Knee-Jerk Reaction: Brink
By jakob187 21 Comments
Good Impressions
- SMART system provides one of the easiest ways to move around your environment in a first-person shooter
- Weapon selection is pretty big and varied well between primary and secondary
- Character customization makes some badass character designs
- Art style is pretty
- Gameplay is definitely right up the alley of those who love Enemy Territory, yet simple enough for new players of the "genre" to learn quickly
- Voice acting is diverse and interesting
- HUD provides you with every piece of information you could possibly need
- Going against Hard bots can actually prove to be a challenge for about 2-4 people
- Versus mode (and subsequently Stopwatch mode) are fucking great...when there's no lag
Bad Impressions
- Like any form of government or religion, it's a great idea until you put people into the equation
- id Tech looks a bit muddy on console, which is kind of saddening
- Weapons take some time to find one you like the feel of, and for me, that has become "SMGs that I can hipfire"
- There's only 8 maps with a finite amount of preset objectives; rotating objectives per match would keep things fresher
- HUD is busy as hell, meaning that the information you need could also be distracting you from something else you should pay attention to
- Ranking up is super quick and easy, leaving no forward progression for later
- LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG: it cripples the game to a near unplayable state when it hits
- Ally bots are generally unhelpful in most cases...like the escort part of Security Day 1 in the campaign...but it's a good indicator for what it'll be like playing with the Call of Duty crowd
Look, folks. Let's not mince words: Brink is the kind of game that will be perfect for the Enemy Territory players on PC that have been dying for a new Enemy Territories game. However, without a 100% solid netcode, the lag can cripple the game. In the end, Brink is going to live and die by the multiplayer community, and while I've been able to find a few competent people on Xbox Live, it proves the age old adage true: most console players are fucking stupid and will lead to blunt force trauma from pounding your controller against your head repeatedly. Unfortunately, Brink is not the kind of game where banging your head against the wall will eventually lead to a euphoric occasion of Halo-grunt-headshot-leads-to-confetti-and-children-cheer-as-candy-pours-out-yo-head smiley time. It's a game that demands you to check out the maps, learn the different routes and areas to attack an objective from, and work AS A FUCKING TEAM! Essentially, it's like Left 4 Dead in a lot of ways: people on PC are the ones you'll want to play with if you actually want to get anything done without having to half-heartedly rely on bots to help your ass. I personally dig the game a lot. I'm a mad fan of Wolf ET, so for me to get some new Enemy Territory type of stuff, I'm psyched. Now I just need competent people to start getting online and the netcode to get better...
Also, crank it up to Hard. Don't play on pussy settings, folks. That just makes you look bad in the long run. Seriously...please...pretend you have a set of balls to put on the table.
Until next time, piece.