Spontaneous Sunday: Breach & Clear

Spontaneous Sunday has arrived once more, this week I've played Breach & Clear (Developer: Mighty Rabbit Studies, Gun. Publisher: Gambitious, Devolver. PC, 2014).

This is the first PC title that I've played for Spontaneous Sunday. I don't often play PC games, though I do have a Steam account with a fair few games, so I thought I'd mix things up a bit this week and play a PC title. I played it on my 2012 Macbook Pro. I picked the game up for a few quid during the Steam sale this Summer.

"Breach & Clear is a 2013 turn-based strategy action role-playing video game developed by Mighty Rabbit Studios and published by Gun Media. The player is in control of four special forces units who must enter an area and kill all enemies in it."

- Wikipedia on Breach & Clear

"Breach & Clear brings deep tactical strategy simulation to PC, Mac and Linux! Build your Special Operations team, plan and execute advanced missions, and own every angle. Choose your real-world squad and take on a variety of foes with different skill-sets and abilities. Learn to approach, engage, and dominate your opponents through superior tactics and training."

- Steam "about" page

What do I expect from the game?

I read all about the game before buying it a few months ago during the Steam sale, so I know a lot about it and knew what to expect before playing. It's a turn-based strategy game in which you command a special forces squad and clear areas of enemies. The special-forces theme seemed cool and I think this theme usually makes for a good game (see Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Counterstrike, Rainbow Six etc.)

The game has very positive Steam reviews so I expect it to be well-made and enjoyable. I think the level designs will be interesting because of the nature of the gameplay - the levels will have to be designed in a way that makes this gameplay possible and it will be interesting to see how the designers pull this off. I've never played a game quite like it in terms of gameplay so I thought I'd just jump right in and see how it all works.

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The intro movie talked a big game and was quite serious, with a stern female voiceover describing the game and calling it the "most advanced training tool for Spec Ops" - this seemed like a big claim and I thought the game would have to really deliver to live up to the hype of its own intro! But it did get me pumped to get into the game.

Screenshot from the opening movie.

After the intro movie, I chose my squad and went with the S.A.S of course! I then created each of my 4 squad members which included their face, class and name. I always spend far too much time naming my game characters I just went with the auto-generated ones.

There's different organisations from a variety of countries to play as.

Picking each squad members class - each class has different attributes.

My finished S.A.S squad.

After creating my squad I reached the main menu and decided that it would make sense to play the tutorial. The tutorial took probably less than 5 minutes to complete and covered the basics of camera control and how to control and move the squad members. My immediate thought was that the camera movement system seemed clunky, and it did take me a while to get the hang of it as the game went on.

I thought, at the time, that the tutorial didn't feel like it went far enough with its explanation and I felt slightly unequipped for jumping into the game - but I soon realised that the core gameplay really is simple enough to pick up from a 5 minutes tutorial. The game is very easy to pick up and start enjoying and the brevity of the tutorial is a testament to this.

Now it was time to get into the game properly and take my squad on their first mission...

The first mission in the game.

The first mission was reasonably simple and easy. Each round starts with the player looking around the level, assessing routes and figuring out a plan of action. You then choose which door(s) to breach through and you can also split the squad up and approach from different angles. I split my squad up, sending 3 of them through one door as the main assault and another on his own into what I thought was the back door but turned out to be the most enemy-filled room and he ended up getting killed - which I didn't foresee because you can't see enemy positions until you've already breached. This isn't a negative about the game though, it just meant that I'd have to be less gung-ho about my approach in future missions.

Pre-round setup.

After the level, I got a rating (3 out of 4 stars) and looked at my stats and each squad member earned some XP and skill points that I was able to put into different skills to improve the squad. The whole round took just a few minutes.

Post-match statistics.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

After the first mission I played for about 2 hours, completing the Afghanistan missions and the Turkey missions, improving my squads skills as I went along. Then I explored the squad customisation options and spent some of my hard-earned in-game currency on a bunch of weapons and gear.

I have a lot of positive stuff to say about Breach & Clear. The core gameplay is solid and it means it is just a very fun game in general. I am more used to playing real-time strategies so playing a turn-based was a bit of a new experience for me but I got right into and got the hang of it quickly and was playing mission after mission and getting decent scores (mostly!). It's fun, fast and it feels rewarding. The missions are only short - I don't think any of them lasted more than 10 minutes - so the game plays out quickly and progressively and the rewards come in thick and fast, this keeps things entertaining and made we want to keep playing.

So what else did I like about the game other than "it's fun"? The whole aesthetic and theme is attractive, interesting and consistent, and its probably the best possible theme through which to deliver the strong core gameplay. The game has a very cool vibe. It also looks really nice. The graphics are pretty decent, especially considering its a PC port of a game that was originally on Mobile. The action is usually viewed from an isometric view but the camera will also get to ground-level for a more involved view.

The level/environment design is another strong positive point. All the levels are intuitively laid-out to effectively play host to the game's core mechanics. The game is all about tactical movement and taking cover and the levels are perfectly designed to enable this. The Afghanistan missions took place mostly in office buildings while the Turkey levels took place in marketplaces, and the inherent real-world differences between these settings affected the design and how I had to approach each level. The levels also looked pretty nice. It has low poly models and low-res textures but this doesn't detract from the experience - the game is too exciting for the player to notice it.

The customisation system is a great feature. It offers a bunch of options including weapons, gear and clothing. This, coupled with the squad member stat system, makes it really feel like you're in charge. After just 2 hours gameplay I was able to kit my squad out with different weapons, headwear, gear and clothing and had tactically upgraded their stats to give them specific strengths. They really felt like  my  squad.

Finally, theres the audio. The music was punchy and dramatic and suited the game well. The SFX was decent. They sounded a bit low-budget, for lack of a better term, but this suited the low-poly, "former mobile game" feel.

What don't I like about the game?

There's not much in the way of negatives bar a few minor niggles. The squad control system wasn't as fluid as it perhaps could have been. I sometimes found myself not really knowing who I was controlling and sending men the wrong way. Another minor issue is that you aren't able to alter the pitch of the camera, only the rotation, position and zoom level, meaning it was tricky to get the perfect camera angle. There was also no option to have the camera automatically follow the action - all camera control was manual. Other than that, I failed to find anything bad about the game.

Final Thoughts

Breach & Clear is a game with solid core gameplay that is well-complemented by the narrative context. It's fun, well-paced and rewarding and offers huge tactical choice and customisation. I feel like it has been a valuable Spontaneous Sunday game because its a genre and platform that I haven't really experienced yet. I already want to get back to it and continue to hone tactics and my squad. I will definitely be playing it again soon!