About the game
Fracture is a third-person shooter developed by Day 1 Studios and published by LucasArts. It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2008. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves two factions, Pacific and Atlantic, fighting in a xenophobic America split by global warming. The player takes control of Jet Brody, an Atlantic sergeant ordered to capture the Pacifican commander Sheridan.
The year is 2161. Rising water levels have split the United States into the Atlantic, which is devoted to advancing technology, and the Pacific, which is devoted to enhancing the human genome. When the xenophobia peaks, war breaks out. Brody leads an attack team against the Pacific forces, starting at Alcatraz Island. His targets include the Pacifican weapon called HYDRABALLS, the giant machine Dreadnought that rises from San Francisco Bay, and finally Sheridan himself.
The game's selling point is deformable terrain. The player has futuristic guns and grenades that raise or lower the ground, which lets you build cover, reach places you normally could not, and launch enemies into the air and into ceilings. Examples are the Entrencher, the tectonic grenade and the subsonic grenade. Collecting data cells unlocks a weapons testing facility, and some puzzles need terrain deformation to solve.
The music was co-composed by Chad Seiter and Chris Tilton. The score was produced by Michael Giacchino, conducted by Allan Wilson and performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Fracture got mixed reviews on both platforms. In Japan, where Activision ported and published it on October 30, 2008, Famitsu scored it 28 out of 40. Reviewers pointed at how much it borrowed from other shooters of the time, and Game Informer ranked the hero's name first on its list of the ten worst character names. Several reviews singled out the Entrencher as the game's best idea.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 62 out of 100 (PS3). Individual reviews: IGN 5.9/10, GameSpot 6/10, Game Informer 7.5/10, GameSpy 3.5/5, GameZone 7.5/10, Giant Bomb 2/5, Famitsu 28/40, PlayStation: The Official Magazine 3/5.
Good to know
- The PS3 version has no trophies.
- Three disc IDs exist: BLUS30184 for North America, BLES00329 for Europe and BLJS10037 for Japan. All three share one patch, 01.01, at 35.8 MB.
- A playable demo was released on the PlayStation Network, with IDs NPUB90111 in North America and NPEB90091 in Europe.
- The Japanese release was ported and published by Activision, not LucasArts.
- The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra performed the score, which Michael Giacchino produced.
Made by
Producer Dan Hay, Artist Dan Hay, Designer Jeffrey Gregg, Designer Tim Ryan, Programmer Gabriel Bott, Programmer Nathan Heazlett, Composer Chad Seiter, Composer Chris Tilton, Score producer Michael Giacchino.
