Now onto the Brink interview with Steve Hessel (Community Relations Manager) for Splash Damage:
Q1. Starting off with a little background on yourself, could you tell us what you do at Splash Damage and what you are currently working on.
My name is Steve Hessel and I’m the Community Relations Manager for Splash Damage, though people on the Internet will probably be more familiar with my handle ‘badman’. In a nutshell, I am the link between the online community and the Splash development team. In practice that means keeping the Splash Damage website and forums updated and running, liaising with fans sites and tournament organizers, and, naturally, keeping the community informed about what’s happening in the world of Brink. I also work closely with the rest of the Media Team here at Splash Damage, as well as the marketing and PR folks at Bethesda to support their respective efforts.
Q2. With all the great press Brink has been getting from the Eurogamer Expo and others, what do you think sets it apart from other first person shooters on the market.
Brink brings several new things to the table that players really haven’t seen in previous shooters. For starters, there’s the blurring of single player and multiplayer into a new type of game, where you can seamlessly transition from playing by yourself with AI-controlled teammates to full-blown competitive multiplayer. Then there’s our extensive character customization system. We’ve got dozens of unlockable abilities that let you build a character specializing in the things that you enjoy doing in the game. You can also customize every single weapon in the game with a myriad of attachments to create your perfect arsenal. This aspect of Brink is really all about personalization and turning it into something that really suits a player’s unique gameplay style.We’re also really happy with how the SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) system turned out. One general misconception is that SMART somehow plays the game for you or takes the skill out of movement. On the contrary! SMART opens up tons of additional routes to gameplay and adds a whole new level of tactical depth that we know players will have tons of fun exploring.
Finally, there’s the automated mission system, which builds on what we had in Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars and kicks it up about three notches. If you‘re lost or don’t know what to do next, just bring up the Objective Wheel and it will suggest a bunch of useful things you can be doing at that point -- and then it’ll even tell you where to go. It’s such a helpful thing to have in the game, especially for those who’ve never played the Enemy Territory titles. Of course, I’ve got to mention Brink’s gorgeous art style as well, which ties all of this together beautifully.
Head over to http://www.brinkaddict.com/component/k2/item/65-brink-addicts-qa-with-splashdamage to see the full 12 questions.