Folks,

I write this as somebody who was championing the game to skeptics because of its bravery to push team based game play and character/weapon customization. I also write this review as somebody who is greatly disappointed with the end product. I want to talk about the glaring things wrong w/ Brink and not nit pick at little things because I KNOW there are MANY people who are as disappointed as I am and a bit betrayed. This game is flawed in such a way that almost breaks the game. Please read on.

The first thing I did was go through the challenges (solo) to familiarize myself with how the game feels, the aiming and movement and game play. Everything seemed fine control and execution wise. The first GLARING flaw I recognized was during the 2 star hacking objective.

• The offensive bots are severely unintelligent in comparison to the defensive bots. Not to mention the hack objective was relatively next to the defensive spawn.
  
• Offensive bots barely push to an objective
  
• They barely offer any cover fire
  
• They wonder aimlessly and are very spread out
  
• They are easily defeated by defensive bots when they are blindly rushing to revive you.
  
• Considering that YOU have to complete the objective this is insane because you have to plant but there is never any one to cover. Especially when defensive bots CAMP right on top of the objective and bolt down.

I overlooked this and moved on, but I knew the issue would come back in some way (I know many of you are saying well just play multiplayer). A couple friends of mine decided to jump into some multi-player games

• The mutli-player netcode is OBSCENELY OFFENSIVELY BAD!!!! I mean UNPLAYABLE. Probably 1/10 matches we were able to actually navigate characters out of spawn without teleporting and getting stuck in objects
  
• When you luck out and get in a game that you can at least attempt to move, if you're on offense the game is sadly lopsided (especially on the fix crane and hack missle mission)

So what is the natural reaction to people who are playing laggy 1 frame per second games? RAGE QUIT. Myself and leftover of maybe 3-4 people who didn't run back to Game Stop to return or sell decide to try mutli-player co-op. But a minute...
I already addressed issues with defensive and offensive bots. No matter how easy you put the settings, no matter how well you and your teammates play if you're on offense... the game experience will be pretty much broken against the bots.

This game was supposed to blur the lines between campaign and multi-player, what it actually did take everything that is BAD from both aspects and threw it at the player and wrapped it up in a cute innovative box. I'm very disappointed and I know many of you are as well. Please comment. Am I and the other 7-8 players in my party out of order? How do you guys feel about the the game. Be honest as I personally understand NOW why the game got such low marks from everyone after I defended their attempt. =o(

Jeez i wish my video below was as in depth as your post that actually exactly what I think and it's very well written, basically I agree with everything you said and wish i had said it on my youtube video,lol.

but i should also mention even with all it's flaws I friggin love this game and I'm not even a FPS guy more of a RPGer.

I know what you mean about the 2 star challenge bro, I've nearly given up on that one lol. I'm probably just going to wait for SD to provide an update that will improve friendly AI before i reattempt that challenge again.

Not really on topic, but Ive found that a good long rifle helps HEAPS with doing that 2 star objective. Since you are pretty much on your own, sniping the entire enemy team, seems to make it more managable.

Excellent post btw, I agree with all points.

I finished it with about a minute to spare on my first try?

Yeah who ever decided to put the enemy spawn ten feet from the hacking point should be shot. Even if you manage to kill basically all of the defenders you still get mobbed EVERY time by the ones that have respawned.

That's nice, however i'm sure that there are plenty of other people sharing the same amount of frustrations as I am.

I eventually cleared it but I myself admit it was PURELY luck after a good 20 tries. That part of the objective is usually me killing bots until I die and time runs out. There is no "clearing out". Especially with the silly reviving that goes on. The minute you stop firing your weapon you get killed. IF you even manage to get the hack on the objective you have to run into cover to complete it, by that time the fearless defensive bots have respawned and are removing it. It's badly designed if I must say.

Also to think about how little effort it takes for medics to revive someone it sure is sad how many extra bullets you have to dump into a body to send them back to their spawn. That needs serious tweaking as well, it's why defense is so OP in the game. Couple that with the unbalanced level design you'll rarely see those objectives get 10-20% percent done before the time is up.

Could not agree more. I am seriously disappointed with my purchase and I really thought Brink was going to be a show stopper. Turns out it is-in all the wrong ways.

One of my biggest issues with the game is the fact that there was a huge hype on how customization was a huge thing and that no "hero" would be the same but instead we got a few character templates and a few sets of clothes. I was hoping for the level of character customization that Bethesda's other games are famous for. It seems we all got svckered here...

I guess this is what happens when you try to expand your horizons and allow outsiders into the company. I truly hope Bethesda doesn't mess up with TESV.

the point is that you shouldn't execute them...
u should just make sure they are all on the ground/incapacitated,...So they do not respawn, spot the medics and put them down first
this way you will get sometime to take position for when they come, as well you will have gained some precious seconds to hack

It's pretty awesome on PC.....

am sorry for you if you didn't like the game,as well a lot of people are very happy with the game and what it gives

I joined up with a couple of guys on the Xbox and we just couldn't have a real game going. I don't think I need to mention why at all but I wanted to note that during our conversation I brought up the point that BRINK was a week early and I'm starting to think that we are just running an "Unofficial beta test" and afterwards, approximately next week tuesday we'll all see a patch that will address the look of the game and the connectivity. I'm pretty upset that I had to shell out the 60 plus bucks to run a "beta" for SD but I'm really trying hard to keep my spirits up. Because honestly the game has potential, I just hope it's not another.... M....O....H. There, I said it.

I don't know if it's a 360 thing but I've noticed the defensive bots all respawning AS medics for the most part on that challenge and other weird kill the bots loop spots in the game. Also for some reason those type of objectives seem to sit REALLY close to enemy spawn points.

I know many want to jump in peoples threads and explain how to be better players etc, or how it doesn't happen to you... it doesn't change the fact that the MAJORITY is very disappointed and they're not all incompetent players. They're people who know how to play games, who paid 50+ bucks for the game and want some satisfaction for making the investment.

After my friends and I decided that matchmaking multiplayer was a lagfest we decided to play some co-op. Wooooow is this OP right. I had tried it alone and got lucky but even with four of us on offense we were getting out butts whipped at certain chokes by the [censored] defensive bots. Offensive bots will never, ever use their class properly. For about five minutes I sat down and almost had a breakdown because I haven't bought a good multiplayer FPS in the last few months(maybe a year). Tired of throwing my damn money away. I just want to have some simple freaking fun. Almost went back to WoW to forget all about shooting games after quitting for a year. If this goes on for another two weeks I am gonna go back to BFBC2 and then play LA Noire till my eyes bleed( considering that game doesn't blow).

I agree the AI was weak. But i didnt have much of a problem, i felt this game was very easy and uneventful.... the storyline was nonexistent and every weapon is almost the same. But i still have enjoyed the game thus far. As for the challenges... i completed all of the 3 stars fairly easily only had to retry a couple times.

ware do i put my copy to get my money back?

Ebay? Its new enough you could probably get almost the entire amount you paid for it.

I know what you mean about the two star challenge and personally I think that's just how hard it's supposed to be. I have it in PC and am thoroughly enjoying this game. Give it a week or so and see what they do with additional patches.

Its absolutely not the way it should be its almost unbeatable in the 2nd stage stars

I got frustrated with it too, but I discovered a trick. You don't actually need to stand next to the hacking objective to hack it. Did you notice the little wireless signal indicator on the device? It goes from 1 to 4 bars. You can get pretty far away before it goes past one bar. Once you plant the box, you can run around the corner and hide, or retreat behind friend bots. The enemy bots usually can't seem to find you. It may take a couple of tries, but you'll eventually get it with time to spare.

As for the other point about the netcode, I've experienced quite a bit of "rubberbanding" type lag. I think the game is just picking bad hosts. Hopefully they'll be able to fix this with the next patch. I'll give them some time, as these types of lag issues seem to plague most online games for the first few weeks.

I'll give it a try, thanks for the suggestion. So far in the challenges i have beaten
Parkour this 1,2,3
Escort 1,2
Tower defense 1,2
Be more objective 1

So i still have a ways to go but i'm getting there lol.

Yes, we understand why people don't like this game, we don't need 80 threads reiterating what we've already heard.

Yes, the offensive bots stink but if you get some credit points and level up your abilities you can get them done. I completed every challenge, all the way up to 3 stars, at level 8. (which I believe is rank 2 if I'm not mistaking). Lemme say this.. why are you crying about the bots? Theres tons of different thing we could be talking about so Bethesda studios takes our constructive criticism seriously and looks at the obvious changes they need to fix in the game.... bots really?

Well considering that the multi-player net code is a complete FAILURE right now people play against BOTS to try and compensate and give the game a chance. The bots basically exposed another issue in the game of defense having glaring advantage over offense on certain parts of the map and and missions. There is no crying involved. This is people being disappointed at spending their money for a game that they had high hopes for and getting THIS. People haven't even began to rag on the contrived stitched in story, graphics being messy on 360 and the smaller issues.

People WANT to be in love with this game. Splash Damage is going to have to do a lot of cleaning in the next few days if they want to prevent people from putting the game down FOR GOOD.