Japanese developers have been attempting to breach the Western market ever since the unexpected early triumph of the Xbox 360 over the PlayStation 3. Capcom and Nintendo have summoned Western developers to do their bidding (Dead Rising 2 and Metroid Prime, for example), while Square Enix outright bought Eidos, and all the large-breasted, Western-friendly treasure hunters that came along with it. Tecmo Koei doesn’t quite have the same deep pockets. Instead, they looked at one of the most popular games available this generation—in this case, Gears of War—and tried desperately to emulate it. Quantum Theory is the result, and I hate to report this but, yes, it’s just as bad as everyone thought it would be.
I caught a quick glimpse of Quantum Theory almost a year ago, and thought immediately to myself “Gears of War with shapeshifting landscapes… could be cool.” If Quantum Theory had managed to live up to that simple formula, it would have been a much better game. Sadly, the gameplay cannot even properly emulate the game it is directly inspired by, and the potential of the constantly shifting tower that the player is attempting to ascend is mostly squandered. I say mostly, because there are moments where Quantum Theory lets you sample what could have been.
The experience is mercifully brief (approximately five hours on normal difficulty), being more reminiscent of a quarter-hungry arcade game where waves of similar enemies fill a series of similar rooms and must be defeated before moving on to the next. Quantum Theory arbitrarily extends its third act just when you think you’re almost done. Out of nowhere, I was flashed back to what is essentially a prologue chapter. It wasn’t bad, but it also didn’t really add anything relevant to the story that hadn’t already been alluded to many times before. I can’t help but feel the Wayne’s World Effect happened here, where after completing the game the developers realized it was only 40 minutes long and decided to add more waves of enemies to every room and even more slow-motion cutscenes of people getting killed.
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