The Quiet Man - Review

I recently received an email from Square Enix, it was reminding that The Quiet Man was being released soon.  I hadn't heard of it so decided to check it out.  It seemed intriguing, the idea of the protagonist being deaf and the only language he knew being conveyed with his fists.  It got released this week and I thought why not give it a go?


I like snack foods, they are not filling but they are tasty.  Naturally, when I see a snack I haven't tried before I get excited.  Snyder's Pretzel Pieces Hot Buffalo Wing Flavour is a snack I tried some time ago, they were...not very good.  I liked the idea but, it just didn't work.  Playing The Quiet Man I found myself asking was this a bad choice of snack?

Story

The story is set in the 1920's and features John Wayne...wait...no...no that's not right.  That's the movie The Quiet Man, my bad.  The game has you play a deaf man called Dane, it seems that he has a troubled past and his present is not much better.  He is on the hunt for a kidnapper who looks like a birdman, who uses a wax seal of himself that looks a cross between the logo for Sonic and Knuckles and a Plague Doctor mask. 

The story has some interesting elements but never quite meets the mark.  The issue of playing a deaf character (and me not being great at lip reading) is that you miss most of the story, some of it you can work out but a lot of it you can't.  Nearer the end of the game things get really weird to the point it felt like the writers got fired and were replaced.  Their replacements glanced over the script and decided to try something out that just didn't work.  Overall a pretty disappointing story.

Visuals

'The Quiet Man is an immersive story driven cinematic action experience that seamlessly blends high-production live action, realistic CG and pulse-pounding action gameplay that can be completed in one sitting' says Square Enix.  Well, part of the statement is true, just not the part that says it seamlessly blends high-production live action with realistic CG.  The live action part looks good but as soon as you take control of Dane it all kind of falls apart.  The parts where you take control of Dane are dull and quite jarring.  In theory, it sounds cool but in practice, the visuals just aren't there.  

Overall the visuals fail to deliver and while the live action parts look good they can't make up for the bad CG.

Music 

The game only really features ambient noise, which I suppose makes sense considering you play as a deaf man.  The sounds are created by Human Head Studios sound engineer Jun Soo Noh, I was unable to find anything about his previous work.  There is, however, one song called 'The Quiet' by singer-songwriter Imogen Heap.

Overall there is nothing of note to mention, the closing song isn't bad but feels out of place with the rest of the game.

Gameplay

The Quiet Man is a Single-Player third person experience.  I don't want to start on a negative note but considering the rest of the review, I don't think you will be that surprised.  There is very little actual gameplay and is generally broken in two to three-minute chunks of combat before returning back to more live-action. The combat itself is clunky, attacks won't always connect and enemies getting stuck in doors and walls are commonplace.  Due to the fleeting combat sequences, there is never any time to get proficient in fighting and it often feels like you are winning based on luck rather than skill.  The same enemies will appear again and again and with the exception of 'boss' fights, there is no big change up.  There was a section close to the end where you have to fight off a large number of enemies in a bar, it took me a dozen tries to beat them and by the time I did I was close to rage quitting - which is something I just don't do.

Overall some dull, broken gameplay that needs a lot more work before even being mildly entertaining.

Final Thoughts

So, after three hours how did I feel?  Bad, really bad.  The story started out okay but then lost the thread of itself, visuals...next, music wasn't there and ambient noise was exactly that, the gameplay...just no.  I am unsure as to how Square Enix approved this game but they did.  This one gets a disappointing 1 out of 5