Atomic Games has taken it upon themselves to develop and self publish a downloadable shooter named Breach for Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PC. Breach is a modern day First Person Shooter which incorporates a third person cover system. For those who remember, Atomic had a deal with Konami to produce the controversial shooter called “Six Days in Fallujah”. The game never came to fruition and Atomic developed Breach instead based on the existing engine.
The first time I played Breach was at PAX East last year and while the game showed some decent potential, it just wasn’t anywhere near a final state to be judged upon. Almost a year has passed and Breach has developed into a full shooter experience. The downloadable title comes with several game modes. Some of them, such as Team Death Match, Infiltration (Capture and Hold Objective markers) and Sole Survivor (TDM without respawns) are fairly standard to the FPS player base but Atomic has come up with a fresher take on team based FPS with a new mode.
The game type I spend much of my time playing was ‘Convoy’, where one team has to protect a convoy of 2 armored vehicles to a set destination, while the other has to stop them from getting there, naturally. Along with shooting their way past the enemy, the escorting team also has to blow up barriers using C4, which block the route of the trucks. I think that this would be the main draw to many shooter fans as it simply is nothing we are currently playing, especially in the downloadable space.
Breach has some pretty neat concepts that can keep players coming back and grind through levels, especially for 15 Dollars on the Xbox 360 and 20 on PC but it does not come without its faults. There are a couple of issues I had while playing the game. During the review period there were multiple occasions where I was dropped from a game, a host had disappeared or I simply could not connect. I will chalk this up to growing pains for a new FPS which is online-only but this could become a larger issue if the connection problems persist. The other problem I had was some serious lag causing hit detection issues, which could be rather frustrating.
I don’t want to harp on those things too much though since Breach was a lot of fun when it worked as designed. The class based character loadouts are varied enough create gameplay to be desired. Breach can be reminiscent of Bad Company 2 as there are destructible environments as well. The destruction can be used to a player’s advantage when blowing up a wall or sniper post, even though those areas are limited to fixed locations throughout the maps. In addition to the class based characters including Rifleman, Sniper, Gunner and Support as well as Recon, players can customize each class with perks. These perks can be mixed and matched with any class. While a rifleman will always carry a, well, rifle – he can be equipped with the ‘Thick Skull’ perk to limit head shot damage. At the same time, a sniper can utilize the ‘Strong Arm’ allowing for further grenade throws.
Atomic Games have done a decent job in creating a downloadable First Person Shooter that can handle itself in the face of the competition. The game has solid gameplay accompanied by unique game modes such as Convoy. This mix should be enough to keep shooter fans, who are waiting for the next big retail release, busy and entertained. The game has come a long way and if the reliability of the multiplayer experience improves it could become one of those titles that are played by the hardcore community for weeks to come.
Score: 7 / 10
Breach was developed and published by Atomic Games for the Xbox 360 and PC on January 26th. A review code of the Xbox 360 retail version was provided to us by Atomic Games for reviewing purposes.
