Brink

Brink is a game that, when on paper, sounds like it hits the high points: tactical team combat, single player and multiplayer modes that you can play online or solo with bots, persistent characters that you can upgrade, customizable perks and weapons, and also introduces parkour style traversal. Unfortunately Splash Damage, former modders turned game development studio, have come up short yet again even more so than with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Character customization is average but offers some fun options. Unfortunately, you truly only have 1 character that you create. Your character(s) will have 2 modes: Resistance and Security…I didn’t like this. Why would I want the same facial features for both characters? Leveling and progression seems somewhat pointless, or perhaps again lackluster, as it caps at level 20 (rank 5) and you relatively can get to that point rather quickly. Weapons are also customizable but from what I played the only weapon customizations that you can unlock come from doing the single player challenge modes opposed to doing well and progressing solely on the multiplayer or single player options. Once you do get things to customize your weapons its pretty standard for modern shooters: scopes, laser sights, muzzles, silencers, etc. The only problem is the actual weapons themselves. I used literally every weapon made available to me and I could never truly tell a difference: this is a failure of sound and game design. I also never had fun using any of the weapons. Grenades seem like a standard affair, but your basic grenades are so weak and nearly unnoticeable that they have no effect on combat unless you are using a Molotov or flash bang (both specific to the soldier class).

You have four classes to choose from: soldier, medic, engineer, and operative (spy). While there are sub-objectives in each mission to complete each class really only has 1 thing to do in each game and there is rarely a time when multiple objectives are going on. Other than the objectives you won’t find much difference in play style. The class I found I had more to do with was the engineer as I could plant mines at objectives and place turrets but the turrets are so weak and take so long to actually start firing on enemies that they are taken down rather quickly. The operative can disguise himself but that is reliant on an enemy body opposed to just disguising oneself…I ultimately found it to be less useful than other games with the same ability. All classes seem a tad underpowered as everything your character can do is reliant on action points, or pips. Heal someone, place a mine, throw a grenade, or perform any ability and it uses it. This can hamper being a medic as the time it takes to for it to refill can be excruciating.

Parkour was something that was often played up in previews and marketing for the game, but unfortunately its just a glorified jump. After playing Mirror’s Edge and the Assassin’s Creed series my definition of what parkour is and what it allows me to do is a lot different than Brink’s idea. Parkour is less of a strategic advantage that you use to escape and find hidden spots to just another way to run and jump occasionally jumping and hitting a ledge that really isn’t that far away. This has more to do with implementation and level design, but I never found it be anything worth promoting.

The single player is a mix of what PC gamers are used to in multiplayer only games (matches with bots) and something resembling a story structure. Before each match you will be given a sound byte over a loading screen and followed by a generic “dudes talking to other dudes about stuff that’s relevant to them but that you have no idea what it is”. I found the “story” to be mostly throw away, but there are audio files you can unlock by completing missions. Mostly I started skipping every cut scene and zoning out of every audio file. I’ve heard that there is actually a lot of back-story even in the strategy guide, but that has nothing to do with the game itself. Unfortunately every level boils to the same thing…there are no team death matches, capture the flags, or other modes that would see to add variety to matches. Also since there is really only one major objective at a time you will see team variety suffer as well. Bomb needs planting? You can bet ¾ of your team are soldiers and the examples go on. Sure this can be chocked up to petty gamers who have no real team dynamic (which really is an argument on consoles) but I think that the game design has a hand in that as well. Bot AI in the single player frustrating as the only real thing they seem useful for is to be a medic and occasionally revive you. Other for that you are doing everything on your own. Of course you can play the campaign online (the only way to play the game only actually) but the net code is equally as horrible. Most of my matches were as if I were playing on dial up, and as I have a 30 Mbps connection that is extremely frustrating. Having a patch out for at least that issue would be a beginning effort at making the game playable. Host migration also seems to be a problem as every time it occurred the match would reset to the beginning opposed to just picking up where we were.

There are several other issues, but at this point I find so many things wrong with the game I feel as if I risk becoming too critical. No decent stat tracking to show your overall progress, no way to show if you’ve completed the campaign missions in single or multiplayer, no way to tell if the opponents your playing against/with online are bots are real players, and the overall level design feels boring and close quarters at all times.

On a positive note I do like the art direction, style, and I HUD is attractive. Brink, to me, feels as if Bethesda put their foot down and said “the game’s released on this date whether you are done with it or not”. While I don’t think the game would be great as a downloadable game I can’t help but think this feels like an extended demo or a game that’s going to become micro transaction dependent opposed to a full retail experience. Stay very far away from Brink as there are too many options in the multiplayer shooter arena to go there.

When I sold Brink I had played for over 7 hours completing the entire Security campaign (all but 1 mission online) including the "what if? missions and most of the single player challenges. I sold the game at this point as the Resistance missions offer no change of game play and I felt I had a fully formed opinion.