What it lacks in storytelling, it makes up for in gameplay. Overall: an underrated and solid experience.
The game doesn't really do anything special and I can see how it can be classified as a generic third person shooter...which is fine with me since I'm in love with the genre. The low scores for this game can be deceiving: It's not a bad game but its no game of the year either. Its a simple as shoot, dodge, melee, and reload. That isn't to say that Quantum Theory isn't challenging because it eventually does get there. Around the 10th chapter (out of 15 1/2), the game starts to get a lot more more difficult. The difficulty mostly revolves around the positioning of enemy types or the amount of which in a given situation. Its not so much the A.I. but that isn't to say that its dumb as bricks. Visually the game does an impressive job at bringing out the dark and sickly ambiance of the enviornments but I kind of wish there had been more variety in the setting. You spend most of your time in the tower you are trying to climb and are briefly in two other locations throughout the game. Sound wise...in specific, the gun could have sounded better but I've heard worse. The music was nothing to right home about and the voice acting was solid. When it comes to over all action, Quantum Theory delivers but it just doesn't do anything much differently than your average TPS.
The plot was interesting but was marred by the butchered storytelling. It takes the Final Fantasy XIII approach: "Welcome to the middle of the story and read the collectables to understand the rest"...a few hours in, you begin to realize that everyone else pretty much gets what's going on except for you. In simpliest terms, 99.8% of Earth's polulation was destroyed over the course of 7 days by a devistating weapons used by a cult (though you never encounter them). Hundreds of years later, decendants of the survivors are battling destructive mutations of the apocolypse known as The Diablos...which reproduces by infecting people on contact. At the same time mysterious towers begin to literally grow out of the ground and its defenses kill anything that comes near it. These towers are in fact "living" and therefore become targets of The Diablos. Like most living things, the tower has its own version of white blood cells (to protect against illnesses) in the form of soldier like entities none as The Nosferatu (yeah like the vampire). Well, like humans, the Nosferatu can be infected by the Diablos as well and become hybrids known as Gillskins. However unlike human infected, some times Gillskins mutate into human looking entities that have some compacity of free will...thus our hero, Syd. Syd is a free thinking Gillskin who has choosen to destroy the remaining towers...not because his Diablos DNA has programmed him to but to gain vengence upon those who killed off his fellow free-thinking Gilskin brethren. See how much of a mouthful that was? That's just the basics but you won't even understand that much unless you read the collectables you find and view the events about halfway through the game!
My Breakdown
What's Good:
- Solid third person shooting
- Well done visuals
- Decent voice acting
- Good amount of bosses to face
- Great variety of weapons
- Fair checkpoint system and I really liked the option to choose the difficulty of your last save point during every start-up.
What's Not-So-Good:
- The buddy system could have been further developed and often times you're AI partner is more of a hinderance than help
- Online co-op gameplay is definately a missed opportunity
- The weapons could have sounded better
- A better variety of environments would have been nice
What's Bad:
- In-game, I felt that I was only getting bits and pieces of the game's story while the characters all knew what was going on the entire time.
- There's nothing really innovative about the game's gameplay
In all, Quantum Theory is a solid third person shooter. If you have a TPS itch that you need to scratch...it doesn't attempt to do much beyond that. Due to my own personal taste in games, it was great to playthrough.