The essence of
Breakdown lays in its hand to hand combat. This is what effectively makes it a first person action game. Without any weapons equipped, you can wreak major havoc on humans and bio engineered mutants alike by utilizing a number of combo moves that include both kicks and punches. There aren't a whole lot of them here, but at least the small variety you get is enough to satisfy. The system falters when more than one enemy start coming at you. You can lock on to only one person at a time, but switching between them, coupled with a horrible camera system, always leaves you open to an attack from whoever you're not fighting. The quick timing needed to navigate around the battle is not facilitated at all by the system you have to work with.
Using weapons is almost as difficult. Aiming is handled the same way, meaning you can't mow down groups of people in front of you. Instead, you have to constantly switch between targets, moving relevant to whoever you are locked onto at the time. Picking up items only encumbers this procedure. Whenever you pick something up, you are forced to stare at it, even in the middle of a gunfight, unless you hit a button right away. It's the same for any other peripheral action; opening doors, climbing things, all make you unnecessarily vulnerable to attack.
Breakdown makes a good effort to bring an interesting twist to the FPS market, but instead just ends up being a bad FPS. Though the story delivery is clever, the game is hampered by a poor plot and bad controls. The game's ambition ultimately brought about its downfall.