It's unlikely that you've ever heard of a little-known Xbox exclusive called Breakdown. It was extremely overlooked and underrated. The sad part is, many attribute the curret advances in first-person gaming to games like Condemned 2 and Half-Life 2. Unh-unh. Breakdown did it first.

So what is Breakdown about? Well, it was kind of confusing, but what I do know is that you play as Derrick Cole, a man who just reawakened from a coma. You are trapped in a research laboratory until the military decides to kill everyone within. Including you. That almost happens until Alex Hendrickson, a beautiful femme fatale, slaughters them. The two of you escape from lab, part of the Carter Science Center, until you discover what was also being researched at the CSC. The T'lan. T'lan are, from what I can tell, some bastardization between human and something else. Their skins are covered in some kind of crystal or metal, and they have innate shields which deflect bullets and fists directed at them. For a while, you have no method of fighting them, until you discover your own innate abilities: lightning crackles down you forearm, you can suddenly harm the T'lan, as well as deflect bullets directed at you. Derrick and Alex rendezvous with Glen Ogawa, a scientist who works at the CSC. The T'lan are controlled by a supercomputer (for lack of a better word) called Nexus. It's up to you to find it and destroy it. Only thing is, both the T'lan and the military want to destroy you first. Along the way you are pursued by a T'lan entity known as Solus, who bears a striking resemblance to Sephiroth.

You also meet up with a military commander by the name of Gianni De Luca, who disobeys his orders and helps you instead of pursuing you, and Stephania Wojinski, a researcher at Terminus 4, the place where the T'lan, and T'langen, the substance which gives both you and the T'lan the powers you have, were researched. Your objective: travel to Site Zero, where Nexus is located. Site Zero is apparently where the T'lan came from. Making your way there, you battle both the T'lan and the military (who's it is, I don't know). As you make your way through Site Zero, you watch everyone who helped you die. First, you watch Stephania thrown to her death, then Gianni, who is overwhelmed when you are not able to reach him in time. Then you witness the T'lan invade Earth. Then, Alex, who was kidnapped by Solus. When you find her, you get into this pretty awesome duel with Solus. Suffice to say, you lose. Alex tries to defend you, and is killed in doing so. Just then, the military decides to pull their final trump card on the T'lan: nuke Site Zero. Before Solus can finish you off though, a nuke lands right in the same room with you...and goes off right in your face.

You think, that can't really be the end, can it? Well, no, the game's far from over. Apparently, thanks to the nuke, you 'time-slipped' and was sent to the future. You wake up inside a machine called the Memscan, which was sorting all your memories into chronological order after suffering from amnesia. Turns out all 7 hours you just played was nothing but stuff the happened 15 years prior to current events. Since you failed to defeat Solus, the world was overran by T'lan and humanity was enslaved. Right after you wake up, T'lan invade Terminus 4, which was thought to be a safehouse. Most people are killed while you try to escape. You meet up again with Alex...only she doesn't know you. You meet up with Glen again, now much older, who gives you the Ultra Accelerator, which really turns you into a badass. After protecting Glen and Alex, you are affected by the Pendulum Effect, which is the result of being time-slipped too long. To be short, you're returning to your own time.

Before you can protest, Alex joins you in the Pendulum Effect. She gets sent to the time when you first met her, you get sent to right after Solus kidnaps Alex. Yeah, you get to replay the last two hours. Only now, with your new powers, you can save everyone who died. First Stephania, then Gianni, and finally, Alex. The duel with Solus drags on too long for my liking, but what can you do. When he finally dies, you continue on to destroy Nexus. With some annoying design choices, you finally do. In the end, the four of you escape from Site Zero as it is collapsing. This time, Derrick saved the world. T'lan were eliminated and everyone makes it out. Before you can celebrate though, Alex is affected by the Pendulum Effect. Here's where you choose which ending you get. Either walk to her and join her in the Pendulum Effect for the good ending, or stay in the helicoptor for the not-so-good ending. Since I prefer good endings, I went with her. Well, sure that timeline is saved, but the other one where the T'lan rule over earth, is not. So naturally, it's a cliffhanger of sorts. All I can say is...GET ME A SEQUEL! NAO!

The story may be excellent, but the a lot of the design choices...not so much. Yes, the melee system was way ahead of its time (I was still finding new moves near the end of the game), but the execution is not quite there. Gunfights are pretty much just tacked in there, as there are only 5 weapons, including grenades. Sometimes, there are just too large gaps between checkpoints, making even easy, well, not so easy. The developers just made some stupid decisions from a design standpoint. But through it all, for me, at least, the story keeps you going. To be short, the game's innovation was way ahead of its time, and is not given credit for what it did before others. It's just that the execution is not quite there.

Final Rating: 8.3/10 for a great concept and story, but flawed gameplay and level design.

Now, for Heavy Rain.

Here's a close-up: http://www.ripten.com/wp-content/gallery/heavy-rain-image-gallery/heavyrain-three.jpg

Here's a close-up: http://www.ripten.com/wp-content/gallery/heavy-rain-image-gallery/heavyrain-four.jpg

In case you want to see more, here's the base article: http://www.ripten.com/2008/08/06/new-heavy-rain-images-pour-in/

Just beautiful, Heavy Rain is unarguably the best looking game of this generation.