If there is one thing that Quantum Theory gets right, and this is digging deep, is that it makes you really appreciate Gears of War. Tecmo Koei’s cover-based shooter is a blatant copy of Epic Games’ cover-based shooter, and a very bad one at that. The developers took a look at Gears of War, decided that this is what gamers like, and proceeded to make their version, which is frustrating and boring.
Quantum Theory places you in the mushy, muddled boots of Syd, who instead of a beefy marine is a beefy block of muted black textures. Syd is out to destroy these towers that have cropped up all over an apocalyptic world. After entering the latest tower to destroy, he meets a girl whose only physics work appears to be her breasts, and the two decide they want to destroy this tower together.
Unfortunately, that’s all I got from the story. It’s an uninteresting mess that is told through dumb cinematics and terrible voice acting. Syd speaks in the same monotone throughout the game and your partner, Filena, is just as bad. Their in-game quips are utterly ridiculous, with Filena saying the same three phrases over and over again, and Syd talking like a 12-year-old kid who is playing Gears of War. "Mmm…ammo" and "Ah, there’s only one left. WEAK" are some of the highlights.
When the protagonists aren’t spewing senseless crap from their mouths, you have to deal with the loose controls and terrible shooting mechanics. None of the guns have any sort of visual or audible impact; they mostly feel like peashooters. Moving your crosshair around, which for some guns never indicates where the bullets are actually going to go, is a chore and ranges from minute movement to nigh uncontrollable. Aiming shouldn’t be this hard.
The stop-and-pop gameplay that is usually part of this genre is practically non-existent here. Most of the environments have little to no cover for you to duck behind and most of it is destructible. When there are places to take cover, you can just blow through this game without even taking cover because the enemy A.I. is non-existent. Enemies would just run up to me behind cover and stand there, asking me to shoot them, possibly so they could leave this game.
If you’re not dealing with dumb enemies and boring combat, you have to fight the imprecise platforming. Sometimes the game calls for you to jump from platform to platform, which is done by a context-based button prompt. The problem though, is if you are just a tiny bit off when you push the button, you will leap to your death. Sometimes, the game will just throw you off the target platform for being a centimeter off. It gets to the point that when you see these button presses, you’ll just hang your head in frustration.
Screenshots may communicate that this game has some semblance of a great visual style, but it really doesn’t. Graphically, it looks like a high-res original Xbox game and I honestly mean that. Syd is an aforementioned block of smeared black textures and Filena has smeared white textures that have spikes. All the enemies look exactly the same as one another, except that they are different colors or different sizes. They have no discernable features and are just as boring to shoot at as the shooting is, itself. All the environments look the same, with smeared textures and corridors that go nowhere, trying to make them look complex. This game wants you to know it’s a tunnel and you have nowhere to go but straight to the next terrible arena.
Quantum Theory is bad. It’s one of the worst games I have ever had the misfortune of playing and makes me wonder how anyone who worked on this thought it would be even remotely fun. Stay far away from this game. You’ll find nothing remotely interesting here and are better off picking up a budget copy of Gears of War.
