Short version
Brink is a pretty fun shooter with some interesting mechanics you haven’t see before in the genre. It has a small mountain of bugs that can detract from enjoyment but there’s inevitably fixes for all those on the way. If you haven’t bought a murder-your-friends-in-multiplayer game for a while, pick this one – at least you’ll get something a bit different this time.
Long version
I applaud Brink, it’s one of those rare games where they’re trying something new and creative rather than just rehashing old reliable mechanics that’s tend to sell well, but are forgotten inside a year. It’s perhaps not the best example of this sort of design, given that most all of the ‘new’ mechanics in this game can be traced directly to three or four other games, but they did make the attempt to make a previously unseen combination. The short break down is Modern Warfare shooting style, Team Fortress class style and Mirrors Edge climbing. The aesthetic of the game rolls between shiny smooth white utopian city and garbage dump with wasteland elements. The graphics are stylized and the customization for individual characters is surprisingly in-depth, allowing virtually everyone to create their crazy gun-totting acrobat of choice. The end result is a spectacle that’s almost as fun to watch unfold as to play.
I’ll touch on the Mirrors Edge elements first because they’re both the most unique to see in a shooter and easily the most noticeable on your first few matches. The easiest way to explain is whatever you see on a map that you think a reasonably fit person should be able to climb in a slow and patient manner, your character can fling himself up and over in a matter of seconds. All that the user needs to do is hit the shift key to send your guy sprinting and then occasionally smash the space bar to jump when appropriate. They’ve sped everything up to the point most characters should probably break themselves doing the crazy parkour stuff presented in the game, but it’s obviously an intentional design decision. It allows the game play to remain at a constant fast pace that isn’t broken up just because you want to climb up that building over there and introduce the sniper on top to ten million bullets from your SMG. Given that you literally only need to hit the sprint button once and then merely aim yourself to do these stunts it’s all incredibly easy to figure out and join in on. Pretty much every surface in the game can be jumped on or leapt over as long as you’re sprinting, which leads to incredibly cool scenes as your entire team flows over the landscape to get at the opponents. The downside is it also leads to moments like seeing some one flying sideways through the air for no apparent reason every now and then.
See, the game engine needs to try and sort out where everyone’s going and what pose they should be in for each obstacle, and in some of the more cluttered maps this means you can find bizarre looking screws ups as you twist and turn around the corners and debris. It never takes away from the player (firmly stuck in first person), but you can look like a gravity defying nutcase spraying bullets everywhere to your allies and enemies alike. I leave this up to you to decide if it’s a good or bad thing, but it’s certainly surprising the first time you see it.
Since the game borrows heavily from both MW2 and TF2 I suppose it goes without saying that there’s going to be a leveling component involving whatever class you like best. Its here I feel least capable in writing a proper review; as the game has only been out a couple days and consequently I haven’t really been able to explore the leveling experience to its fullest extent. However, the basic elements of the system are built in tiers based on your class. Each time you level you can spend points on various abilities, most all of which pertain to one of the four classes (Soldier, Engineer, Medic, Back-stabbing Horrible Person) and the rest are available universally to all. When you pick a class in-game you’ll get whatever perks you’ve selected through your leveling in that category, meaning you can with enough leveling make a character that’s capable of more or less all roles. Though it’s worth noting these are just small benefits, while they’ll give a distinct edge to some one who has them over a new player, it’s nothing terribly unbalancing.
Most of the gun attachments and spiffy secondary aids can be unlocked through completing challenges. There are remarkably few challenges in number though, which I can’t decide is good or bad. On one hand, it’s less content for coop, but on the other it means you can get a hold of all the set up you want for your weapon that much faster, thus removing the ‘grind’ aspect from multiplayer. Since this game is primarily not about said challenges, the lack of challenge content doesn’t really ruin the game so much. Depending on how horrible you are at FPS’s in general they can get pretty damn difficult though, so if nothing else they’re aptly named.
Lastly they’ve made an attempt to integrate multiplayer, co-op, and single player all together. Basically all of the missions on single player are essentially multiplayer maps, with objectives pertaining to whatever part of the story they’re at. Thus whenever you start a multiplayer map you get the brief intro and cut scene available (and skippable) to understand what’s going on and why you’re there to fight. If you want to play through the maps chronologically you can set up the servers yourself and are given the option to play them with bots or open them to other players. Since the story can progress win or lose on most maps this means you can (theoretically) have a dynamic story that changes depending on how well you fight in battles against other real people. Nothing is certain and your own abilities have a genuine impact on how things will go. I have to hand it to them, it’s a pretty cool concept as long as you like multiplayer.
However, if you’re looking for a single player experience, ah, don’t buy this game. Its premise is actually pretty interesting, and could have been used to make a cool story and probably have a handful of significant real-life messages contained in it, but that wasn’t really the goal of this game. It’s clearly not intended for a solo-play through story. Beating the game against bots will more than likely just feel tiring as you kill the same people for the seven millionth time, and while the cut scenes add flavor to the maps it’s not like you’re dealing with relatable characters here. Your own online buddies replace the people in them, which mean they can’t really have much of a personality.
All that said though the short version still has the gist of it. It’s a fun shooter with unique elements and a cool combination of styles that’s worth the money if you’re in the market for a new FPS. Check it out.
