I love me a good Aesthetic game and the original Broken Reality was a surprise indie hit that captured that early internet feeling just right. It was difficult to describe to people who never experienced them just how influential early internet 3D Chatrooms were for interaction between people around the world, and Broken Reality looked to bring that strange, silly and wonderful period of time to the forefront. Now we have the sequel, Broken Reality 2000, which seeks to bring the concept to the new millennium. Does it compare well to the original game? Time to find out!
The story behind the original game is rather minimal at best, choosing to instead go more for the vibes of the world, though with a hidden story in the background. 2000 is fairly similar, though this time with every time you login you get a sense that the person playing this game, and the world they exist within, is not in the best of places and the digital world is their only escape. For those that never played the original, Broken Reality is set within a digital space known as NATEM which sought to connect people and provide a digital consumer based economy, and that certainly has not stopped in the sequel. After a hack in the previous game set the digital game world back the new 2000 update is set to come out and you have decided to log on for the last day pre-update with everyone partying and getting ready for big changes. Again, the story is rather minimal here, and goes into concepts such as obsession, learning how to cope and accepting reality for what it is. All of these big questions surround a silly game with robot dog people and orc cryptobros, so the tongue is most certainly in the cheek. If you’re looking for a compelling narrative it’s difficult to recommend something like this for you, but if you’re looking for a world to just exist within then this will certainly scratch that itch.
Presentation is what this game thrives upon just as the original game did. If you like vaporwave or early internet culture in general then you will love the visuals of this world. From the pastille colour pallet, to the early 3D model characters that look just jank enough to be realistic in an early internet game to the world feeling alive and thriving. All the NPC characters just wandering about posting and quoting random phrases helps to really sell the illusion that this is a real 3D chatroom and despite the fact that it goes for a 90’s/2000’s charm with its strange mix of vaporwave and frutiger aero vibes it really does give areas that are an absolute visual treat. The soundtrack too is great, coming in with all sorts of excellent vaporwave and other equivalent music tracks that match each of the areas that you visit. It even has opportunities to provide more ethereal or scholastic utopian styles of music which were nice diversions from the usual. One thing that is a bit strange though is the seeming lack of focus for an early 2000’s style. The game mixes in elements from modern internet culture such as memes, AI, Crypto and other such things which, while they make sense in the context of the world, don’t exactly give the impression that this is a love letter to all things early internet. Regardless, if you are looking for a visual spectacle of a game then this certainly delivers.
Gameplay is next and for those not in the know Broken Reality is essentially a collect-a-thon focusing on collecting ‘likes’ and acquiring new objects/tools to help traverse the world. As such, if you’re not into such a genre then this may not be of interest to you. There’s tonnes of secrets, collectables and quests to go on in order to discover new parts of the world. There’s plenty of puzzles too, enough that the variety of gameplay in 2000 actually feels a lot more diverse than in the original game which makes it feel as though you always have something to do. There’s even combat elements in the game against enemy hacker units which was unexpected, letting you fulfil your dream of being a cyber ninja. The world is split into various hubs that each task you with finding and collecting as many ‘likes’ as possible to progress onto the next location and with some of the items you obtain being really fun to use within the environment you can really secret hunt to your heart’s content. I especially liked the hoverboard items which let you go so fast and reach so many hidden areas. Overall whilst it is still a game mostly about collecting things I’d say that the variety of new gameplay elements added to the title makes it a far more enjoyable experience for actually playing rather than just treating like an interactive art exhibit.
This game does have its fair share of problems however. Firstly, a minor one, I hate that you don’t get a sprint or faster traversal method until very far into the game. It made the world feel tediously big and when I had to go visit previous areas in the game to use new, unlocked items it made the travel feel like an absolute chore. The game is also rather buggy at times, intentionally so to match the aesthetics, but I encountered my fair share of actual bugs during my playtime. NPC characters glitching into walls, certain map geometry failing and making me fall into an endless void, softlocks and even a few fun sequence breaks that I discovered on accident. I don’t think there’s anything absolutely deal-breaking here, but due to the fact the game presents itself in-universe as being buggy it makes it difficult sometimes to actually determine where the real bugs start and end. My biggest gripe however is with the final area of the game. It was similar in the original Broken Reality that the final location had a huge tonal and gameplay shift which led to it feeling frustrating and confusing. Well that is once again present here with a series of puzzle and platforming challenges that, whilst creative, were a stark contrast to everything done in the game previously and just felt like they were almost rushed together rather than feeling cohesive. The game loses its best aspects when being in this area, the ‘simulation’ aspect of being in a 3D Chatroom, and it just ends up feeling like a janky and low budget indie platformer which is absolutely not the vibes you want to give off a product like this. I also hated the original ending that I got, but that’s just a preference thing. My biggest piece of advice for you playing this game is make sure you get all of the collectables, you will regret it if not.
And that’s Broken Reality 2000. A beautiful, surreal, buggy experience that still managed to capture everything I liked about the first game. It also seemingly kept all the things I disliked, but I guess that’s just how it is when you are dealing with a strange game like this. If you love collect-a-thons or the early internet aesthetic then I’d highly recommend checking this out. Now onto Broken Reality 3D! (Surely…)