Ambition and innovation don't always a great game make
It's a sentiment that will either fall on deaf ears due to the extraordinary sales saying otherwise or just simply a "yeah I know but what you gonna do?" response but first-person shooters are starting to bore me. Gone are the days of multiple objectives, freedom to tackle a certain situation how you want or it's just the same basic formula of you, a gun and bullets trying to hit dudes. Brink puts its emphasis squarely on communication and teamwork whereas most other games have it be useful and recommended but still manageable without. Only problem is ambition and the unique can only take you so far as the very things that can get celebrated in the game can become a flaw over time and certain design decisions are so obvious yet are still fumbled. It's a breath of fresh air to be sure as it is fairly unique, the game's customization options are pretty astounding but rather bland gameplay and some serious issues prevent it from being the amazing day one purchase it feels like they were going for.
The story of Brink takes place where the Earth has been flooded and a huge floating island city known as the Ark provides haven for those that come in. But tensions are starting to build and a group of people, dubbed the "Resistance", are wanting to escape the Ark and see what else is out there while the main Ark police force, dubbed the "Security" try to prevent it. And that's pretty much the story and there's not much to it and it's not even that engaging either. Either you're skipping it to get into the action or you just don't really care about who anyone is and what they're doing and you just want to shoot something.
It doesn't help the campaign is fairly repetitive as well; it's split up into 2 separate campaigns for each faction and yet the majority of each level is just "the opposite of what the other group does". So it's not like there's 2 campaigns with different levels and objectives so whereas one level requires you to escort a maintenance bot after you bomb a bridge, the equivalent on the other faction is just "stop them from doing that". So essentially you're going to re-see not only the same objectives from different angles but the same maps as well. It ends up becoming a similar issue to Left 4 Dead where once you've seen the campaign, you've pretty much experienced everything there is to see and it becomes more about finding out what kind of teammates you'll get.
The game's class-based and it goes like this: Soldiers re-stock ammo or provide adrenaline boosts, Medics revive, heal and buff up character stats, Engineers buff gun damage, plant landmines or make turrets while Operatives can disguise themselves or hack enemy equipment. There's a fairly nice balance since you can't just steamroll as the engineer since you'll run out of ammo or will need to get revived whereas being all medics won't have the benefits of turret makers and the like. Each class can have separate objectives so for example engineers can build MG nests to provide extra firepower and support while soldiers can plant charges to provide shortcuts and accomplish objectives. Only semi-useless class is the Operative since other than the hacking of consoles, there's not a whole lot of things to do as an Operative.
One downside of all this however is that as you rank up (up to level 20), you unlock points that can be used to purchase upgrades so you can have extra supplies, a better turret, a temporary speed boost or invulnerability or special grenades. However the core of the game is kind of based on switching classes on the fly to suit whatever objective needs to be done. Too many engineers and no one to supply ammo? You have to switch to a Soldier if you want to be a team player but since your abilities or spec'd towards making a kick-ass engineer well other than the ammo resupplies, your soldier's full abilities are decidedly lacking. You can re-spec at the cost of losing a level but it still feels silly to either completely go all-in on one class or try to spread out points yet lacking abilities that would really make them effective.
Now if there's one word that is going to be associated with Brink for the time being is "lag" and it can seriously get irritating. While it is nice that they are trying to change it and make the game better over time, having it in the first place even with the criticisms lobbied against Enemy Territory: Quake Wars on console is kind of inexcusable. No lobbies, no way to buy or change new abilities unless you back out all the way to the main menu and more can sour the online. Now when the game is on, man it is ON with teammates knowing how to accomplish objectives and making your life easier. Even then, the shooting doesn't have a satisfying kick to it, objectives boiling down to "bring this here, guard this person or hold X for a while" and the SMART system which allows for some Mirror's Edge-like parkour is more something you'll occasionally do rather than a core part of the gameplay. Sure you could hop over this box but why not just run around? Okay you can climb up ledges but they're rare instances and don't make you feel the maps were fully designed to utilize the system.
Brink will either be the "Grower" where it'll start to open up and really become a lot more impressive as the game continues or you'll realize maybe a bit too quickly that the action, maps and basic gameplay will become stale over time. I'm not one against innovation or trying something new since I'll be one of the first to tell you the "realistic military shooter" sub-genre is getting less exciting over time but personally, I'd like innovation done right and Brink only does it half the time.
