The game Fracture takes place in the year 2161. Massive flooding due to global warming (Al Gore was right!) has caused the U.S. to split. Massive steps forward in genetic research have caused ethical issues as well, making people ask themselves, "What is human?" as laws are passed branding anyone with 10% of their body technologically enhanced as "property".
The Pacificans (The bad guys) secede from the U.S. government and are use their genetically enchanced soldiers as weapons, whereas the Atlantic Alliance forces, (you) are trying to prevent their war-like ways. Eventually you'll find a few big secrets San Francisco has been hiding in your quest to stop the Pacificans.
All well and good, but how's gameplay?
Well my experiences so far with the game are from the demo. The game plays like any other 3rd person shooter, but the real differences come from when you pick up any of the guns you're given. The main sales-point of Fracture is "terra-forming" the environment around you. Which basically means blowing shit up, including the earth underneath you. You can raise land, lower land......well that's pretty much all you can do with land. You get a lot of different explosives to wreck your havok with and as i've seen they all have different effects on the dirt around you. High Explosive Grenades leave craters where your enemy once stood, sticky bombs can be placed and than remotely detonated, causing massive structure damage, and there's even a grenade for causing land spikes, which rise out of the ground like thorns.
The game is fairly simple for a 3rd person shooter. There's no cover system like Gears of War, but you can always MAKE cover by raising the ground in front of you like a shield. You'll be raising ramps or lowering the ground to cross obstacles and pretty much blowing every thing away that you see. Not much different here, but the game looks beautiful while doing it. Explosions and the effect on the world around them are very well done, the game has the next generation look that, by now, all games deserve, and all of the weapons are fun to experiment with and see just how much carnage you can create while at the same time tossing an occasional earth moving puzzle your way.
If you havnt tried the demo for Fracture yet, i'd recommend doing so. It's definitly a game for someone who has nothing else to play, or fans of shooters who like to wreck shit. The story is well-established as well, which you would expect from Lucas Arts, but nothing extraordinary about it. All in all a fair game, but nothing to rush out and buy.
