Actually I can't, my settings only got as low as medium.

and, in all honesty, i really dont think an HOUR of gameplay is enough for ANYONE to accurately judge gameplay. initial impressions are 'cute', but you really dont know what you are talking about because no one does (outside of people who have been playing the game for a WHILE like the developers).

The menus are garbage (One should not have to read a manual to find your multiplayer).

Sorry, but that's a completely moronic statement. That's like saying Godzilla 2000 is a great film, but only if you watch it 100 times, like its producers have.

If a game isn't great in the first few hours of gameplay then it's not the fault of the person saying thei're disappointed for not having played it enough, it's the fault of the developpers for having produced a game that doesn't grab you and pull you in. I mean I didn't need to play Team Fortress or Battlefield or Enemy Territory for several days before I knew they were good and fun games.

It seems that most technical issues are on XBOX and PC i have PS3 and played through the security campaighn withought any lag and only very small short hiccups. I love shooting its accurate nd balanced. Wish i oculd get online though... freaking hackers. SHEEPS

yea, what we really need is MW2 all over again where everyone who svcks at the game can just flail around with noob tubes /sarcasm. noob tubes being bad is a GOOD THING. i'd bet anything there are more people who like the fact that you cant just shoot a single noob tube to get kills than people who think they need to be more powerful. most people want to play a FPS game where people actually *ghasp* try tho shoot BULLETS.

I don't think it like saying a movie is good is you only watch it a 100 times, it's actually like saying tennis is good once you get used to it. A game is a game because it requires skill to master. The enjoyment comes out of getting better at it.

I agree that a game needs to pull you in, and clearly that is a matter of opinion as to whether it does.

I've gone back and forth on the issue and finally settled on the "it needs a patch" point of view. The game is very close to being what it was promised to be, there are just a few (some would call them critical) bugs preventing me from completely immersing myself in the game and enjoying it on the level that was intended.

1) Numerous lag issues regarding the master server list; I often cannot join games as they 'time out' or report are full (when at 10/16 players), this is never updated in the server list and games that reply with preliminary information about the server (to end up on the server list) completely fail to connect repeated attempts. I, and several of my friends of differing internet connections have experienced this issue.

2) Map problems; It seems that on some maps, completing objectives can cause server-wide sound problems for all (or most) players. I'm not exactly sure how this bug got into a release. I do understand that no Quality Assurance Environment can mimic live play with real players across the world, I'm just thinking that for a release date that was rolled forwards (for perhaps the first time in history), a little more QA could have been done.

3) Control 'Clunkiness'; Yes. SMART is a little clunky right now, but it has very good potential, perhaps tweak the way weapons work together with it, maybe changing the player's momentium a little bit; I understand that how it is now more accurately reflects Parkour videos with the constant stopping-and-starting, but using the terrain to your advantage is difficult under the best of conditions. I myself have only been able to use downhill-terrain to my advantage coupled with the SMART system, and perhaps that is how it was intended to be.

I have further thoughts that I will reflect on, collect and likely post to a separate thread when they're all well and together.

omg, this is like the 3rd post ive seen saying this.
YOU DONT HAVE LAG ON THE PS3 CAUSE YOU ARENT PLAYING ONLINE!!
seriously . . .

After having played Brink for a couple hours I have to say I'm suffering serious buyers remorse. It's by no means a bad game, but there is nothing about it that makes it really special, and it has some serious flaws.

Why Brink falls short of my expectations:

1. Customization. Sure, you can customize a lot in this game, but the vast majority of it is cosmetic only. The customization options beyond that are marred by serious balance issues. I haven't seen a single heavy do well in a multiplayer match, because all the heavy weapons are so inaccurate that they are worthless. The grenade launcher is total crap because in a game where everyone constantly moves there is little to no point to a weapon that is really only good for busting enemies out of cover, and requires 3 grenades to hit to actually score a kill. Sniping is incredibly powerful in Brink, even a novice sniper can easily score headshots. I wouldn't say I've played enough to know all the ins and out of how the game is balanced, but even just in about an hour online there is a clear trend emerging. Highly accurate light weapons completely dominate the field, heavy weapons are virtually useless, turrets refuse to fire most of the time...

2. Freedom of Movement. Yea, you can do some cool things in this game, but doing any of it deliberately is difficult. Once your character builds up some speed and you're going over and under obstacles you just have no precission anymore. It's notoriously difficult to accurately jump in first person shooters to begin with, and this game makes it even more difficult. Trying to clear a gap without falling in requires you to press sprint. and jump and then watch the grab-on-and-pull-yourself-up animation, during which you'll be staring at a wall. The really big issue with this is simply this though: It doesn't add anything to the game. All the levels I've run into didn't require this mechanic in the least, nor did they give any meaningful advantages to people who used it correctly. It seems like a cool element to a game, but ultimately its just tacked onto a very basic shooter without coming into its own as a meaningful part of it all.

3. Level Design. This is probaply the thing I have the biggest issue with, the level design in this game just plain svcks. For one, getting your bearings in the levels is extremely difficult because everything looks the same. There are no recognizable landmarks, no clear paths to follow, no notable change of scenery. You're in an aquarium, all the hallways are blue, and there are fishtanks on the wall, and the entire level is like that. You're in a slum, there are shantys built from rusted metal, and the entire level looks like that. I mean, if you play something like Battlefield or Team Fortress it's extremely difficult to get lost. You play a map once and you'll have a decent understanding of where to go, even if you don't know every corner of it yet. What's worse though is that every single level is a labyrinth on top of being devoid of landmaks that make navigation easy and you can easily get lost just heading towards an objective marker, simply because the marker doesn't tell you that the path you've been following is going to loop around behind it, then lead through a tunnel and end up back where you started.

4. General gameplay is just uninspired. It doesn't have the depth of Battlefield, it doesn't have the simple elegance of Team Fortress. The pace of combat, level design and mechanics are more akin to COD, but it tries to have objective based play. The class system is pretty lame too. You dispense buffs, and you have a few special abilities, all fine and dandy, but for the most part you don't even notice what class you're playing, since weapon selection isn't tied to the class for example. I can have exactly the same weapons as a medic as I can as a soldier. Now you'd think this would create greater freedom in the game, but honestly, all it creates is a sea of assault rifles and SMGs with nothing else ever cropping up. Also since you can't actually see what class an enemy character is it has even less bearing on how the game plays. In Team Fortress I'll fight a Scout completely differently than a Heavy or a Demoman, in this game there is pretty much no distinction there, so the end result is: boring.

5. Not in the least intuitive. This games controlls, menus, and general gameplay isn't intuitive. I play team based shooters every now and again, and usually have no problem finding my way around in one, but whoever designed the UI in this game is just not doing it right. For example: when you want to equip a weapon outside of combat you have to bring up the weapon in the selection, then hit a little half faded radio button in the corner of its icon. Who the hell comes up with an absurd UI like that? Why not just have a big fat "Equip" button on the screen so you don't have to look around for how to equip the weapon, or a drag and drop system where you can put the things you like in the apropriate slots. Oh yea, probaply because you didn't think of PC gamers, which brings us to point #6...

6. Tons of technical issues. The game is buggy. The graphics don't display correctly on ATI cards, text in the game randomly appears garbled and out of place, two out of three times it crashes on startup for no reason. I'm not the only one with issues either, tons of people are having these troubles. Did anyone even bother to test this? How about putting a big fat disclaimer on the game "Warning, will not work if you have an ATI card" so people can save their money and buy a game that works.


So, my overall oppinion of this game:

When compared to titles like Battlefield or Team Fortress this game just doesn't deliver. The classes are too understated, the levels aren't interesting, the game isn't intuitive at all, it's full of bugs and graphics issues and the things that were supposed to be the most notable features of this game: High customization and the freerunning are in no way a meaningful addition to the game, which as a result is left as nothing but a second rate shooter.
I bought Brink expecting something like Battlefield BC2, which provided me with 100+ Hours of online entertainment, and what I got bored me aftera mere 2.

I wish I had not bought this game, the only thing that I like about it is that hopefully my purchase will help pay for that extra hour of QA time for Skyrim so it doesn't have the same massive issues with malfunctioning graphics and shoddy UI design.

I love how you pbrought up how custimization is all but useless and you are absolutely correct. In order for some one to enjoy this level of customization you need two things. One) Slower speed or two) some sort of thrid person view for a minimum of 25% of in game time.

How did Bethesda screw up? It was hyped up by other players, not the publishers themselves. Personally, it's a game worth playing. I don't understand why things like the above mentioned bother you guys so much.

Customization is pretty basic in this game and as noted by the first poster, it's mainly cosmetics, but it's still customization isn't it? Point out a FPS that allows you to change the color of your jacket/shirt let alone allow you to change the type of jacket/shirt. You've seen videos before the game was released so maybe you just need to do a bit more research before buying.

I've also been in many matches where parkour was essential to reaching areas quicker especially when attempting to disarm a hacking device or dynamite and they're not bad when you just want to scale the map quicker. Dubbing it "meaningless" is all personal preference and true, it's your thread and it's your opinion, but is it really enough to bash the game as a whole?

The level design seems fine to me.. don't expect to memorize every nook and cranny after the first few days. It took me a good week or so to fully memorize BF:BC2's maps and CoD's maps (some of them). There are actually two maps that I memorized already from Brink and they're not all that complex. You seem revoltingly bias in your post.

I can't say anything about your complaint on the classes. I've been an ET enthusiast and they shared the same system. ET had the medic, engineer, field ops (air strikes and ammo packs; similar to soldier in Brink), covert ops (similar to operative; ability to disguise), and soldier (not the same as Brink's soldier). Most of them have VERY similar abilities to the classes in Brink and none of them really had exclusive weapons give or take a few. The soldier had access to a "panzerfaust" and other heavy weapons, but isn't that similar to Brink's light, medium, and heavy body types? This system is fine for many players, but I guess it just isn't your cup of tea