Its May 3, 2245. Systems are going online as you wake from your hyper sleep. There is a problem with your capsule. You have a breach in your hull, have run out of fuel and currently have only 8 days of oxygen left. You seem to have been through this before. Almost like deJa vu. You are asked a few questions before you start you’re a calibration sequence. After calibrating you are tasked with gathering minerals for creating fuel and fixing your hull. Will you be able to complete your task within the next 8 days?
Breached is what I would call a text-based point and click SCI-FI adventure. It’s the most logical way I can describe this game. But it doesn’t have the classic point and click elements you would expect from a game of this genre. This game is 90% text-based. The story unfolds in journals that you read. This is your point and click portion of the game. From what I recall there’s roughly over 50 journal entries and 5 hidden entries to find. But you won’t be searching very far for them. You find them depending on what sub texts you click on. The journal entries give you some background on what’s going on and the anomalies that you have encountered. They also give you minimal tension to your current situation. By day 6 your journal entries are basically showing how you are breaking down and possibly going mad in this Sci Fi world. As mentioned before you are tasked with gathering minerals to create fuel as well as materials to fix your hull. This is when you notice you have a drone on-line and now you get your first crack at exploring this alien planet.
When you start your journey of exploration in your drone, the world you are exploring is absolutely breathtaking . You will be left in awe on how visually gorgeous this world is. They way light reflects off of alien architecture, the sprawling deserts, and the deserted colonies you come across. Everything has this Prometheus type of feel to it. As mentioned before one of your objectives is to make fuel. So you need to gather Alpha , Gama, and Omega minerals to synthesize fuel. You have about 4 different areas to explore for these minerals. One key thing to remember is that once you harvest in an area you can’t just come back and farm the same palace. The minerals don’t respawn so you have one crack at getting what you need in each area. So you need to be careful on where you harvest and how you harvest. This makes you become very choosy as to what areas you want to get into first since the game does have enemies that will annoy you more than anything . Which leads me to the controls of this game.
The controls are very simple. So simple that the Dev said the hell with using a keyboard lets just throw it out of the window. You are stuck with just a mouse and the two mouse buttons. When you are in your drone searching for materials you basically use the mouse to drive it around and search for minerals. Using the left mouse button for acceleration and the right one for slowing down . You have no idea how frustrating this is when trying to harvest materials. You can’t strife, you can’t hover in the air. Hell you can’t even tilt the camera straight up vertically to take a look at the sky. As visually stunning as this game is you can’t turn the camera the way you want to take in these awe-inspiring visuals this game has. Heres the best part . When you are trying to harvest minerals you have these magnetic anomalies that mess with your camera and try to suck you into them . Yes this is your one and only enemy . Granted there are different magnetic anomalies , Green, gold, purple, black. But they all generally do the same thing. They try to suck you into them and it disables your drone. Wanna fight back ??? Good luck with that . You have no way to defend your drone. You are basically a duck in a shooting gallery trying to duck ,dodge, and zig zag away from these things. If you get sucked into one of these things you are just better off giving up. Because you are just going to sit there looking at your thrust just go up and down and you are just dragging out the inevitable . You aren’t going to get away unless there’s a ledge you can drop off from . Which leads me to my next gripe.
There is zero penalty for dropping from high mountain peaks or running into walls. I can understand that you are in another planet and gravity isn’t going to have much of a play here . But if I’m hauling ass directly into the side of this mountain there should be some type of penalty or drone damage.
You will spend most of your time scavenging for materials in this lone desolate world. Sometimes driving your drone for what seems to be endless time looking for minerals. Theres zero radar but you have this sonar beacon that beeps and beeps if you are close to a capsule or mineral for harvest. Some minerals you can harvest from a far while the other two you need to be right on top of them . Which can be a pain in the ass because you have these magnetic orbs that keep trying to suck you in . Its more of an annoyance than anything . Also you cant carry much in this drone. You only have three carry slots and once full you need to return to these almost star gate looking things to return to your capsule.
Once you have some minerals you need to synthesize them in your lab. This is your trial and error portion of the game . You will need to play with this minerals chart and plug-in how many minerals of each you want to use . Then you get a percentage of what your fuel ratio is . Once you get 100% then you have completed the task . If you mess up after a few tries guess what you need to get back in to your drone and begin the dreadful process all over again .
This game is a perfect example that beautiful graphics don’t make a good game . While the visuals are over the top stunning and breathtaking in some of the areas it’s just not enough to make this game good. While the story on your first go around does gives you the sense of tension and despair of being stranded trying to get your capsule fixed. By the second and third go around you will have lost all interest in the story . You are just going to end up clicking around just to get to the drone segments so you can harvest minerals. The drone portion of the game is very lack luster. Flying around and seeing the environment is great but the anomalies are a horrible enemy . They are more annoying than anything and the rubber band action that happens when you are trying to get away is all the action you are going to see in this game. Back and forth bouncing like you are a tether ball isn’t very fun . The devs should have implemented the key board so the drone would have more movement. There are plenty of games out there that give drones more freedom in maneuverability. Where in this game you are on the rails . Just being able to just strife around would change this game a bit, but not enough to make it better . The lack of being able to defend yourself or having a boost to get away from enemies makes the game a very annoying experience.
Overall I give this game a 5.3 out of 10
The entire game is just two objectives. Create fuel and fix your hull . That’s it. It would also have been nice to explore more than just 4 areas. The map you have seems to be massive with plenty of places to explore. But you are limited to only these 4 areas. 5 if you include the tutorial . The game is also super short. I finished the game in less than 2 hours. The replay ability in this game is gonna be low. Honestly the only replay ability you will have is just trying to beat the game and that’s if you even want too . Most people may lose interest by their second or third time around trying to harvest and play the trial and error game of synthesizing fuel . The games trailer is also quite deceiving, because towards the end of the trailer it flashes Help me, help me. You think you are trying to find someone or something in the game to save by this reveal . When honesty the help you want to find is someone to take this SCI –FI game away from you and prevent you from ever playing it again .
My name is Cujo PTFO or GTFO I’m out.
