“The Quiet Man” Review

The Quiet Man was an interesting little title that was shown at Square Enix’s E3 showcase.  I’m all about interesting.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of good things to say about the game at all. What Is It? The game…

It’s not a beat-em-up without a fight in the subway.

The Quiet Man was an interesting little title that was shown at Square Enix’s E3 showcase.  I’m all about interesting.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of good things to say about the game at all.

What Is It?

The game opens in what looks like New York, where some kid who you realize is deaf grabs a hot dog.  The hot dog guy tells him he’s in a dangerous place and he should go home soon.  This is pretty much the only spoken dialog in the game you can decipher. The kid later finds himself in an alley with a bunch of thugs and instead of walking away, the game all of a sudden gives you control, so you can kick some gangster ass.

As for why he starts messing with these guys, you kind of find out later as you progress in what’s pretty much a 90’s style beat-em-up–and it isn’t one of the good ones.  So what happened is this gang is responsible for murdering this guy’s mother, and as he grew up he apparently developed an interest in this girl who looks just like his mother, who the gang is also harassing.  Yep, this game pretty much makes no sense.

Also, the main character’s name is Dane, which I didn’t know until I read the game’s press release.

Why Should I Care?

Again, when I first got glimpse of this game at E3, I was interested.  But aside from a trailer, nothing was shown.  The fact that it released without much of the gaming world knowing was definitely a bad sign, and I played it hoping it would be a good way to pass the time and get an easy platinum trophy, but it’s neither of those things.

Sleezy neon lights represent The Quiet Man‘s tutorial. It sucks.

I likened the game to a very bad 90’s style beat-em-up.  All you have to do to progress through the game is walk up to enemies and tap on a few buttons, and while it should be as simple as it sounds, there are more advanced maneuvers you can use like parrying, dodging, counter strikes, and environmental abilities to round the moveset out.  Unfortunately, the game gives you no hints about them.  While that’s kind of an old-school tactic, the fact that the hitboxes are so off and the animations are blocky and awkward just bring down the experience.  Throw the fact that the sound effects are horrible, and you have an even messier game.

I’m assuming the sound is the way it is because the developers really wanted to give players the deaf experience, but there’s nothing remotely interesting here.  Live action cutscenes in the game where the main character isn’t even present feature conversations that are incomprehensible, and it really makes no sense.  The worst thing is the development team thought it was a good idea to do on purpose, and they patched the game so that all the conversations had proper audio so that people can play the game again to fully understand what’s going on.  Who in their right mind would play through this mess again?

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

There is absolutely nothing that’ll make me recommend The Quiet Man to anybody.  We didn’t even pay for it, and I feel like money was wasted.  If you’re coming back to see if the patch was worth it, just go on YouTube and bask in the lack of pleasure that the person who did the video went through when having to replay those lame sections.

The transitions between live action cutscenes and gameplay are pretty bad.

The game isn’t even an easy platinum trophy because one of the trophies requires you to play through the entire game without getting hit once.  It’s not absolutely impossible, but it’s stupid hard.  You’ll have more fun waiting in line at the DMV, and you’ll feel more accomplished because at least you know you’ll be done there.  The Quiet Man is simply terrible, so let’s hope that was loud and clear.