We guess you could call Fracture a ’ground breaking’ game.Fracture
PS3, Xbox 360
Rating: 8/10
FORGET nuclear and biological weapons – terrain deformation is the greatest tool of destruction in the future.
In Fracture, the third-person adventure game from LucasArts, you control Mason Briggs, a soldier with the Atlantic Alliance fighting in the great war of 2161.
The defining point of Fracture’s gameplay is the Entrencher tool that Briggs uses.
You can literally fire the Entrencher at any piece of dirt and raise it, or lower it to create cover, find ways beneath fences, up to platforms, or to send enemies flying from a mound of exploding earth.
Briggs has regenerative health, so at times it is necessary to create cover to take a break from intense fire.
And you’ll need the cover, because Fracture is one challenging game.
While you will progress fairly smoothly thanks to a clever checkpoint system, fighting multiple enemies can be a difficult task.
It’s in those situations that your gaming wits come into play.
Instead of running and shooting, you can lob a terrain deforming grenade at enemies to launch them with a catapult effect.
Or if there are too many enemies, throw a vortex grenade – the most powerful item in the game – to suck an entire canyon’s worth of baddies, as well as rocks, crates, vehicles and anything else in the vortex’s way – into a black hole.
You also have a plethora of guns to choose from, although some strategic planning is required as you can carry just two at a time.
We found that the story failed to move us because your squad members are dispensable and the intense action rarely relented long enough to allow us to connect with Briggs’ tale.
Fracture has a fully-fledged multi-player component which is great fun when using a terrain deforming weapon.
The games visuals are superb and at times render large objects and enemies with little impact on the frame rate.
Overall, Fracture is an experience worth having, and we did not want to put down the controller until the game was over.
