When LucasArts announced Fracture, there was one thing that caught everyone's eye: the ability to terraform. By raising or lowering the world around you, you could create earth shields, open up new paths and much more. But besides that, we didn't find out a lot about Fracture. That was, until a Fracture demo dropped onto Xbox Live Marketplace last week. The real question for me was whether Fracture had enough depth and innovation outside of terraforming to be a worthwhile game. What I found out was that Fracture has some promise, but it won't be for everyone.
Fracture centers around a story that involves global warming and the United States being torn in half by it: on one half, the Atlantic Alliance, who you play as. The other half is the Republic of Pacifica, who is the game's antagonist. Or, in short, it's the East Coast-West Coast rivalry turned up to 11. My only qualm is that, from what we've seen so far, you only get to play as one side and not both. Having both sides as story mode options would have been a great way to go about it.
The first level drops you off at Alcatraz, now in the middle of a drained and forested San Francisco Bay. The first half of the stage is a basic tutorial that teaches you about the game's basic weaponry, including the terraforming controls and basic combat with grenades, rocket launchers and the usual selection. It appears that some of the more powerful weapons do have a terraforming impact as well as cause damage, which is kind of cool. Combat does seem eerily similar to just about every other third-person shooter I've played, though. It's perhaps a bit of a downer, but perhaps something I should have expected it. Pretty much everything Halo and its kin have introduced are in this game.
Article comments
1 - Paul
Gaming companies promise too much and show off pre-rendered footage at gaming conferences. I hope Fracture will be a great game but it won't be everything it claims to be.