Breakdown’s story involves Derrick Cole. Cole awakes in a laboratory with faint hallucinatory visions. He’s instructed over an intercom to perform a series of physical tests (insert tutorial). After Cole returns to his room, the lab is attacked by a military faction. Just as soldiers are about to finish off Cole, female companion Alex pops in and whoops all the soldiers to death. Alex has a past with Cole that he doesn’t remember and she tells him they have to escape the area immediately.

Breakdown is a first-person action title where everything is performed from one view. Punching, shooting, reading, even drinking a soda will be viewed from Cole’s perspective. The left analog controls Cole’s movement and the right analog is used for turning. The left and right triggers act as Cole’s left and right punch respectively. The X button is used to access all items, from reading notepads, swiping key cards, or snatching a burger. Jumping is placed inconveniently on the black button, which makes it a bit unintuitive to use in areas that require a series of evading jumps. Movement in conjunction with the jump button will let Cole hang, roll, or somersault.

The action starts off easy as Cole grabs a handgun and fires away at soldiers. The A button will auto-lock on enemies. The only problem is that once Cole fires a few shots he’s back to using his fists against soldiers with machine guns. Each soldier carries a clip of ammo on them that Cole has to grab, look at, store, and then reload. The process is horribly unorthodox when players are scrambling for more ammo to finish off a soldier.

The stark nature to have everything in first-person hinders simple tasks. Everything must be accessed by Cole’s hand first. The hand will hover over the area and the X button needs to be pushed again before grabbing it. A simple one-button push would suffice. Cole even needs to flip pages of a clipboard to read what makes up of 3 or 4 sentences of text.

The need for ammo won’t be necessary when dealing with genetically altered T'lan soldiers. The soldiers are military experiments that can’t be harmed with bullets. Cole has to run away at first, but when he discovers a burn streak in his fists he can harm them with a nice sock to the face. Fist fights are fun in Breakdown and combos can be accomplished via several trigger presses. Different moves can be done depending on what direction the left analog is held, from an uppercut to a high kick. Cole can block with the down press of the L analog and eventually use the block to shield him from enemy fire.

The AI is pretty keen on killing you. Though at times soldiers will react slow, shots usually register. The T'lan soldiers are very quick and need to be dealt with immediately with flying fists. There are times when the AI just stands and fires while Cole stops to drink at a soda machine. As an AI partner, Alex stinks. While she kicks ass when she's introduced, she's delegated to taking open shots from the AI, getting punched by T'lan soldiers and possible firing a shot every 5-10 seconds.

The visuals are standard but should be better for a first-person title. Objects are rendered well in several areas but seem too sparse in others. The action moves at a constant 30 frames per second, the textures paint a believable sci-fi world, and the character models are well rendered. There are portions of the game that are too dark and tough to make out in first-person. The production values are high and a great effort was made to retain a cinematic quality. Voice acting is top notch and spontaneous aspects like scientists thrown against a wall and soldiers shouting out profanities are a nice touch.

Breakdown is a nice concept turned average game. The fist fights are fun but sporadic through the game. Most of the time will be spent picking up each item one a time, reading each document page by page, and running through endless corridors. Keep you sanity and you'll have a decent time.