Breed is squad-based vehicular combat/first person shooter hybrid set in the year 2610, when you find yourself commanding the last remaining United Space Corps cruiser, Darwin. The Earth's Colonies have been attacked by a mysterious alien race - "The Breed" and now you are here to wipe the aliens from Earth again. The storyline of the game is quite simple and understandable for everyone. However, we have seen the plot several times before and in much better ways.

Squad-based gameplay is at the core of Breed. You control a squad of Grunts (Genetically Revived Universal Tactical Sentinels) holding the line and fighting back against swarms of invading aliens. Your squad mates are class based, so they will have different sets of weapons for specific uses. For example, Grunts have the assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. Your squad may include a heavy gunner, medic, sniper, engineer or your regular soldier. Snipers are your best bet for picking off small groups, medics hand out med packs to the injured grunts and engineers can fix damaged vehicles. The weapons in Breed are all standard shooter fare - slightly futuristic assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and the like. A key gameplay mechanic is the need to swap between squad members to gain access to certain weapons (all squad members can only carry a maximum of two weapon). Breed also incorporates a lot of vehicle-based action. Among the heavily armed vehicles are fighter jets, landing craft, tanks, buggies, jeeps, and APCs, so you can battle differently by land and by air. The vehicles are easy to control and the vehicular combat is pretty cool, especially in the tanks where one can drive and fire while the other mans a turret and also fires - you can choose from a minigun, guided missiles, a devastating plasma cannon, and rockets.

The action takes place both on Earth and in outer space. The physical environments are huge, whether they involve indoor or outdoor locales. The environments you are fighting in are very detailed and everything looks good. Breed contains 18 missions, which include destroying breed facilities and structures and of course to kill any alien you many encounter. Although many are just demolition assignments, some do involve alternative objectives such as securing structures, protecting resistance movements or sabotaging enemy radar and tracking stations. Sadly, some missions can be so incredibly repetitive and predictable. Also the time pressure present in some assignments does nothing to increase your interest. It's actually rather frustrating :( Besides, your squad mates often get stuck behind anything they can find just to frustrate you too. Sometime, the game feels much easier without your teammates.

In terms of multiplayer, there are some regular deathmatch modes playable through the Internet or LAN. Unfortunately, even with the patch #1 installed, there are some serious technical problems and lag.

Overall, I think this game is pretty mediocre. Breed has incorporated some good features from other games but doesn't bring anything new to the genre. To be honest, Breed didn't impress me much. There are serious bugs which are still present despite downloading the first patch. My recommendation would be to try it before buying, especially if you like the genre - you may just like it.

Note: The gamers who have enjoyed Halo PC will find this title eerily familiar. But unlike Halo, Breed is relying more heavily on ground and air/space vehicle combat.

Related links: playable demo (217MB)

System requirements:
Minimal: Processor Intel P3 / AMD 1GHz, 256MB RAM, T&L 3D Card with 32 MB RAM, DirectX compatible soundcard, 1.2GB free HDD space, 56k modem for multiplayer
Recommended: Intel P4 / AMD 1,5 GHz, 512MB, T&L 3D Card with 64 MB RAM, DirectX compatible soundcard, DSL or better