DreamBreak

As part of my Digerati splurge, I also picked up DreamBreak without knowing much about it. True Achievements recently ran a ‘12 days of Christmas’ Challenge and one of the challenges was to unlock a set amount of achievements in Action Adventure games.  Now I’ve completed it... I still have no idea what it’s about. So this will be a very short review.

As stated DreamBreak is an action adventure set in a crazy version of Russia. You start the game by walking to work from the train station and doing some work... then some weird shit happens and you end up on a quest to stop some evil corporation from doing... something. I’m not quite sure, but as I used a guide (again, I know) to sweep all the achievements in a few hours, it would be unfair of me to comment on the story in any way.

The graphics and controls however, I found very fiddly. It’s from the same guys that made Uncanny Valley so the graphics suffer from the same issues I put in that review. With the controls as well, again you can tell it’s a game that wasn’t originally designed for the console market as when you have to use a gun, it’s awkward and fiddly. However, they do give you an infinite shield so dying is fairly difficult once you know how to use it.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 11 Achievements

It takes about 1-2 hours to run through the game using a guide. Without one, I imagine it would be an indefinite amount of time to complete as working out what you need to do in some circumstances is just plain difficult.

Anyway, if you play through the game without going out of your way, you will get three achievements. There are three different achievements for different choices at the end of the game but you can use tactical saves to get these.

The other six achievements are all situational that require you to find and interact with certain items in the gaming world. There is an arcade machine you need to play and complete for two achievements. This is a simple game of shooting guys while using your shield to not get hit but it takes a strangely large amount of time to get through the game which feels a bit ridiculous.

You also have to bet on a lama race (yes, a lama race) and hope your lama wins. The race outcome is predetermined though so if you know which lama is going to win the first race before you bet, this is easy. There is another achievement for riding a hover bike which involves an interaction which some random dude at some point in the game.

The last two achievements are for getting some collectibles scattered throughout the game. They do stand out but again, knowing where they are ahead of time makes this easy. There aren’t many of them and the game world isn’t that big so it’s not too much of a pain to get them.

Downloadable Content – N/A

DreamBreak is another weird game. Even after playing it through the whole way, I’m sure I understand what the point of it was. But it is an easy completion for Gamerscore enthusiasts and it doesn’t take too long to get through.