Breached Review

Breached, Nkidu Games Inc.

<p class&equals;"western">I admit that I tend to be drawn deep into narratives that have a mystery&period; <em>Zero Escape<&sol;em> does this to marvelous effect&comma; but I also was curious when stumbling around the house in <em>Gone Home<&sol;em> and <em>Danganronpa<&sol;em> scratched my investigative itch lovingly&period; So when <em>Breached<&sol;em> proudly proclaimed it had a mystery&comma; I was already prepared to quote Brad Pitt and keep asking &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;what&&num;8217&semi;s in the boooxxx”&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a shame <em><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;breached-game&period;com&sol;"><strong>Breached<&sol;strong><&sol;a><&sol;em> never manages to create interest in the mystery&comma; through its narrative or gameplay&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western"><em>Breached<&sol;em> is a sci-fi narrative-driven title by Drama Drifters&period; After waking up from a cryogenic sleep&comma; you find yourself abandoned on a planet with 8 days of supplies&period; While you&&num;8217&semi;ll be trying to assemble an oxygen unit and enough fuel to get off the planet&comma; your character writes with non-specific regret of what happened with the mysterious accident&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">The story is delivered by your character creating blog entries&period; You then pick a word for the protagonist to expand upon&comma; until the blog entry is filled&period; You&&num;8217&semi;ll then gain access to tags that can be used to access other blog entries by people before you &lpar;who may also be you&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109493" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109493" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109493 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131725&sol;BreachedPic4&period;jpg" alt&equals;"BreachedPic4" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109493" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Breached<&sol;em>&comma; Nkidu Games Inc&period;&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Already&comma; you may see a problem&period; The mystery exists because your character refuses to acknowledge the truth for the audience&period; While there is signs of memory loss&comma; it seems the protagonist could potentially recall what happened but&comma; in contrast to the player&comma; just doesn&&num;8217&semi;t want to&period; In this regard&comma; it seems <em>Breached<&sol;em> wants to be <em>Silent Hill 2<&sol;em> in the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I did something naughty and want to forget” style of writing&comma; but doesn&&num;8217&semi;t manage to go beyond making the main character a story obstacle to never be surmounted&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Although that isn&&num;8217&semi;t to say the characterization makes you want to learn the mystery&comma; as there is very little&period; It feels very monotone from the entries&comma; like someone filing a tax report&comma; only breaking the monotone to absorb themselves in self-loathing&comma; hopelessness&comma; and misery&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">The main character just doesn&&num;8217&semi;t have much of a life beyond his memento more-induced sadness&period; I could have done with knowing he used to be happy once&period; At the bare minimum&comma; I would have liked a reason to believe he actually wants to live and doesn&&num;8217&semi;t want to take a suitless stroll on the planet&&num;8217&semi;s surface&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Moving swiftly onto the other side of the coin&comma; the gameplay is divided into two parts&period; The first part has you try to navigate a drone in a first-person view as you extract minerals and storage pods by staring them down within 1 metre of them&period; In this regard the controls are relaxingly simple&period; Left click to go forward&comma; right click to brake&comma; wiggle mouse around to decide where to go&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109494" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109494" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109494" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131707&sol;BreachedPic3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Breached&comma; Nkidu Games Inc&period;" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109494" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Breached<&sol;em>&comma; Nkidu Games Inc&period;&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">That said&comma; it quickly gets to this awkward point where you begin to hunger for more controls&period; You wish there was a jump button for the canyon leaps &lpar;or to get out of a glitch that I once did&rpar; and a map screen so you can look up pre-found items or at least memorize where you found things&period; The latter control is an especially big deal as you do have a very limited storage container&comma; so you may decide to go back later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Fortunately&comma; you do have one tool at your disposal to help track down the minerals and pods you need&colon; a tracker that&&num;8217&semi;ll tell you the closest one of either&period; Considering minerals are plentiful and you need pods to help rebuild an oxygen unit&comma; this can be a huge source of frustration as you are usually led to the nearest mineral instead&period; However&comma; once you&&num;8217&semi;ve fixed one problem &lpar;minerals for fuel&comma; pods for oxygen machine&rpar;&comma; the tracker will no longer lead you to the nearest item needed to rectify it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">This entire time&comma; your biggest foe is the anomalies that come in different shapes&comma; colors and effects&period; They all amount to breaking your drone &lpar;which is a big deal we&&num;8217&semi;ll get to in a moment&rpar;&comma; although some are hard to spot while others move&comma; and even others will drag you to them if you decide to crawl past them&period; Overall&comma; it made for an interesting challenge&comma; with the yellow ones &lpar;that can drag you to them&rpar; being a source of frustration due to how powerful they are at destroying my drones&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">The second gameplay avenue is burning energy&period; You only have so much energy which is used to send out drones&comma; manufacture minerals into fuel&comma; or hack into pods for parts&period; This will be where you succeed or fail to get off the planet&period; While it sounds like an interesting concept&comma; your success is based on the guessing of mineral composition for fuel and randomized pod parts reaped&period; So you may have a lucky run and get everything needed&comma; or you may realize you&&num;8217&semi;re out of energy without hitting your objective&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109495" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109495" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109495" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131650&sol;BreachedPic1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Breached&comma; Nkidu Games Inc&period;" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109495" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Breached<&sol;em>&comma; Nkidu Games Inc&period;&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western">Overall&comma; <em>Breached<&sol;em> gets a 5&sol;10&period; Even for a game kicking about at &dollar;6&period;99&sol;£5&period;00&comma; I find myself amazed at how empty it all feels&period; <em>Breached<&sol;em> feels like a smaller part of a bigger game rather than its own independent spirit&period; It sadly leans too much on the prospect of providing an interesting mystery to unravel&comma; but never manages to sell me on the idea it was something worth learning&period; Even now&comma; I wonder if it was a tale best left amongst the stars&period; After all&comma; I believe some stories from beyond our world are best unknown&period; Not necessarily due to the mind-bending terror&comma; unfortunate implications&comma; or the knowledge it contains within&comma; but rather because it&&num;8217&semi;s not interesting to anyone&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"western" style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A PC review code for Breached was provided by Nkidu Games&comma; Inc&period; for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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