by Scott - May 3, 2004

In the year 2610, the Breed have invaded Earth while her forces were diverted. Now, as part of the force that returns to find Earth taken over and enslaved. It is up to you to go in and take out the Breed.

Action packed, Highly Frustrating

I was pretty excited to recieve this game to review. Unfortunately, I was let down in a big way.
Luckily Breed itself is a great action game if it's just you and your rifle. However if you got your squad-mates to watch over, it becomes more of a problem. Pathfinding is a joke, they don't return fire when attacked unless at close range, and a majority of the time they don't listen.
However, the action itself it pretty fun. There are some exciting gun fights, including vehicles. Yes, there are some vehicles like tanks, humvees, fighter jets, and even battle armor. However, they are more of a burden than helpful. You're continually under-gunned and your Breed opponents have much better weapons.
Speaking of weapons, the only weapon in Breed that feels right is the assault rifle. It hits right, has the right about of power, and can pretty much kill anything. The other weapons are either just plain ridiculous in terms of power or use. For example, a Breed assault rifle has tons of ammo, but the accuracy is laughable and the power is pitiful.
The vehicles themselves seem to suffer from being too fragile. I've watched my own tank blow up from tipping into a ditch. You are too easily damaged from enviromental objects like rocks and buildings, even by just bumping into them. Oh and by the way, your tank is a wuss, it can't seem to crush the Breed when plowing through them.

Impressive Looks

Upon arriving on land, the detail is out of this world. The water reflects the trees, rounded objects shine with the sunlight, the glare blinds your vision...it all looks great. Of course, this all comes at the price of framerate. If your rig can handle it, I suggest going the full nine yards, but even on my machine it got sluggish during the fire-fights.

Great Voices, Great Sound

I was impressed with the voice acting in this game. The quality of the voices wasn't cheesy, it sounded like a well-thought out plot. There were some laughs as they seem to like telling you your orders or they'll kick your ass alot.
The weapons sound right on, futuristic even. You can hear your footsteps against sand, metal, dirt and such. My only real problem was that sometimes sounds wouldn't play, or that when trying to exit the game, the voices would skip for almost a minute while exiting, creating an erie sound to it.

So Many Downsides

There were so many problems I had with Breed that it isn't even funny. To begin with, it was a ridiculously long load time. So grab a book and wait for nearly three minutes till you can get to the menu.
Another frowner was that if you were to die during a mission, you have two choices, you can start the entire mission over or return to the menu. Theres no option to quick load or anything else. My tip is that if you know you're going to be sent to the Great Beyond, load up your last saved spot so that you can save yourself a minute or two.
There is a multiplayer, but it is just two player. Hardly "multi" player. It gets boring quick and you'd figure with the large expansive maps and vehicles, they would allow for more players, but I guess not.
The last killer here is that the game can and will crash to desktop without warning. This can happen during the game, while in the menu, anywhere. So take Scotty's advice kids, save, and SAVE OFTEN!

Nothing Original

Honestly, other than looking great, this is just another FPS action game. Personally, I believe you would have more fun with either Halo or Far Cry.

An Aquired Taste

If you're really into this game, you'll like it enough. However, the problems I had with it was enough to make me shelve it within a few days. It does not have an impressive multi-player and the gameplay is strictly "make things difficult for you when they shouldn't".