Review: Fracture - not all it's cracked up to be

Mike Bantick
Monday, 20 October 2008 14:56

Opinion and Analysis

When I first previewed this title in June, one of the main concerns was the frame rate of the game.  When there are a large number of enemies, crates, bouncing bombs, gun fire, grenades and terra-forming happening at a particular time there is a lot going on.  The screen shakes, the camera gets a little confused and the frame rate drops remarkably.  (That may not be good in Multiplayer).

Finally, Briggs is given out sparingly – by higher commanders – his augmentation, enabling high jumps, extra melee strength and a handful more extra abilities to deal out against his foes.  Thanks for nothing oh great “higher commanders” where were these when Briggs first jumped into the frontline of the battle?  And it would have been nice for a little self customisation in this area, still you take what you are given.

The enemy AI is very good, with a multitude of different enemies, to deal with, all of which make good use of the ever changing landscape.  It is the first time in a long time I have actually seen AI that tryes to out-flank properly.

So the single player plays out to a satisfying conclusion, it is a reasonable length, and the setting, though it borders on ‘silly’ sometimes, in general is a well written post apocalyptic sci-fi tale,  But I was ready for some terra-forming multiplayer action – time to fire up the PlayStation Network.

What a disappointment.  It could be that the game had only been recently released, or simply a locale issue, but over the course of a few days, do you think I could get hooked up or hook up others for a bit of multiplayer Fracture fun?  No!

Even hosting a game brought no Fracture folk out of their self made burrows to face the pain.

Either they were all too bogged down in single player, or something more sinister was happening.  Chances are that by the time you read this, there will be multitudes of Fracture owners ready to dig you a grave with their Entrenchers.  And the multiplayer in the game should be fun, hopefully it be well populated and loads of games played.  It will be where the game mechanics, weapons and most fun will be had.

7 Vortex Grenades out of 10