Personally, I feel Jarret introduced the game quite well to be honest. Break Limit is very old fashioned but remixed things up. A mish-mash of old and new that ends up just right. Zombie Monkey Games has the following as the plot of our tale in Break Limit.
You are cast in the role of a ship pilot in a scenario that would equate to a futuristic roman chariot race. You are at the helm of the prototype ship that ultimately brought the Pylesian Galactic Coalition to power. Known as a Break ship, it carrier a payload of weaponry that never runs out of ammunition. On top of this however, is its defining trait – the ship becomes invincible while accelerating. In the 3rd Galactic war, Break ships were a kin to kamikazi crafts, except that they would punch right through anything, and not blow up.
In an effort to keep a reign on their mighty empire the Pylesians came up with a sort of high speed obstacle course to keep the citizens content with their new overlords. You play the role of a Breaker, working to make your way entertaining the empire and becoming a master of everything the Break ship can do.
To impress the Pylesian’s you’re gonna have to flaunt your skills with being able to shoot, score, and race your way to the finish line! The challenge lies in how you merge the trinity of things together for the highest score.
The game is, thankfully, pretty simple. On starting up Break Limit, it has you configuring display options to help make sure you’re making the most out of your visibility. After that, you’re dropped into the main menu with options to play, check out leaderboards, check up on options, and quit the game. When you play your first round, the game gives you a goofy tutorial that also includes letting you know the Start button is valuable if you need to “Pet your dog!” or “Eat Pizza! Nom!” as well as provide you with reminders about the game’s controls and icon meanings. I thought the snarky humor was quite funny while teaching you to play the game mechanics of Break Limit. The left analog stick or d-pad is used to control your Breaker ship. The A and right trigger buttons allowing you to shoot straight ahead and the right analog stick allowing you to shoot at a specific direction in front of you. The last and most important function is the Break Limit being operated by the left trigger. Should you ever need to do a “soft reset”, the game instructs you to hold the left and right bumpers with the start and back buttons to do a soft reset to the title screen.
The game provides you with a basic score counter (Break Limit meter) and a score multiplier on the screen. The rest of the real estate is the gaming field. Break Limit gives you star systems to venture to; arranged from easiest to hardest: Alpha Centauri, Delta Orionis, Triton Omega. The catch is at the moment, Triton Omega won’t be available until the game is updated between December 17 – January 17 in the free update that will deploy then. After choosing a star system, you are given the choice of novice, adept, expert, master (which is locked until you complete a round in expert). The star systems and difficulties have funny remarks much like games such as Doom or Wolfenstein; I think it’s a wonderful tribute. After that, it’s launch time.
The mechanics of the game are pretty simple. Collect the blue power orbs to power up your Break Limit meter and use the left trigger to activate the Break Limit shields and watch your ship fly faster. Keep collecting power orbs to keep the Break Limit meter topped off and increase your speed. The higher your speed, the greater your multiplier will be. On the way, you will want to collect tokens which will bump your score higher; if you have a multiplier this will help out your scores. There are different cannons to use on your ship that are changed by weapon pick-ups.
The rules seem simple enough, but what you end up finding out is that the combination of everything makes Break Limit easy to play but hard to master. When you end up going “I think I can race to the finish and pick up score items” but end up finding out your greed has left your Break Limit meter dry, you will understand what I mean. To keep you playing your profile levels up and when it does, you get perks that end up helping you out. Perks will range from how strong your guns are to how fast your Breaker ship will regenerate shields. If you have a competitive spirit, Break Limit has a local leaderboard if you have a Xbox Live Silver account and online leaderboards if you do have a Gold account.
The guys at Zombie Monkey Games have made a fine game that embodies the essence of old shooters with some fresh new mechanics. They also emphasize on how much they value the players by having a message on the loading screen thanking you for the purchase and sharing to your friends your discovery of Break Limit. On top of that… In the Special Thanks portion of the Credits, they give out the following shout-outs.
-Special Thanks-
Pizza – For being delicious.
<insert your Xbox Live Gamer Tag> – For buying the game!
My Dog – For moral support.
Space Wasps – For dying in vain.
My Day Job – For paying the bills
SpynDoctor – The Highscore Code!
It’s rare nowadays to see developers being thankful for gamers and I do think it’s a touching note for Zombie Monkey Games to make the shout out to the buyers for supporting them. I am pleased to see this game as an entry in the Indie Games Uprising and I can say I am definitely excited to see how the final map will turn out. At the price of 80 Microsoft Points ($1) it’s quite a bargain. If you like the challenge of racing to the finish as well as trying to break some of the high scores on the leaderboards, Break Limit is a definite great purchase!
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