Oldies but Goodies - Breakdown (Xbox)

If you consider yourself a fan of, or even an expert in the FPS genre, then you've probably played Breakdown. If not, allow me to take you back a few years into the last generation of consoles, when Namco released this little gem on the original Xbox. The thing that makes Breakdown worth looking back on is the pioneering combat it featured -- namely, the hand-to-hand fighting. I may be wrong, but I can't think of anything that had it before this game, and while it probably shows its age in some areas, it should still be praised for trying something new with the genre and leading the way for future games to use and improve on the formula.

I don't remember what the fuck is going on here. Some shit blew up or something.

I haven't played it since it came out around 2003, so I don't really remember the story very well. You play as a guy with latent super powers who wakes up to a sort of jail break, and throughout the game your powers come to you one by one. I know, it doesn't sound very original, but it was so well done that you don't really give a shit. There were guns, of course, but what you really wanted to do was uppercut people in their faces, and the game allowed for plenty of that. Your foes were some kind of super mutant creatures with some of the same abilities you possessed. Again, I forget exactly who or what they were, but they were big bald dudes that kind of resemble Dr. Manhattan, except they were gray instead of blue. Imagine a room full of Dr. Manhattans running towards to trying to stomp your face in, and you have an idea of what it's like to play Breakdown.

Jon loved Laurie and cloning himself. He also dabbled in raping faces.

The first person fighting was suprisingly well done -- you could block attacks with your forearms, and there were a handful of combos to pull off with the right combination of moves. The triggers were your left and right punches, and using them in tandem executed the combos. And when you started getting your super powers, you could do crazy shit like send the evil Manhattanites flying through the air to their doom. There were other powers, but the theme here tonight seems to be my fleeting memory, and as such, I can't remember what they were. The thing I remember most was the feeling of utter baddassery as I beat my way through increasingly tougher and tougher enemies, who were all well-versed in the art of fisticuffs. The final boss was an epic duel of my two leading men, Jack Johnson and Tom O'Leary, versus whatever he called his totally inferior, weak-sauce ham hocs.

You get to give him the business, but not here. The bastard has it coming, though.

If you're ever at your local game shop, check around in the bargain bins, because I can't imagine this game going for anything over 10 bucks at this point. The fighting alone is totally worth the price, and on top of that you get a pretty cool (I think) sci-fi story. Also, you then have the privilege of saying you've played a game that paved the way for things like Riddick and Mirror's Edge. Not bad, sir. Not bad at all.