Please do not mistake this thread as a complaint against the game. I enjoy Brink and will keep it in my collection for a while. I enjoy good stories in games, but I consider it after I consider gameplay, which is superb in Brink.

One of the things that intrigued me about Brink while it was being promoted was the concept and plot. An experimental environment-friendly city is man's plan to combat global warming. It fails to be implemented and the Ark serves host to refugees of environmental catastrophes. The strain on resources induces a civil war between social classes. The idea seemed creative and free of the cliched stories of most FPS games. I wasn't expecting the story to be great, I was expecting it to exist. I hoped for there to be some development of the conflict on the Ark, and some sort of epic story with real characters. I was taken aback when I realized Brink had none of that.

I played through the Resistance missions on campaign within a few hours. This game's so-called campaign is similar to the pseudocampaigns in either of the Star Wars: Battlefront games. I assume the objective missions are the same as the ones in the multiplayer mode, with a couple minutes of cutscenes to create the illusion of a story. Players preform simple objectives in maps rather than levels. In one of the "Behind Brink" developer videos, a Splash Damage dev whose name I did not notice claimed Brink had a "strong, narrative-driven campaign." I don't feel like this is an opinion, I feel like it's a blatant lie. Brink's campaign is totally free of a story, and that's a let down considering the interesting brackground.

It wasn't terrible, but they could have done much more with it than they did.

I would have also liked for the PC to have a speaking role, but no, it's just those 2 black guys & their commander.

wait..... there was a story? lol

It's a multiplayer game like Star Wars: Battlefront, they both have really no story. More of a concept than a story, which is fine by me.

I havent tried the campaign mode yet, but i can say there is a story line here, it just may not be in the usual cut scene manner you pointed out. The one i enjoyed the most so far is the one where it starts out telling the story of the ark and how it took (40??) years to build, not sure of the story but looked cool. The one thing i absolutely despised about the game is i have yet to find a subtitles option and dont believe there is that option. Bummer because i am legally deaf so the story line is very hard for me to understand without finding reading material on the subject online somewhere.

+1 - Only getting it for multiplayer....ignored all comments about SP

Had SD from the start just said "Nah, we're not doing a story of any sort" or perhaps "the story will be yours to create!" I wouldn't have minded. I naturally gravitate, similar to you I presume, towards games that have fortitude in both narrative and gameplay but I'm more than happy to make an exception in the case of something like Brink that's trying something new at the expense of plot. The aggravating point is, once again as you mentioned, that SD was using a "rich, compelling single player narrative" as one of the game's selling points. Even amongst people who generally pass over single player campaigns entirely in games I don't think anyone would agree fifteen second arbitrary cutscenes bookending missions counts as a narrative in the most basic sense, let alone a compelling one. It's almost funny that I would have honestly preferred them saying "You're Security now: Go beat the Resistance!" than these half-baked, completely unrelated dialogues between unnamed characters.

There are like, only two characters in the game: Brother Chen and Captain Mokoena, and both of them see no development throughout the campaign.

The dialog in the introduction to every mission is pretty much the same. I think the most common phrase I heard in the Resistance campaign was "they live in luxury while we live like slaves." I get the idea, but there are other ways to word it, you know? Oh, and also "subsidized the Founders for too long."

A lot of the story comes from the Audio Files unlocked during SP and MP. Just because the story wasn't presented in the way you wanted it to be doesn't mean it isn't there.

Have you guys listened to the audiologs at all? There is a lot of them and they're very interesting, at least if you're interested in the story aspect. Gives you a good sense of the history as well as the politics.

I think SD was aiming for a story you could enjoy on your own and not bugger down online play with the same cutscenes over and over. Plus it's less to retcon in future installments.

Exactly. They wanted there to be a story, but they also wanted those people who aren't the campaign-types to just be able to jump right into the fun.

I think the story's actually fairly good, considering I honestly can't 100% stand with either faction. They seem to have hole-proofed both sides, as neither are the good guys or the bad guys.

Personally, I approached this game to just fulfill my multiplayer experience.
Normally, I'm all about story, but I wasn't expecting Brink to offer a huge amount of depth in that department.
Now that Rock Salt Yes has mentioned the audio logs, though, I'll have to go back and listen to those.

If they wanted that couldn't have had more story and added a skip button? Sorry, but that sounds like an excuse to me.

I was disappointed by how disjointed the story seemed to be. Playing through the security campaign, it's clear the squad has some doubts with some zealotry to quell those questions, but this is never explored. Instead, each cutscene is kind of samey as one guy voices concerns and another one goes "OMG TERRORISTSSSFDFSFSDFSAF!"

That the resistance is trying to escape the ark wasn't something I'd been made aware of until I loaded up the game; prior to that, I thought they were fighting for...I don't know, more resources or something.

I could see a deeper power struggle going on, where the Founders have no desire to find out if the world has ended due to the immense power they wield; both security and resistance forces are being lied to by their commanders and leaders to keep them fighting without question while key figures play them both to the middle. This obviously doesn't pan out, but I actually wouldn't mind reading (or writing, hint hint Bethesda) a book with this setting.

But it's just not in the game.

There already is a skip button, but if you've got 5 minute long cutscenes you've got team mates who have to either wait 5 minutes to play because one person wants to watch it or missing team mates who are watching the 5 minute long cutscene.

cut-scenes gave us motivation for what they were but not much story, i think the only sort of story was in the intro which was great
sounded like it was voiced by that woman that plays M in James bond movies

if i had to criticize the story it would be that we only meet the leaders of each side once and there was no cutscenes showing them lying to there troops to get them to fight
and then the sequel bait at the end

How about the fact that the entire game can be beat in 4 HOURS. Thats a little rediculous. There maybe ten maps but I think its less. The game is good but its lacking in content. $60 is too high. I was very dissapointed with being able to complete ALL missions on both sides in 4hrs. The SMART system needed more work too. It doesnt work quite like they show in the videos.

[SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER(kinda)]

I'm guessing you weren't paying that much attention to the story, or haven't played all 10 missions on both sides, yet.

[/SPOILER]

They could have just left cutsenes out of multiplayer or let players vote.

Despite the high-calibre voice acting in the recorder audio in the Dossier, these completely detached audio files to NOT facilitate in good story telling, IMO. Either players don't pay attention to them, don't even realise they have access to them or both -- taht's a lot of missed opportunities to convey the game's potentially brilliant story.

Completely peripheral exposition does not tell good stories in games and I would have preferred flashes of slowly panning concept art while these audio logs played during loading screens or a larger investment in cut-scenes or VO work in the game. Subtlety doesn't work in game story presentation (or anything game related, actually).

Because then you have people who are required to solo if they want to understand the story or a group who are going to whine if they don't get to see it in multiplayer because everyone else has already seen it.

Again the audiologs are awesome, make some popcorn and give them all a listen because they're great for color commentary.

I'll take your word for it. *Waits for saturday* :whistling:

As a PS3 owner, I won't be able to experience Brink online for some time. Perhaps cutscene length is dwindled so online players do not have to watch the same scenes frequently. Splash could have included seperate cutscenes in the campaign.

The short scenes in the campaign do nothing. On the Resistance side, the point "We live like slaves while they live in luxury" is repeated at least three times. The pointless dialogues between unnamed characters do nothing to improve develop any sort of sequence of events, it's just filler.

I never see my own character speak in these cutscenes, he remains aloof in the back. Are player's character's featured in the games cutscenes when you play online?

I havent got it, but from what I have heard the concept is really good, I am still debating whether I will get it (which is why I looked in the forums at these)

Yeah, I wasn't expecting much story from this game, really, so I guess you could say I'm not totally disappointed, per se.
Maybe because it's a FPS, not an RPG?

Many FPS (to me, anyway) tend to have simplistic plots with
lots of totally awesome, cinematic moments of explosions and action (Assassinate foreign bad guy leader and save the world 7 times in one day, kill these aliens and
save the world, etc).

So I wasn't expecting much in the first place, despite how much people hyped about the potential complexity of the storyline.
The storyline did have potential, but I knew it could not live up to its hype/potential, especially
since the single-player is the same as multiplayer, and the devs didn't want any specific "hero" characters to take over the story,
thus no strong interesting character I can really relate to or care about.

So, eh. I'm kind of disappointed but at the same time, I don't really care. The game is an interesting concept and has good gameplay experience (for me, anyway). ^_^

But! Your characters' adventures (and mis-adventures) could be part of the story. Like how Sims is more of a "make your story based on your characters' experiences in the actual game" kind of game, so maybe that's what the devs were aiming for? And there's always fanfiction and/or fanart, lol.