The “Break it Down” Blog

Summary: [6 out of 10]

Fracture is a third person shooter set in 2161 on Earth.  You play as a soldier for the Atlantican army.  The main feature that sets Fracture apart from other third person shooters is that you have weapons that let you deform the terrain.  This terrain deformation lets you  raise or lower the terrain to suit your needs.

Introduction

I remember watching the trailer during E3 in 2007 and looking forward to being able to deform terrain to kill enemies and smash stuff.

Having played through the game I’m disappointed with how the terrain deformation works. The game is setup so that you need to use your terrain deforming to make cover for yourself as well as to solve puzzles.  The puzzle solving portions are extremely simple.  Almost all of them come down to raising the terrain under an object to open a door or make a bridge. The terrain can be used to make some cover for yourself or to allow you to jump higher, but never to the point it was really helpful or necessary.

The Good

• The futuristic weapons are pretty fun to use.  The vortex grenades that suck everything in never get old.
• The other part that never got old was when you’re in tunnels and you raise the terrain under an enemy to smash them into the ceiling.
• Looking for data cells in hard to reach areas is the one reason to push the terrain deforming to the limit.
• Multiplayer modes can be fun … if you find a room that is not playing to get achievements.

The Bad

• Generic plot and level layouts.
• Boss fights are ridiculously difficult because the boss can kill you with 2 hits and has a lot of health.
• Instead of making the enemies smart enough to kill you they just put a lot of enemy units in the game to overwhelm you with numbers.
• There is almost never a need to really use the terrain deformation to make cover or kill enemies.
• The main plot of the story is forgettable and generic.

The Ugly

• The driving level is really lame.  You vehicle has a turret on top that auto targets so all you have to do is drive slowly through the level and it will kill everyone for you.

Conclusion: [6 out of 10]

I was really disappointed with Fracture after looking forward to it for over a year.  The game could have been made without the terrain deformation and been only a little different.  However, it was never so bad that I thought about not finishing the campaign.  The enemy will get a lot of cheap kills on you from time to time, but one you find a good spot to make cover you can pick them off one by one.  You can get to some really cool areas of the levels with the terrain deforming and you’re encouraged to do so to look for data cells, but it would have been nice if they had encouraged you to do that to actually play the main story and not just for a side feature.