… Give me a second here… urgh… I think I’m OK now. Sorry about that, I just tried out the demo for Quantum Theory-HURR!… Sorry. Sick in my mouth a little there.
OK I’ll admit that I’m exaggerating a little for comic effect, but only a little. Ever since I saw the first videos released for this game I have been amazed by the look of it. It’s just so very, very ugly. Having played the demo I feel like my eyes have been assaulted. Almost every single aspect of this game is unpleasant to look at.
Your main character, I don’t remember his name so let’s call him Ugly McX-Face, is ugly. Well a big ugly protagonist isn’t too bad I guess as long as he has some kick-ass duds on right? Cool suit of armour? Well he doesn’t. It’s ugly.
The weapons, are ugly. This game seems to really have something against smooth surfaces. No clean simple looks to anything in this game. I can only imagine the design process at Tecmo; “So this is the new shotgun design eh? Too smooth, put some ridges on it, in fact just make it entirely out of ridges. Oh and I think Ugly McX-Face’s gun should have some kinda glowy red eye on the back because that’ll look awesome.” It doesn’t. It’s ugly.
The enemies, are ugly. It really is as if a conscious decision was made at some point to make everything in this game UGLY. All the designs are so very busy, so many angles and curves and ridges. In what can only be said in a non-flattering manner they remind me of the new Transformers designs with an extra misshapen organic twist.
The environments: Ugly. Horrid in fact. See the previous mention of the team’s hatred of smooth surfaces because it extends here too. Very dull blocky map layouts but lots of the surfaces have to have horrible busy textures all over them. Dull coloured horribleness occasionally gives way to light creamy horribleness which I imagine is supposed to actually look clean and simple but is marred by hideous embellishments on every surface. It’s as if the developers are overly proud of some kind of new bump-mapping tech they have created and they NEED to share it with us.
Everything in the game manages to not only be incredibly ugly but also crushingly, generically dull. Which reminds me that I should really talk about the gameplay.
The gameplay is crushingly, generically dull. I can’t even be bothered to describe it in detail as it’s so damn familiar I don’t really need to. Just imagine Gears of War’s gameplay, from lumbering around the blocky cover based environments to the single loaded round at a time sniper rifle. Can you picture it? Good. Now make everything a bit worse. Remove that nice visceral feeling Gears does so well. All the little touches like the way you slam into cover, take them away. The solidity to the weapon effects that really draw you in, bin that too. You with me still? OK. Now cover it all with shit and ta-da! The Quantum Theory experience.
In only one way does the game seem to try and change the GoW recipe. Dom’s role is taken by what is arguably the only non-ugly thing in the game. A female character, let’s call her Offensive-to-women McScanty-Clad. Mr McX-Face can hurl his lithe companion across the room at his enemies Fastball Special style. That’s it. Wow. Such incredible innovations. An especially nice touch is the way that this can leave her surround by enemies who then beat her down meaning you need to wade in and rescue her making the whole exercise counter-productive.
I really, really do not understand Tecmo at all here. Every element of this game is poor and they combine together to make a repulsive, repugnant, repelent whole.
So you are a big fan of the game then?
Gears of poor indeed. Couldn’t agree more.
Lol. I’m going to try this anyway. I want Gear 3.