Breach & Clear (PC)

Developer:

Mighty Rabbit

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Release Date:

2014 (PC)

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Systems:

Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, PSVita, Linux

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Breach & Clear: DEADline is the exciting new zombie slaughter tactical thing released just a few days ago on Steam, and if I had any sense I'd be playing that instead and getting all those beautiful new game page views. But today on Super Adventures I'll be taking a look at the original old-school Breach & Clear.

I'm not actually 100% sure what kind of game Breach & Clear is yet, but I do know two important facts: it was originally developed for mobiles and my friend worked on it. I can live with the first thing, but the second is kind of an issue.

I always try to be honest and treat games fairly, but I can't help but lean toward being in Breach & Clear's corner from the start and it seems inevitable I'm going to pull some of my punches. If I were a proper reviewer I'd skip it entirely, but fortunately I'm not really. My site's as much about showing games off as it is about judging them and I can still do that while I'm being biased. Multitasking!

But yeah, ignore all my opinions here. If you're really bothered then ignore this article entirely, I don't mind.

(Click any screenshot to expand it to twice its current size!)

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The game begins with clips of special forces doing their thing while the narrator explains what Breach & Clear's deal is.

"Welcome to the world of Breach & Clear, a tactical room clearing and close quarters battle simulator that has helped redefine the world of tactics, training and procedures for the special operations world."

Damn, and here was me thinking it was just a mobile game.

"Students from around the globe are able to immerse themselves in realistic scenarios against a variety of enemies in CQB, MOUT and greenside scenarios allowing them to adapt and overcome through an intense training regime."

I know what all those terms mean! (I had to look them up in order to get the capitalisation right.)

"Breach & Clear offers on-point feedback from the smallest short room to the largest; multi-angled facilities to firmly establish the mentality that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. To the world of special operations, this is the most advanced training tool available. Stack up, and Own Every Angle."

Okay okay, I think you're maybe overselling this a little now. I'm hyped though, let's go shoot something.

Before I jump into combat I have to pick who I'm jumping in as.

My first instinct would be to go with the British S.A.S. (because I'm British and sassy), but I'm still blaming them for all the mistakes I made playing Sabre Team on the Amiga a couple of years back so I'd rather give someone else the opportunity to get shot at. Like... the US Army Rangers maybe. It'll be just like Wasteland 2!

Sorry about the aspect ratio by the way, it's not letting me into an options menu to change the resolution yet (my main monitor is 5:4 because I live in the past). Saturday Morning RPG had this same issue, so I guess it's a Mighty Rabbit Studios idiosyncrasy.

Step 2: Choose face.

Hey is that Sylar from 'Heroes' on the third row, over there next to Avery Brooks of 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' fame? Also there's Dusty and his beard from Medal of Honor on the second row. He's definitely getting chosen for my team because he's apparently the chosen one; all the others have a thin white outline around them but he's straight up glowing.

Step 2: Choose class. Hang on...

There was a step after step 2 and step 2 that let me name my hero, but after this he was fully formed and I could move on to defining my other three characters. Then it finally let me through to the menu to change my display options.

A marketplace on the menu huh? That’s not what you want to see in a game ported from mobile.

It's just scary terminology though, there's no micro-transactions here. Look at all those categories too: Guns, Optics, IR Devices, Grips, Lights, Suppressors, Gas Systems and Triggers. I've never seen a game offer so many ways to make a gun's stats go up. Plus on the other tab there’s Facegear, Vests, Clothes and Headgear! There's no dumb Team Fortress 2-style hats here though; the game takes its setting seriously and strives for true military authenticity, so it has no time for goofy video game bullshit.

Well maybe just a little time.

I was going to show a shot of the graphics options, but I couldn’t find any. Resolution, fullscreen, vsync and anti-aliasing are all that you get. To be fair it's a port of a mobile game, so the detail wasn't likely going any higher than 'low' anyway.

Okay I'm going to dive right into the tutorial and educate myself on how this plays.

Ah, it’s a turn based game like XCOM!

It even has the same kind of cover system, with waist high cover indicated by a half-shield icon and walls getting a full shield. Ideally I want to put everyone behind the best cover available, but right now the game is calling the shots, and it wants me to order my guys to move to the other side of this door, by selecting them one at a time and then clicking on a nice spot in the room where they'll be left standing out in the open.

After giving them their orders there's nothing left for me to do but click “BREACH” to end the turn and send them all going in at once.

Enemies: spotted and automatically annihilated. Camera: not really at the best angle to show this off. I expected it to pan over to where the action is, but it's leaving that all to me so I’ll switch back to the regular isometric angle instead of this overhead view.

Now that I'm in here with the bad folks I've noticed something downright weird for a turn based tactical game: I don't seem to have any way to target enemies and tell my men who to aim at. All shooting happens automatically and simultaneously when someone catches sight of a target during the action. It's like unpausing an RTS for a few seconds and watching the chaos play out.


A FEW TURNS LATER.

Man, I’m feeling sorry for the terrorists now, as the tutorial knows their every move. Right now I’m learning about pointing my characters a certain way at the end of their turn, and you can bet the enemies will be popping out the door I leave them facing. I can even add in extra waypoints along the path I just set to determine the directions they’ll be facing while moving.

The squares my character will see are marked with the cone of white circles, so it's important for me to make sure that between all my men I cover the room with them and Own Every Angle or else I'm leaving myself open to being attacked from a blind spot.

Ah, this cinematic final kill camera brings back fond memories of playing the office level in Counter-Strike Source back in 2004. It's got that same kind of... texture resolution.

And that’s it, turns out the tutorial just teaches movement and vision cones. The squad will auto-execute any tango that enters their line of sight, so it’s my job to put my team in a safe place and make sure they’re facing the right way. I probably have all kinds of other stuff to do, but I’ll be figuring that out by myself. Or by watching the large selection of in-game tutorial videos if that doesn't work out.


AFGHANISTAN - MISSION 1: OPERATION SWIFT CARAVAN.

Right, my first real job is to stop a terrorist attack on a trade center. Okay then.

Seems that the game is a series of simulator missions accessed by this level select screen. There's no XCOM base building or research involved, and no Rainbow Six-style briefings to set up the story. I just go in, get the job done, and come back with the stars I need unlock the next mission in the list.

I'll be playing on Normal mode, because that's what I always do. But also because the highest difficulties cost way more stars.

Uh... thanks for letting me know.

Though I do like how the knife and snake forms the deadliest ampersand ever seen in a game logo. The developers really do seem fond of that ampersand; this isn't Breach and Clear mate, this is BREACH & CLEAR*.

*Not to be confused with Clean & Clear, which is a line of skin care products.

I got the ‘STAR PLAYER’ achievement for beginning level 1! Man ‘achievement for starting a new game’ should be one of my article tags.

Wait, this achievement is for earning four stars across every mission. Seems like this bug is affecting basically everyone playing the Steam version, as it's been unlocked by more people than the "cleared a single location" achievement.

Okay I've got two possible entrances on this map, so first I have to decide which of my team will be stacking up behind which door. The tutorial never taught me any of this!

'QTY: 0' huh? Okay guys, whose job was it to pack the explosives and lock picks?

I’d explain what’s going on here, but the screen is doing that for me, so I’ll just… put half of my team on door A and half on door B I guess. And choose 'shotgun' as the breaching method for both of them to hopefully damage some nearby enemies (no one in my squad is actually carrying a shotgun).

Right, team B is facing a room with two exits and no hint of who's already inside. I don’t think I can probe under the door first or throw in a flashbang, so I suppose I’ll send my two Rangers rushing in and get them behind the table on the first turn. I'll set a waypoint along their paths to spin them around and make sure that they're Owning Every Angle along the way.

Then I’ll do the same for the other two at door A, click 'Breach' and see what happens.


PHASE 2.

I’ve ended up with a couple of dead terrorists, but I'm sharing the room with a couple of alive ones too. I wonder if there is actually a way to target specific enemies hidden in this interface somewhere...

Well now I know it’s not the sit rep button, but hey it’s nice to get some info about what I’m up against in here. Turns out that my guy’s also carrying a medikit and I was wrong earlier about him not having a flashbang, so that could be useful in a bit.

My other guy’s got a grenade, so I’m going to lob it at the bloke in cover behind the couch. It’ll take 2 seconds apparently, but I’ve no idea what that means in gameplay terms. Huh, I’ve just realised that there’s a time in seconds written on all the waypoints too, that’s interesting. Seems that each turn is actually several seconds long, and both sides make their move simultaneously once I've clicked 'Breach'. Though I can't take two actions a turn even if I've got the time for it, weirdly.


A SHORT EXCHANGE OF BULLETS LATER.


FOUR STARS! Yep, this was definitely a mobile game alright; though they usually only go up to three stars at the end of each stage.

I was going to show what happened during all the other turns, but... there weren't any. The grenade killed one guy, bullets got the other, and Team A automatically killed everyone in their room. Mission 1 complete in two rounds.

Level ups and cash for everyone! Though I got $90 deducted for that grenade I used. Why do breaching charges need to be bought in advance but grenades are paid for afterwards?

Not that I care much, not when my screen is being filled with achievements! Let’s see, I unlocked “Area Cleared”, “Boom Goes the Dynamite”, “Three’s Company”, “Four’s A Crowd” and “Thanks, Bro!” during that match. Went a lot better than my first mission in Sabre Team for sure.

Also damn, I beat the level in just 8.1 seconds! Sadly I haven't found a way to bring up a replay of the entire level and watch it all play out in real time.

All my guys got a level up, so now each gets 5 skill points to distribute between their 6 skills. But do the initials spell out a word, like with Fallout's SPECIAL system? Hmm, RHAISE... RASHIE... nope, no acronym here. It never would've worked out anyway, as the middle skill on the right is class specific, so it'd be a different letter per character.

A description pops up for each skill when I hover the mouse over them, which is helpful, but it doesn't actually explain what exact effect they have. I mean Accuracy obviously makes it more likely for my shots to end up on target, but is it a percentage? If 100 is the upper limit, what happens when I get it to 95 and then equip a gun with +10 Accuracy on it? It's all a mystery.

I clicked ‘Continue’ and was sent straight into the next mission without seeing the menu or getting to spend my cash. I probably should’ve gone with ‘Save and Quit’ there (and they probably should've labelled it 'Menu').


AFGHANISTAN - MISSION 2: OPERATION DEEP MIST, PHASE 3... OR 4 OR SOMETHING.

I’m struggling a bit with the interface now, as it’s not immediately clear how to undo using an item and what the medikits affect. Like does the green icon mean he’s healing himself, or everyone adjacent to it, or is it waiting for me to pick a target, or what?

Also the health bars caught me out for a bit, because I didn’t realise that they're not health bars. They're health indicators that change colour depending on how screwed someone is. Dusty here’s on red so I'm pretty glad I don't have permadeath turned on right now. That's an actual option by the way; apparently if someone dies you're asked to create a new character to take their slot.

Anyway if I’ve set this up right Quinto and David will be moving up, while Dusty heals himself and Brooks lobs a grenade at the a lucky bastard terrorist who faced my firing squad once already and lived to terrorise another turn. It really does seem that I can’t move and use an item in the same turn (without a special perk) so Dusty and Brooks will have to stay put for the new few seconds.

All right, numbers everywhere, a smoking burn mark where the terrorist was, and Dusty’s looking a lot more lively. Time for me to get overconfident and forget to check behind that purple wall on my way to the final set of rooms. I'll stack up, two soldiers per door, and breach both simultaneously.

Aww shit, my dumbass soldiers opened the doors themselves! I was going to flash and clear, or something cool like that. I have to admit, they're getting the job done though.

Turns out that soldiers automatically open doors when they're next to them unless I deliberately have them facing the other way. Seems like it'd leave my guy wide open to getting shot in the back, but I dunno, maybe they react to the sound of doors opening and turn around. They definitely react to getting shot in the back.

One the next phase I threw flashbangs in both rooms and cleared out the stunned and defenceless tangos. Mission complete! Final score: a pathetic 2 stars because I took too long. Level ups all round though.

This time I think I’ll be boosting everyone’s accuracy. Ain’t no good being quickest on the draw when a three man firing squad can’t kill one terrorist standing right in the open.

I'll also grab some health and accuracy boosting gear in the shop. There's a bit of scope here to customise outfits, but it's focused on realism so I only get to pick sensible colours.

For guns on the other hand I get to go wild and colour them however I damn well please! There's no decals, but I can paint each extra component I've bolted on separately (saving my custom colours to the palette so I don't have to try to match shades by hand). It also lets me spin my guns around, which is pretty much the best part of the game so far.

The downside is that the characters are absolutely tiny during gameplay, so I'll barely be able to see any of this. The game has ridiculously detailed gun models considering that they'd be roughly this big on screen at an average resolution.

But guns are a big part of the appeal in a military themed game, like the cars in a racing game (that's why they're the reward for success), so it's hardly wasted effort to give players a high quality model to examine properly. I appreciate it anyway.

Damn he's so close to looking like Duke Nukem. If only it'd let me colour the vest!

Turns out that if I get bored of these guys I've got the option to create multiple squads and switch them between missions to level them up separately and try different classes. I'm a little disappointed though that the face selection is the same for every squad. I mean I wasn't expecting it to come with a face editor or anything, but there's seven possible squads, four soldiers per squad, but only 16 faces to pick from. That's not happy math.

My money, equipment stash and and stars carry over between the squads,  but that isn't necessarily a great thing. I mean, do you see a 'New Game' or 'Select Profile' option over on the left? Seems that anything I unlock is unlocked forever.


SOON.

After five level ups I've gotten my first perk! Perks are different to those traits listed back on the class select screen in that I get them more frequently and it doesn't look like they have to be manually activated in combat. I have to wonder what the perk system has against level 20 though. Characters get new traits at levels 1 and 30, so it's nothing to do with that.


TURKEY - MISSION 5: OPERATION COVERT SENTRY.

Whoa.

The thing about all the tiny office levels the game makes you play through, is that when you reach a bigger stage it seems absolutely massive. It’ll take me almost a minute* to clear out all these rooms! It's lucky I've got unlimited ammo.

I'm going to be accumulating the consequences of my dumb mistakes so I might need my medic for this one. I’ve used one health kit in the entire game so far, but I think this might be his big opportunity to perform a second bit of first aid. To be honest, any soldier can use a medpack if they've got one equipped, I just want to make my medic feel better because it's not exactly the greatest class.

I’m trying to solve this level like a maze before I even deploy my squad, figuring out the most efficient route for two teams to take. I could make use of all three entrances and split them up if I wanted to, but I feel like two teams of two gives me a better chance to kill enemies on sight in one turn. Maybe I'll go in as one group, then split them up at the doors as they go, hmm...

*It took 56.3 in game seconds for me to complete the stage in the end, so I was so almost right.


GERMANY - MISSION: I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW ANY MORE.


I should've seen this coming really. As I've been working through the levels and giving my squad better gear, better equipped enemies have started showing up. Like those two assholes over in the windows with the sniper rifles and laser sights, Owning all my Angles! Who puts a laser sight on a sniper rifle anyway, that's just daft. Though I suppose I can't complain seeing as I keep putting flashlights on my guns for extra accuracy... during daytime.

What I can complain about is that they can one-shot me with those things! It's getting a bit Hotline Miami out here. I do like the more complicated layouts that are showing up though; it's feeling more like a proper tactics game now. I have to think a bit about how I want to approach this problem.


RUSSIA - MISSION 3: OPERATION KILL BOX.

I expected that the game would escalate and throw me into bigger and more complicated levels as I go, but it actually likes to mix things up. It's hard to tell without office desks around, but this seems like one of the smallest stages yet. Or at least one of the quickest to beat.

One difference with levels set out in the open like this is that the enemies start off visible... because they're out in the open. I'm kicking myself now for not giving my soldiers some sniper rifles and letting them clean up the map (I saw the level screenshot on the mission select screen, I knew what I was in for).

Okay I think I've said enough about 'Terrorist Hunt' mode, but I can't forget the 'Bomb Defusal' and 'Escape Plan' modes, even if they do take place on the exact same maps. Hang on, shouldn't that be bomb disposal?


CHINA - BOMB DEFUSAL MISSION 1: OPERATION CALM SEAS. 

Bomb defusal levels are less about the terrorists, and more about finding the giant bomb (or two) hidden somewhere on the level. I've learned that the rounds in Breach & Clear last exactly 5 seconds, because there's a timer up there ticking down every time I make a move, and I have 5 turns left to stop the clock.


CHINA - BOMB DEFUSAL MISSION 2: OPERATION HOLLOW PROMISE. 

The twist is that once gotten a soldier or two (or four) around the bomb to defuse it, enemies rush in from outside the level to kill them, and people with pliers in their hands can't pull triggers. If I move everyone away from the bomb (or they get shot) the 'defusal progress' meter starts ticking back down again, so I need to get my defenders and my disarmers in place at the right time.

This is a cool series of levels by the way. The game doesn't have much of a story, but there's a clear progression here as each stage takes me further through the freighter. I'm just going to pretend that the shipping containers are full of popular amiibos of characters the terrorists personally don't like.


COLUMBIA - ESCAPE PLAN MISSION 2: OPERATION AGILE VIPER.

Oh balls, I'm trapped in The Sims!

Escape plan missions also take place on the same maps, but instead of trying to get in, I’m trying to get out. One door is marked as the extraction point and I have to get my scattered troops over to it in an expedient manner with as few holes as possible. You can see by the orange lines that my plan here is basically just to run for it. I’ll be leaving people standing in the open between turns (there's no buttons to make them crouch or go prone), but that’s only a problem if there’s enemies left alive in their vicinity.

And that's Breach & Clear for you; there's no cutscenes, no big twist, no ending... also no hostage rescue weirdly. Though there is a Frozen Synapse-themed DLC you can buy, which I suppose makes sense considering how similar the games are in gameplay with the simultaneous turns thing. I mean I assume they are, I haven't actually played Frozen Synapse myself. I'll shut up now.


CONCLUSION

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Breach & Clear's best mission names:

Operation Thermal Gauntlet.
Operation Naked Serpent (nice MGS reference there).
Operation Smokey (and the) Bandit.
Operation Lost Passport.
Operation Imperfect (the closest it gets to Operation Rubbish).
Operation Tired Sorcerer (sadly no Operation Sleepy Wizard).
Operation Nightfall (because they use it for two separate operations and I'm not sure either takes place at night).

Breach & Clear kind of feels like Rainbow Six and XCOM had a kid, and it was raised in a smart phone (with nothing to listen to but Call of Duty soundtracks). Most levels are tiny bite-sized morsels of counter-terrorism that can be loaded up and blasted through whenever you've got five minutes to kill. There's no story to keep track of and barely any techniques you need to remember, so it's the kind of thing you could forget about for a few months and then jump back in.

There's 35 levels and three different modes to play them on so there's enough content to keep you busy for a while, but the experience is kind of shallow. On the regular difficulty I never had to mess around with the other breaching modes, the tactics, or different movement speeds and I found my approach started to drift towards being 'run right in, automatically sort them all out along the way'.

In fact I'd suggest putting maybe starting off on Hard mode, as I found Normal to be kind of a pushover. In all the time I played the game on Normal or Hard mode I didn't fail one single mission, though to be fair I came back with two stars a few times and that's almost as bad. Bloody snipers.

I gave Mighty Rabbit's Saturday Morning RPG a rating of Not Crap a few years back, so I suppose I have to give this one too for the sake of consistency. Because though it gets a bit repetitive I really did enjoy playing it and I think it's worth a look. But I remind you that my opinion is worthless and should be disregarded.

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I don't expect that anyone will guess what the next game is, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Or you can leave a comment about Breach & Clear, my writing, my website, and etc.