, how could I have not addressed the main issue of this game? The actual gameplay. Oh boy, where do I even begin on this one? Also, please note that I played this game on the normal difficulty setting.
Gears of War, this is not.
First of all, the aiming sucks balls in this game. It feels very delayed at times, making it harder to aim at the enemy you want to shoot at, even with the aim-assist. Modifying the sensitivity helped a little bit, but it was still difficult to hit an enemy no matter what setting it was at. Moving Syd around in general felt very clunky and not smooth, unlike in other games like Gears of War (as much as I don't want to compare Gears and this game, it is hard NOT to). As for the cover system, it is very cumbersome and feels very unpolished. Hell, Terminator Salvation's cover system worked better than the one in Quantum Theory. At first, it may look like the cover system could be limited but decent. But instead, using cover can be more trouble than it should be. Taking cover isn't the problem, but trying to do things like move from left to right in cover tends to be problematic. Popping out and shooting is fine, but getting out of cover is slightly annoying as you have to press the X button (A on the Xbox 360) again in order to get out. You can run in the game, which clearly uses Gears' "roadie run" camera angle, and evade to dodge enemy fire. Evading is also used for something else, but we'll get to that aspect later.
You hold up to a total of three weapons, but are only able to switch two of them out for other armaments (the Revenant is basically your backup weapon). Most of the weapons are slightly generic, only looking interesting do to the art style, with only two or three weapons being unique. One weapon shoots saw blades at the enemies, another has lasers that can bounce off the wall, and one that shoot lighting at a very short range. Some weapons, however, are completely useless. I ended up using the shotguns and explosive weapons the least. The shotguns weren't even powerful as they should be, and the explosive weapons rarely had any ammo. Besides, you can beat the game using the more common weapons you find from enemies that decide to drop them once in a while.
Oh, I almost forgot about your partner, Filena. After you fight her for a little bit in the story, she ends up fighting alongside with you. While her AI is smarter than the actual enemies in the game, she can still act pretty dumb when you don't use her for attacks. Yes, you can use Filena for attacking enemies by throwing her at one enemy for a high damage attack, or throw her in the air to trap multiple enemies for a short time. If she gets downed in combat, all you have to do is walk right next to her and she'll get right back up. How the hell does that work? Syd doesn't do anything to help her get up, so why is able to get up after you WALK PAST HER? Nevermind, it's not like this game explains shit as it is. In short, Filena doesn't exactly serve a big purpose in combat like she should have. It just feels like she's just another weapon in your arsenal. I almost forgot, you can also do melee combos on enemies with her, simply by pressing the melee button at a specific time. There are a small number of combos, but they don't matter that much anyway. Speaking of melee combat, I can just say one thing about it. It's bad. It feels very stiff just simply punching an enemy as it makes you stop and attack in one direction. Getting into a fist fight with an enemy is mostly suicidal, as they can easily melee you when you are try to do so as well, canceling your attack. It's just better to sit back and shoot them instead of shouting "I AM A MAN!" and punching them in the gut.
Remember when I mentioned that evading was used for something other than dodging attacks in the last three paragraphs? Yeah, I should note that this game has platforming segments. Yes, FUCKING PLATFORMING SEGMENTS!
Take this game, turn it into a shooter, make the platforming
broken, and there. You just made Quantum Theory's platforming levels.
I didn't think that these segments were going to be that bad, but these are definitely the WORST parts of the game. I read some reviews online (Destructoid's in particular) and they kept mentioning how the platforming was abysmal. They mentioned that the game told them to jump, which eventually led to their deaths each time. This was the reason I rented this game. I had to see how bad these segments were for myself, and yes, they suck BIG TIME. The segments are beatable, but it's baffling how poorly designed they are in general. The game tends to show the jump indicator at a certain time, making you think that you should jump immediately. Doing this will get you killed. Even if you time the jump right, sometimes the game can glitch and make you miss, thus resulting in your death. At one point in the game, the jumping didn't even work when it was supposed to. Instead, it made Syd get off the wall and fall to his clumsy death. These segments pretty much killed the game even more for me, adding in a mechanic that doesn't even work that well in this genre to begin with. This game would have been better off without these segments, even though everything else wasn't that good to begin with.
I forgot to mention another thing. There are boss fights in this game. While there are only a few, they really aren't that fun to fight. One boss chases you up a shaft while you shoot endlessly at it, all the while trying to prevent it from attacking you as well. Then, another boss later in the game has you going up a spiral staircase while you have to shoot all the "fuck me lights" on his body. They may be epic in scale, but they are not that fun to go up against, making them almost boring in a way. One last thing, this game wasn't just bad. It was BORING. It felt like a complete chore just getting through the damn thing, with almost no reason to go back and play it (there are things you can shoot called "The Eyes of the Tower", but they just add useless backstory). And no, I can't talk about the multiplayer because NO ONE plays multiplayer in this game. I searched in every gametype, and even made my own lobby. Not one person was playing this game at all. Also, in terms of game length for single player, it took me around four hours to beat it on the normal setting. So basically, there really is no replay value for Quantum Theory. Overall, the gameplay tries it's hardest to be like a western third person shooter, but fails miserably in almost every aspect.
"FOUR HOURS!"
Overall, Quantum Theory simply isn't worth your time or attention. After playing this, I don't even want to see what other games Tecmo-Koei has up their sleeves next. Even if you find this game in the bargain bin, hell, even if you find this on sale for ONE PENNY, don't even bother with it. Just look at it and give it the middle finger. Or laugh at it. Or do both. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and watch a few episodes of K-ON, which is infinitely better than Quantum Theory.
Better than Quantum Theory in every aspect. Wait, what?!?
Great Review.
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