I have to say that the Gamescom gameplay footage and Sam Lake's description of how the episodes work with the game don't fill me with much if any excitement either, I don't think it's harsh to say this.
People complained about QTE being a feature of The Order 1886, but at least that keeps you interacting with the enemies in the world and is used to add gameplay to what would otherwise be a cut scene you have no control over.
IMO it would have been much better to have the choice to 1st play as Jack Joyce, then either unlock the ability to play as someone from Monarch, like Paul Serene, with some QTE sections interspersed within some cutscenes enhance those areas of the game or go from Jack's point of view to Paul's when the story demands that of the game.
The gameplay side of things seems pretty much like you throw your time powers to overpower the enemy, then fire off a standard attack like gun fire or use a melee attack, rinse and repeat.
It should be much more challenging than that, to make it feel fulfilling when you manage to get passed an enemy.
Maybe boss battles will be less like shooting fish in a barrel, but even so those don't look particularly hard given that the Monarch Henchmen have the ability to function within frozen pockets of time.
Really don't get how anyone can be impressed by Quantum Break, but I guess some people may be easily pleased and this will appeal to someone that wants a game that looks more visually impressive for an XBox One title.
I keep waiting for some XB1 exclusive to entice into wanting to get one, I'm completely open minded about the platform and have been trying to approach my expectations in the same way I did for the last generation.
I guess it helped last gen because multiplats were the domain of the 360 (except for the odd few that were made with PS3 in mind first), Halo wasn't as milked as it has been by now, same goes for Forza, Gears was fresh, Mass Effect was exclusive for a long time and it hadn't been ported to PS3 yet, Fable was still pretty good too.
This gen for me the only things that would make me want an XB1 are exclusive games, because all of my multiplats will be bought on PS4.
Quantum Break really needs to be much better than it's seeming to be at this point, considering it seems like the game has undergone a complete rebuild since the last actor playing Jack Joyce was replaced by Shawn Ashmore, I doubt what we're seeing is going to be any different when you lay your hands on the game.
MS hasn't really knocked it out of the park with XB1 from an exclusives point of view, especially with the extra long gaps in releases of those games, most titles on XB1 you can get on either the 360 or the PC.
I want Microsoft to do better than this, especially with a game that's been in development for as long as Quantum Break has, I want them to deliver on their exclusives, because they need to out of necessity this generation, but they don't seem to be doing so at this point.
