I've made a lot of changes since the initial release of this part of the story. The bigger things: there was a lot of room to improve in the "accurate dialog and progression of events" area. I also tried to step farther away from describing the seemingly random events of the game in favor of a more formal writing format; this is just text after all and it can't quite express the intesnities that a moving picture could. And a lot of the gameplay is just mindless fist fighting. Anywho, I tried to make a more obvious change in pace for each part since this story here is broken into three main parts. Tried and true, it's just a good rule of story writing. I still can't tell you why everything is centered. I don't have the words "middle" or "center" anywhere in the html or css. Halp!

Jump to the second or third chapters with these links.

Hi, I’m Derrick Cole. I’m not much good at telling stories but I hear that the beginning is a good place to start, so here we go: the first thing I remember is a lot of small star-like orbs of light. They all came together to make one big star that give off a bright, warm light. The light took me in. It was very peaceful, like the sound of the ocean at night. Then it got comparitively dark and cold. After a while I heard voices. Opening my eyes proved difficult and moving in any way seemed to be out of the question. I could tell that I had been strapped securly into a chair in one of their lab rooms. Who are “they”? They’re the only people who could find a solution to the crisis… but that’s getting ahead of the story. We have to start at the beginning.

I could hear two voices talking nearby. They both spoke matter-of-factly. Above my head I saw a baby angel statue broken into many pieces hanging from the ceiling by many strings. Why did they ever bother putting that thing back up? These people were strange, and chief among them in this slanted sanity was a man who owned a face that seemed to have been aged beyond his already long life. As I laid strapped to that metal chair under heavy medication I could only wait and listen.

“Total memory loss?” a voice that belonged to the aged man asked.

“We haven’t been able to determine the cause,” another voice answered back. The other being dug a grave and deeper tone with each phrase, “his eyes are open, but… he’s not really conscious. Not 100%, at least.

“His brain is still asleep.”

“I see,” said the aged man calmly. He leaned right into the center of my vision and he spoke to me, “hey! Wake up! You’re our last chance.” I don’t know if it was the look in his eyes or my confused state of being but I believed him. I had faith that he thought I could right whatever wrongs existed. I've been paying for my faith ever since. It's said that if you're toiling hard in life then that is a sure sign you are working against the Devil's will. Still, if I knew then what I know now I would have spat in that old man's face and told the rest of them to go to hell. Instead of that I drifted to consciousness urgently wanting to save this man.

• • •

When I woke up things were different. A lot different. The lights were bright and clean, laying bare every corner of the gray and black metal room. I was laying unsecured on a bed in a room… that was designed suspiciously like a prison cell. Just then a woman came in by walking through a wall on my right and, after exchanging surprised glances, she grabbed me by the shoulders and spoke in a muffled voice:

“... Errick... ve to... no... Errick!”

Then she disappeared. Before I could move she came back only to disappear once more, and sooner this time, but not before knocking over a few delicate-looking devices. Sweat started to bead on my face and my heart hammered hard.

“Well, you sure didn‘t waste any time making a mess of things. That machine you knocked over is worth fifty grand, you know,” someone scolded. The sound came from a speaker box located in the room with me and above it I noticed the provider of the voice through a window high above the ground. He was a dark skinned man in a white coat and his voice carried the tone of a parent talking to their child. Since he was talking through a speaker I figured the glass must have been too thick to talk through. There was also a toilet in the room but other things like the damaged machine made it seem less like a prison cell and more like a medically equipped holding cell. I guess that's just as bad as a jail cell when you don't know where you are. With great effort I forced myself to remain calm but to make matters worse it seemed like he was taking my silence as admittance to damaging the machine. I figured he must have missed what I saw and since the true culprit was either a figment of my imagination or maybe in another dimension, so I kept silent. When I should have been listening to the him I came to the realization that not only did I not know where I was, I didn't know why I was here, or even who I was. Then I started to really panic.

To allay these feelings of insecurity I started listening to the man in the white coat. It was a good move on my part because whoever he was he wasn’t really upset about whatever I did to get in here, in fact he seemed pleased that I was simply awake. As I stood up I felt as though I had been resting there for a long time; I felt soft and unsteady. Thankfully, all of my problems were also a concern to my mysterious benefactors and he (or "they") seemed pretty interested in fixing everything for me. I was immediately ushered through a winding hallway and several rooms, all designed with the black and gray motif, where I was always the sole occupant shadowed by the man in the white coat up above. With military efficiency I was tested by a variety of physical challenges, the handling of small firearms and close quarters combat. The empty spaces that had so suddenly plagued my mind seemed to be filling in at a comfortable rate. Even though the only thing I learned from this man was my own name I still felt safe. I thought my anxieties about my current situation may have been misplaced.

As I came back to my cell there was something new that caught my eye against the all-gray environment: a red soda can and a hamburger on a tray next to a clipboard and a durable-looking black vest. After downing half the burger I turned my attention to the clipboard but the lights started to go out. It wasn’t a power failure or mechanical sabotage: my eyes were closing and I couldn’t stop them. My throat relaxed without my permission and I started to gag on a half-swallowed wad of beef and bread. I tried to throw the rest of the sandwich away, as if that would cure me, but by then I was feeling so drained that I could only manage to drop the thing.

“Don’t worry,“ the man in the white coat chimed in at this exact moment. “The food contained a sedative to help you sleep. We‘ll continue with your rehabilitation once you wake up.” Military efficiency, indeed. Anyway, sleep sounded like a good idea at the time. I slumped over onto the sleeping cot and decided to save my complaints about the room service for a later date. That's when things started to go down hill. I heard the sound of gunfire and shouting. Curiously, I slit my seditive-sensitive eyes open and stared at the source of the disturbance. The high windows were covered in fresh blood; instead of the dark skinned man in the white coat there was a commando in combat fatiges with a sub-machine gun gripped in both hands. He saw me.

A moment later a trio of similarly uniformed and armed men stepped into my cell. One of them grabbed me by the collar and I hung limply in his grip. A second soldier looked at something in his hand, a picture maybe. The last thing I heard any of them say was, “kill ‘em!”

-Act Two: Out of the Frying Pan...-

Firing gears clicked into place. Ammunition rounds slid into barrels. Aim was taken. Then a ninja-like figure broke through the bloody window and, using only an intricate combat knight, the newest assailant dispatched all three commandos in as many seconds. My savior turned towards me and paused long enough for me to recognize her: it was the person who knocked the machine ovs, my imagination had come to claim me. She walked over to the side of my cot for a closer inspection.

“Wow, you're really a mess... but at least you're alright,” said the valiant woman. There was a light in her eyes, the same light that I saw in the eyes of the aged man in my dream. Whatever she saw must have given her great hope. “Let’s get you cleaned up and then we’ll go see Glenn. Time to lose your lunch.”

She slung my arm over her shoulders and half dragged, half carried me to the toilet where she induced me to vomit my debilitating dinner. Almost instantly my vision cleared and she returned me to the cot. When I could form the words I asked her a question.

“Who are you?”

She was shocked. The light in her eyes dimmed a while and she responded absently at first but her words carried more conviction with every sentence, “you really don't know me, do you? My name is Alex and I was sent by Dr. Glenn Okagawa. He's the head researcher of Project Alpha. Our only chance for survival is to make it there. You promised you wouldn‘t let me die. Now it‘s time you made good on that promise. Let‘s move it, soldier!”

She extended her hand to me and I took it hesitantly. Did I really promise to protect this woman? I didn't know this Glenn Okagawa either, or what he researched. It was all very remarkable and I felt as though I might need a while to let this it all sink in but she was in no mood to be sit idly discussing things I probably should have already known. I took up the weapon of one of her victims (praying that it would follow me to a better end) and donned the black vest that was laid out for me. As soon as I lifted the weapon a host of memories swelled to the surface like a riverbank during a flash flood. I couldn’t tell you the make or model of that sub machine gun but I knew what pieces to push and how to hold it as if I’d made a career off doing just that. A chill went up my spine.

When we stepped out of the holding cell I was more excited than worried about the way the situation was turning out. Alarms were blaring and red lights spun new vibrance in the previously sterile complex. Marines were spreading into the hallways but they only provided a token resistance against Alex's expertise and my developing (or redeveloping) combat skill as we made our way to Examination Room Three. I had seen the only hatchway that might lead to the outside world there. As the doors slid open to Exam Room3 a squad of three men, two juniors and their captain, were in the middle of discussing infiltration methods in a code I didn’t know. Their captain, who I identified since he was the only one among them holding a small blue colored card in his hand and a radio communication headset, took high priority and I clipped three fatal shots into him and he fell motionless to the ground. The marine next to him received the same treatment.

All these things took place automatically as if I had been doing it my whole unknown life. Alex looked at me with renewed clarity in her eyes. I felt like everything was going great. That’s when the remaining marine returned fire.

Maybe these troops weren’t the cream of the crop but they were good at their job. I caught a few shots with my chest. While the vest kept his bullets from being my death sentence it was still the most unpleasant moment in my short memory. Almost as bad, Alex looked at me with disappointment as if I had simply let the bullets hit me. My kingdom crumbled and I was left only with pain and misery. I stumbled backwards and the doors' motion sensors, no longer sensing motion, ordered the doors to slide closed. The sound of ricocheting bullets blared on the other side of the solid metal barrier for a second before falling to silence.

“Derek! Let me take care of this!” cried Alex. She grabbed me by the neck of the vest and pulled me to safer ground on one side of the doors then nimbly glided to the other side of the doors at the same time the marine came through them. It took a moment but he found my new resting spot and in that same moment Alex kicked the guy in the head, knocking him out cold. Then she returned her attention to me.

“Are you ok? You don't look so good,” Alex told me. I tried to appear aloof but the look on Alex’s face told me that I wasn‘t very convincing. Struggling to my feet anyway, I stumbled into the room I almost died to capture. There was a crackling sound of talking over the radio that led me to the captain‘s com headset. Just as I slid the earpiece into place the being on the other side repeated his message.

“Charile One this is Romeo One-One-Five, are you there? Charlie One, did you take care of Cole, over... Charile Four, head for the medical wing. Something may have happened to Charile One.”

“Roger that, Romeo One-One-Five. Charile Four heading to the medical wing, over.”

With that in mind, the blue security key card the captain had been carrying and the clip from his gun in hand, Alex and I broke on through to the other side of the facility and closer to our freedom. Before we made it too far there was a rumbling that knocked down a tall pile of nearby cardboard boxes.

“They must be preparing for their attack on Nexus. We have to move; hurry!” Alex shouted at me over her shoulder as she took the lead. We briefly met with odd groups of marines and crept through a dinning hall. I found another burger there. The odds were low that it had been tampered with, and being that I was very hungry I ate it despite the coprses of exectued facility staff sprawled on the floor. With new vigor I pushed on, Alex still taking point.

The appearance of an attack chopper drove us deeper into the building. We continued probing around for signs that would help take us to our desired destination. In the mean time the commandos were not idle. They were rapidly taking ground despite severe earthquake and explosive-caused structural damage of floors and stairwells. Things stayed fairly even for a while until I heard this frantic broadcast.

“Romeo One-One-Five, this is Charile Three: we need reinforcements, on the double! What the hell? My gun...” the man's cries were suddenly quieted. There was the sound of gunfire. Then static.

“Charile Three, what's your status? Report! Shit, don't let those freaks out of the Annex!" demanded Romeo One-One-Five. Nobody responded.

Alex and I came to a bridge that lead to another building. While walking through it my eyes started playing tricks on me. A white and black cat materialized in front of me. It meowed and then vanished in a puff of smoke. I saw other strange things but when I noticed Alex eyeing my queerly I tried to pretend everything was fine. I don't think it worked this time either. The issue of my metal stability was forgotten as we neared the end of the bridge and saw dead marines lying all about in a waiting room. Marines neither of us had killed. Whatever accomplished this spectacle was not found among the dead.

The questions and suspicions were piling up faster than I could justly ignore them. What had done this? Why were we here? Why was everyone trying to kill me? What were the things I had forgotten? After all the drugging, exertion, killing, being shot, and hallucinating I felt like it was time for a little rest but that was not to be.

“Uh, oh,” hissed Alex as we walked through the waiting room.

“Seems like we’re not the only ones fighting the soldiers. I don’t like the looks of this.”

-Act Three: First Contact-

As Alex and I continued our bizarre quest we found that the line of dead marines went from the waiting room, around a corner, and half way down a long hall. It didn’t look like any of them had been killed with conventional firearms. Then there were sounds of shouting and gunfire and the light of muzzle flashes from around the next corner. Alex ran in front of me but before she reached the hallway corner another marine flew into view and bounced off a wall. Alex peeked her head around the corner without regarding the recently grounded deceased.

“What the...? T'lan warriors! How can this be?” she exclaimed. A T’lan warrior? Oh no!… wait, what’s a T’lan? I made it to her side just in time to see the last marine die from a single punch from the new terror. It appeared to be human in origin but its body was largely mechanical and the upper torso, arms, and head were all covered in a deathly pale skin. The most captivating feature were its dully glowing and unblinking eyes. Without thinking I used the last of my firepower to spray the demon. Most horrifyingly, a golden halo of honeycombed hexagons formed a shield where my bullets were supposed to land, saving the creature from receiving any visible damage. In fact, I didn’t even slow it down. All I accomplished was giving away our position by running out of ammunition.

“Run!!” commanded Alex. I didn't obey. How could we win if we didn't destroy the enemy? The next thing Alex said deflated my swollen ego with a bit of reality, "there's no chance with the shape you're in!" Then she took off running. Moving as fast as I could we both made our way into an ordinary-looking office space where the only things that seemed to be out of place were Alex, myself, and another T’lan warrior. “Don’t give up,” she encouraged me, “there has to be a way out!”

As nice as those sentiments were this was the real world we were dealing with. There’s only so many narrow escapes any single person can make before they run out of places to escape to. It's a proven fact that everybody dies sometime. Seeing how the only unlocked door was blocked by several very heavy looking bookshelves I figured this was our time to lose. I sank to the ground in defeat and from my lowered vantage point I could see an unobstructed path under the bookshelves that was just big enough to crawl through. So I crawled.

As I groped the floor on the other side of the door I felt jagged daggers of pain gush from my leg. I looked back to see that one of the T’lan menaces was half underneath the bookshelves with me and had a death-grip on my ankle. Alex came to my rescue once again by kicking the prone monster square in its backside. The resulting yelp from the T’lan was momentarily hilarious but then we were both confronted with the matter of the bookshelves collapsing on top of us as a result of the T’lan’s ungraceful spasm. I made it to the safety of the other side while the T’lan, now caught beneath a ton of debris, plugged what was left of the passage and made it unusable, effectively separating me from what seemed to be the only being alive who didn‘t want to see me dead.

“I can’t get through! Keep moving, get to the labs,” Alex ordered me. “I’ll meet up with you later.” Then the door closed and I felt as if some greater power demanded we part swiftly. I steeled my jaw and limped off in the only direction available.

The place I came to was a large three-compartment lab. I entered into the office area first where a long table was littered with computer monitors and more clipboards with information relating to my situation. Apparently, these "T'lan" creatures were not aliens but neither were they constructed by humans. They possessed a little-known substance called T'langen which is a form of energy the T'lan use as a power source for their supernatrual abilities, and the only way to defeat them was to overwhelm their T'langen with more of the same. This was all very interesting, but none of it solved the problem that I didn't have any T'langen and I didn't know where to find any. After moving past the documents and surveying the lay of the rooms I noticed the other two compartment spaces possessed one T’lan each (though only one of those rooms had a door which appeared to be sealed) and all three spaces were separated by neigh-unbreakable but simply locked doors. With a bit of cunning I was able to trap both T’lan in one space, unseal the door, and continue on my way only slightly the worse for wear.

Then I ran into another T’lan, but this time there was nothing so nice as a door to keep him from putting the finishing touches on my premature demise. I unlocked my last reserves of energy and took off sprinting past him and down the hallway. There I discovered another T’lan was lying in wait for me. I ducked into an elevator only because it was already open and busied myself with using precious seconds to push some buttons before I figured out the elevator didn’t work. Tears stung my eyes. A massive shockwave rocked the building, toppling the two pursuing T'lan on their faces just outside the elevator, and a panel of the elevator’s ceiling came free. Without even whispering a thank you to the Powers That Be I climbed to the top of the elevator and to a less immediate danger.

While traversing the elevator shaft and ventilation ducts I felt more afraid than ever. The marines were still searching for me and my fears only waxed in one anothers' presence. Fear of being left behind enemy lines; fear of running out of stamina at the wrong time; fear that the next thing I run into would make me lose all control of my bodily functions. (believe you me, I couldn’t take too much more of this!) That’s why when I was trying to find a way out of the air ducts I gained great relief from hearing human voices. They didn’t’ sound like marines so I grew even more hopeful.

“On the roof of the main research center? How many does it hold?... fourteen?! Better not tell everyone or else WE might not be able to get out of here... I said don't tell anyone! HEY!”

Ok, so he wasn't a saint but he wasn't shooting at me and he wasn't a mosnter either. He seemed to be having an argument with someone on a phone because I only caught one side of the conversation. More non-military, non-monster people were alive, maybe a lot more. I kicked up my pace. By the time I was able to get into the room where I had heard the voice the owner of it had already slammed the phone down, grunted "stupid asshole", and left. I gave chase: if I could catch him in time there was a fair chance I could get out of this nuthouse and leave it all behind me. I started to say a string of my own curses. Tired, frustrated, and so very alone I let my blood boil. I know getting angry in a life-or-death situation isn’t really that bright an idea but I couldn’t help it. I happened to have a lot on my plate to be angry about at the moment. That’s when I noticed white lightning dancing across my forearms. Actually, most all of my bare skin had become electrified.

“Holy shit!” I said to no one in particular.

To my continuing surprise energy then leapt from my fingertips to a light fixture and broke it. An idea hit me: my desperation was the source of this phenomenon! Shouting another obscenity I struck a solid wall with my fist and left behind a web of deep cracks. Wow. Well, there wasn’t much time to marvel at my newfound angry superpowers because just then at the other end of yet another hall I could hear people screaming. Dying, even. As I resumed the chase I saw people in white coats that were lying in pools of their own blood like the dead marines Alex and I didn‘t kill. Someone was still alive, though. He made it through a door and locked it just as I turned the handle to open it. I thought that was pretty rude. He must have heard my thoughts.

“I’m not opening the door with that thing around,” he whimpered. That could really only mean one "thing." I turned around and found a T’lan warrior an arm’s length away from me. At this point there was only one course of action, and I had no reason to play coy.

“DIE!” I bellowed and flung a clenched fist up towards its face. My knuckles landed square on the thing’s chin while white and gold energy exploded around our pressed flesh. The impact resulted in a sound like none I had heard before. The T’lan went reeling backwards before falling flat on its back. Bolstered by my own bravado I bounded on top of it and let loose with a string of foul words and brutal attacks that would have made a sailor blush from internal hemorrhaging. After the T’lan had stopped fighting back I kept swinging. The thing no longer cried out against my beatings but I didn‘t stop. When it didn’t flinch under my attacks I sped up the assault. That’s when something really strange happened: the monster’s broken body transformed into a soft ruby light and was absorbed by the power of my right hand. The light rejuvenated me. A calm came over my mind, the exhaustion lifted somewhat, even my gunshot wounds seemed to fade away. The lightening died.

“How did you do that? You killed that T'lan warrior," came the voice from behind the locked door.

The report ends here, but not the game! I only covered the opening act and it gets more insane from here on. If you liked what you saw then you would do well to go out and get the game. Breakdown sells at retail stores for $20, but if you can’t find it at retail I know it’s a common title at every game store I've been to and sells for $10-15 if pre-owned.

Go buy this game!

Related Links: Official Project: BreakDown hompage Find vid clips and more info at GameSpot.com Comment Section