Breed Review

Breed essentially couldn't have been released at a more inopportune time for CDV and Brat. I really feel sorry for CDV for having to ship this one in the same month UT2004, BF: Vietnam, Far Cry and Pandora Tomorrow hit retail. Seeing how this one took years and years to develop, and was delayed more than the British mission to Mars, no one at AT really had high hopes for it anymore. Still, Breed does some things right, but it mostly falls short of the expectations and the ambitious goals set for it by the developers Brat Designs. If this one had come out a couple of years ago it would've made a difference, but seeing how we've seen what the next-gen technology can bring (yes, I reviewed Far Cry), playing Breed after CryTek's uber-game really feels like going from a Corvette to the '87 Pinto.

So what is right about this game? Well, for one it manages to seamlessly blend infantry, vehicular and aerial combat (a-la Freespace and the likes) and place it all in huge outdoor levels that are littered with Breed structures and vile Breed scum.

Incidentally, the player is put in the role of a genetically modified space marine. While these space marines were goofing around in, err, space, a vicious band of aliens called Breed (no relation to the Covenant) went ahead and invaded our lovely planet. (DO NOT TOUCH OUR WOMEN!!) Naturally, the brave marines will have none of it and they return back to Earth to help the resistance movement eradicate the invading alien species. Your task in this game will be to lead a squad of marines through thick and thin as you attempt to bring down Breed structures with the strength of arms, sabotage their facilities, and so on.

The positive side to this is that these battles can get really massive, with tons of enemies on screen at once, and your teammates fighting alongside you in a frenzied firefight. The maps are fairly large and offer decent freedom of movement, which in combination with the easy to handle vehicles and destructible environments, makes for some rather fun and exciting combat moments. The characters in the game are class-based, so that means you'll be able to lead either a heavy gunner, medic, sniper, engineer or a standard soldier. The interface is easy to use and intuitive so issuing orders will be easy. The team AI can generally handle themselves in combat (they shoot at the enemy), which is not to say they can walk in a straight line or avoid falling off tall cliffs. (Expect to do a lot of babysitting.) But to get back to the positive aspects of this game; besides the massive battles, tanks and the rather large maps, what really struck me as rather cool was the flying part. Aerial combat truly feels like old-school space combat stuff. It just feels good when you're flying through the clouds and shooting down enemy fighters with guided missiles and the mini gun. And another thing that totally blew me away was the fact that you can actually start your mission off in space and then burn through the atmosphere in your spacecraft (in real time) to engage the enemy craft under the clouds. This is the first time I've seen this in a game, and I must say the way that Brat has brought it to life looks pretty damn good.

Sadly, the ambitious effort by the developers is severely damaged by a number of idiotic design solutions that tie in with the bugs, some god-awful voice acting and the dated visuals. You just need to read the chat transcript to realize all is far from well with this game. Factually, the bloopers I have mentioned in the chat really did happen during my time with Breed, so go figure. On top of that, I'd just like to add that the visuals look, well, old. Ironically, even though Breed is primarily supposed to be a FPS, the game looks MUCH better as a flight sim. Everything looks prettier when you're in the cockpit. On the ground, alien models strongly resemble the Covenant, and the space marines are kind of cartoonish looking and a bit on the ugly side. Even uglier are the weapon models, which have that cheap Sci-Fi appearance to them. But what really sealed it for me were the atrocious cries and comments that your teammates make. I can't tell you exactly how silly they sound, as it's hard to put to words how someone can scream in a silly manner. But it's silly. The music is just as bad and it makes you want to shoot your speakers, or at least fling your mouse at them. Seriously, it's completely out of sync with the on screen action, it sounds like cheap demo tracks made by a German heavy metal band, and it's just terrible. I played this game in the office and I had the speakers turned up; the rest of the editors rebelled, so I had to put headphones on.

In a nutshell, while I had some fun with the vehicles and the massive scale of some of the battles, AI bugs, stupid design decisions and awful sounds coupled with dated graphics really didn't help me to immerse myself in it at all. Unfortunately, it just seems like Brat bit off a little more than they could chew, and to top it off, they hired stoned, aging German rockers to set the mood with their killer riffs. And I do mean killer riffs. They'll be the end of you if you listen to them for longer than 2 hours. The story is woefully unoriginal, and so are most of the basic ideas that drive the gameplay. This is nothing we haven't seen already and seen it done much, much better. I can't see why on earth someone would want to play Breed in multiplayer rather than UT 2004 Onslaught. I feel sorry for Brat for having to work on this game so hard and in the end having to send off a lackluster product to CDV. Patching will surely help Breed, but I see no future for it in today's crowded market. Games like this just don't get a second chance.