Consolation Prize

I noticed that while searching for the Mercenaries 2 demo on Xbox Live Marketplace last week that a demo for Fracture had been released. Now, I must confess that the idea of this landscape deformation game certainly had me intrigued, so it went straight to the top of the download queue… However, after playing through the tutorial and demo level I have to say that I’m not completely sold on the game just yet.

It all started off very promising with the tutorial; starting aboard an airborne assault craft flying over what looks like was once San Francisco Bay and past the Golden Gate Bridge while the commanding officer explains the fundamentals of your HUD, before finally getting dropped into the incursion point at the beginning of the training level. After my initial disappointment at realising there are design restrictions to the landscape deformation (there were bound to be!), which in reality meant I could only raise or lower the landscape by about 10 foot wherever some “dirt” was present, the tutorial actually turned out to be a pretty good introduction to the controls and the various weapon types and abilities on offer.

The main selling point of Fracture is of course going to be the novelty factor involved from being able to manipulate the landscape using the “Entrencher”; implemented via pressing either the left or right controller bumper buttons which in turn fires off a pulse that will lower or raise the landscape respectively. It’s an integral part of the level design and throughout the demo you’re invited, nay required, to use this ability in order to reach inaccessible higher platforms, jump over or tunnel under obstacles, and even to provide tactical cover. It all works reasonably well, even with the noticeable limitations.

Although some of the available weapons are common variants found in every other shooter, like the assault rifle, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle, there are some glimpses of interesting weaponry like the “Black Widow” sticky grenade launcher, and the “ST-4 Torpedo Launcher” which fires a burrowing subsurface torpedo which can be detonated at will. The grenades proved to be a quite interesting and continuing the theme of terrain deformation will also raise or lower the landscape to some degree in accompaniment to a rather impressive explosive detonation.

As mentioned previously I enjoyed the tutorial level, but things went slightly awry once into the game proper. The default aiming precision was far too sensitive for quick and effective targeting and although it can be corrected to some degree from within the game settings, I still couldn’t find a happy medium, finding it either too twitchy or too sluggish. One other thing to note is that because of the style of the game – third person action shooter – I found myself on numerous occasions wanting to take cover behind an object, back to the wall, al-la Gears of War, which unfortunately is not an option. This isn’t a direct criticism of the game per-se, but more of a lament of what is probably expected by the masses in a third person shooter nowadays.

Fracture shows some promise but it really needs to make the most of its terrain deformation aspect - it’s the linchpin to the success of the game after all – and I sincerely hope that the level design in the final release exhibits a bit more flexibility and less linearity than what has been showcased thus far. If it does, then we could have the makings of a good game on our hands here.

I liked the demo a lot. The multiplayer seems hectic from the videos I’ve seen but I plan to play though the campaign a time or two.