“The subconscious is a state in which reality is only a visitor” we read on the back of the box of this strange title from Namco released on June 17, 2004 in France. “Here you are about to embark on a journey that will test your body, tear away your soul and torture your mind” we see on the cover. Yes, this funny FPS was one of the first to give so much importance to the body. And that’s what gave him a heart.
A need for exclusive Japanese video games
Brandie by Bill Gates at Toys “R” Us in New York before being entrusted to a certain Edward Glucksman, whom history will remember as the first buyer of Microsoft’s first games console, The Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 in the United States.. Upon arrival, it offers players the chance to go on an adventure with Abe in Munch’s Oddysee, race in super-powered cars in Project Gotham Racing, get slapped in Dead or Alive 3, and most importantly, shoot aliens in the incredible Halo: Combat Evolved.
Over a million consoles were shipped to stores in North America, which was a miracle considering how rushed the project was. If the launch is successful across the Atlantic, this is not really the case in the rest of the world when it arrives at the beginning of 2002. It will take a new controller model (smaller), drastic price reductions, and above all the arrival of Xbox Live for the Redmond firm to manage to gain the upper hand over Nintendo and its GameCube.
However, these efforts to impose themselves weighed down the results of the group co-founded by Bill Gates. At the beginning of 2003, the segment “home and entertainment”, which includes the Xbox, records an operating loss of 190 million dollars, compared to a loss of 97 million the previous year. The price drop of the machine is obviously pointed out. It is in this delicate financial context that Microsoft holds its E3 2003 conference. The giant knows that it still has a lot to prove and continues its seduction operation by signing exclusives with major Japanese publishers such as SEGA, Tecmo, Capcom and Namco.
At E3 2003, while the company behind Windows released new extracts from Ninja Gaiden, Dino Crisis 3, SEGA GT, and True Fantasy Live Online (an MMORPG from Level-5 which would be canceled the following year), it is Namco which creates the surprise. The creators of Tekken unveil the very first trailer for its future game planned exclusively for the American machine. Son nom ? Breakdown.
Barred at first sight
The trailer released intrigues the press attending the event. It’s hard not to see the multiple references to The Matrix with its heroes running on walls and doing pirouettes in all directions, the guns spitting bullets by the hundreds and the helicopters firing miniguns at tall buildings.. Initially announced at TGS 2002 via a few images, it is in movement that we perceive the original promise of the title: that of bringing an adventure to life in the first person, where each movement is transcribed on the screen of realistic way.
We’re not talking about a classic FPS, where you often have the impression that the camera is on wheels with a gun stuck in the bottom right, but rather a real action game in subjective view where each movement is transcribed : the hero’s hand takes the handles to open the doors, turns the pages of documents, grips the steering wheels of vehicles, searches in the pockets of dead soldiers. The body of the main protagonist is integrated into the universe and this can be seen thanks to his shadow projected in the environment or his legs visible when you lower your head. This is not something common in 2004.
Even more interesting, the title promises close-quarters first-person combat where punches and kicks are linked together like in a real fighting game, except that here everything is done in subjective view. An idea developed by the lead game designer, Ryouji Ichikari, a regular in fighting games having worked on Soul Blade, Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur. It’s so out of the ordinary that newsrooms around the world are going to classify Breakdown in a new genre: FPF, for First Person Fighter.. “Namco is trying to dust off a genre that hasn’t evolved for ages. A daring bet about to be accomplished” reads Official Xbox Magazine #21.
A one-of-a-kind experience
When it was released on June 17, 2004, Breakdown was somewhat heckled by the specialist press. Joypad greets its “unique experience” and gives it an 8/10, while Gamekult, who describes it as “nice surprise with an interesting concept”, gives it a score of 6/10 because of too basic level design and imprecise handling. It must be recognized that Namco’s production does not skimp on the movements to be made. Derrick Cole, the hero, has the ability to jump, climb, inflict uppercuts, do somersaults and even slide on the ground… without this being pleasant for the player, the fault of lack of responsiveness, a camera orientation speed is never pleasant regardless of the parameter chosen, and with a pronounced flutter when you have to grab an object. In other words, the bet of “100% subjective” taints gameplay that would have deserved better adjustments.
For our part, we gave it a score of 15/20, praising its “unique experience“betting everything on”l’immersion”. It is clear that in this respect, Breakdown is a title not to be forgotten. With a pleasant storyline to follow thanks to its multiple twists and turns and full of unconventional staging elements, the software stands out from other action games released in the early 2000s. Having collected a 71/100 on Metacritc, with scores ranging from 8/10 at EGM to 5/10 at Edge, Breakdown never had a sequel. In addition, Masafumi Shibano, the main director, will no longer work on other game projects. However, today, maybe it’s time to rehabilitate the creation of Namco so much so that his vision of the avatar body in FPS has been taken up, and, of course, improved.
See Xbox Series X on Amazon
Without going so far as to say that it was the Mirror’s Edge of the Xbox four years before DICE’s famous title, it tried new things in first-person adventure on a console where Halo reigned supreme.It’s a broken, corked, weird, psychedelic and messed up challenge to experience. But beautiful, stylish and very original, with good concepts, and above all immersive… I loved it” can be read in a recent comment posted this way. Breakdown is now playable on Xbox Series X|S thanks to the backwards compatibility program. Enough to (re)discover a truly forgotten “playhistoire”.
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