Brink, the story of opposing factions facing off to unify Ark or escape the floating city.

Quite honestly this is one of the most innovative games I've played in a long time and I am as of now enjoying my experience.

However....

SplashDamage has provided us with a game that asks us the question, did i really buy into this crap?

Single Player: I purchased the game at 11:15AM on 5/10/2011 and at 2:00 i was completed with the complete storyline of the rebels. Multiply this by 2 (for each faction) and you get at max 6 hours of gameplay. And here's the kicker, all you are doing in the other half is the exact opposite of the mission you did in the first playthrough. So in reality just completing one set of storyline you have effectively finished both. Bravo on doing half the effort that should have gone into this game.
Challenges Solo: Only 4 challenges..... Solo play you get 3 AI characters with you, of which they seem to be scraqed from the bottom of the gene pool, and not the fancy gene pool, the one outside a motel that you know a little kid has taken a dump in. Forget that they are any class that you actually need because they wont do squat for you. You'll be going at the fights alone for the most part except for when they bravely jump in front of you to take the damage from an incoming bullet. Then you end up dying anyway because one of them randomly slides into your leg. And just an FYI doing the challenge Parkour This you get no help from the game at all. You basically have to wing it to get all the objectives which are difficult because most of the time you are sprinting and using your SMART key and you end up flying right off what you are trying to mount. I'll get to multiplayer challenges down further.

Solo on OnlineMultiplayer: *Scoff* Where to begin.... Lets start at the begining, the maps, of which there are 8, and of those they are all missions that you did in the main storyline. Once again, kudos on doing half a job SplashDamage *thumbs up*. The objectives for each map are the same as their single player counterpart, so they get very repetative very fast.
Second lets talk about fps. Let me clarify that i know that it was only day one of release and they may give us patches to fix the issues. But you cannot overlook the fact that SplashDamage gave us a game that is no where near capable of playing online player vs player. The lag issues are so horrible they are incredibly unfair to all players in the game, jumping from one spot to another, going backward, aiming lag, and occasionaly just freezing in place for minutes (I literally had one where i was standing in one place for 2 minutes). For a comparison it would be like playing with one bar on CoD. Speaking of CoD let me remind SplashDamage that in releasing a FPS with online 'play' you stepped into a world that is almost ruled by Call Of Duty and you came out with this mess as though you are just trying to capitalize off other FPS success, its almost disgraceful and you've let your players down. Not even making sure that your multiplayer online was properly done so there would be no complaints in that manor was a very bad decission. I have 2 words for you, DEDICATED SERVERS. Then things like this wouldn't happen.
Third, unless i missed this, there is no chat within the game itself. I can be in an xbox party with my friends and talk, but in the actual game you have to rely on the characters in game voice prompts to figure out whats going on. Don't you think that in a SQUAD OBJECTIVE BASED GAME you would want your players to communicate freely with eachother? (If there is ingame chat and i am just mistaken please correct me and disregard this but in over 20 online matches that i attempted to play, NO ONE talked and i couldn't hear any feedback from other mics).

Multiplayer Co-Op Story: Ok this part of the game is pretty good i have to say. Me and two other friends were able to play through the missions just fine, minimal lag from our connections and with the help of Xbox360 party chat we were able to help each other out to fully complete the Rebel Missions. No problem, a little frustration at how easy we went down sometimes, but overall a pleasing experience. The objective wheel needs some tweaking though, you spend a lot of time trying to select your new objective and can easily be killed while wildly seeing what each objective has to offer.
Challenges: WARNING: If you are going to do multiplayer challenges and unless you are very very very good, do not do these in less than a group of 4 when you are doing the first challenge. The difficulty is set incredibly high on these and even with 3 somewhat experienced players we were no match for the 6-8 AI's they had on the opposing team. Oh and you don't get any additional AI on your team if you are in multiplayer challenges, just you and your buddies, that's it. Oh and lets see, the second objective in the first challenge takes place RIGHT WHERE THEY COME OUT OF THEIR SPAWN. Good map making.

Mulitplayer Online: That truely makes this a horrible experience is the lack of premade parties. If i want to play with xbox live friends, i first have to search a game, and then once I am in the game i have to invite them via the menu. There is no advanced search tools that put you into lobbies you just go straight into the middle of a game if there is room. And then *BOOM* lag engaged. It's just a horrible experience and a pain in the balls to deal with. On top of that *copy and paste what i said above into this paragraph and you got how it is*

Level system: 20 levels split into ranks and 11 abilities per class. I kinda like this however 20 levels is a VERY low cap, I myself am level 10 with only about 5 hours of gameplay, i bet by now there are level 20's and the game has only been out for 24hours. I would have loved to see a variety of abilities so that each individual could create a unique class, and i hope that SplashDamage produces a lot of patchwork for this game because it has excellent potential. And i truely mean that, this game has amazing qualities about it that games like CoD that are all about stroking a single persons ego just can't compare to.

Dear SplashDamage: You have a good basis for a game here but if you ask us it's not much more than a facebook fps. It's flashy and neat but needs a lot of work before you can gain my (and a lot of other gamers) trust back. We would like to see more maps, more levels, different abilities, smoother online gameplay (dedicated servers would be nice), smarter AI, different game modes, and overall just a better gaming experience. For being in the FPS realm you've fallen well short of the major hits of the genre, but we see in you something that could turn into one of the greatest games of all time. We hope you take this criticism to heart and don't see it as us making a stink.

~Sincerely
FlameDestiny and the rest of the community

I thought everything was good multiplayer wise it was just the shoddy AI they group you with for the campaign and challenges that needed improved x10.

i think the AI is alright but why is it that their weapons seem absurdly powerful compared to ours?

I think it has something to do with the fact that the AI probably don't get the horrible recoil that we do as players and don't have to adjust, so their bullets hit more often.

Greetings Flame,

Thanks for the effort you put into your post. I respect you effort to explain yourself rather than just another lazy troll fart. . .Lets go over a few things you stated:

1. Dedicated Servers

Do you know how much the servers cost and how much they are to maintain? Maybe BRINK 2. . .but seriously if Activision is too cheap to pay for dedicated servers for Call Of Duty is it really fair to judge Bethesda for not footing the bill?

2. Grassroots

I remember when I was a kid, skateboarding was starting to be the cool thing (Late 70's, early 80's) and some guy walks into class with a seatbelt beltbuckle. He got made fun of and it did'nt really hold his pants up. But guess what happened? Wearing a seatbelt beltbuckle became wildly popular and eventually were marketed and sold in clothing stores across the nation. So if you understand where I am going with this, try not to burn the flower before it has a chance to fully bloom.

3. In-Game communication

I understand your points about the in-game communication, and they are valid points. While PS3 does not have voice comm, there is a chat app that can be used and it is quite effective. 360 has everything in place to allow you to communicate with friends just fine. Therefore what Splash Damage has done is put the forums, existing console elements to work rather than weighing down the game. Try Freeplay for clan battles and whatnot. It works fine.

4. LAG

Let's remind ourselves that BRINK does not have the robust already established community like Black Ops does, so with HOST based connections, yea there is going to be lag. Let's all take a moment to remember how much of a pain it is to play Black Ops online. . .HOST MIGRATION, DROPPED GAMES, etc. I say focus your energies on Activision, who is a multi billionaire and should be held accountable for their flaws as they have an established dynasty and BRINK does not.

5. Call Of Duty

I have to say you were mildly insulting when you suggested that Slash Damage was just trying make a buck off the FPS genre. Have you seen the developers? Those guys talk about BRINK like its their newborn baby. How dare you imply something like that with absolutely no basis. . .shame on you for that comment. I say again, since your comparing CoD and BRINK, I think that your efforts are in vain if you have not blasted Activision for:

- Not having Dedicated Servers
- Horrible Online Stability Issues
- Voice Communication Glitches


Like I said before, thanks for taking the time to explain yourself. I think your problem is this: YOU JUST DON'T GET IT. Cheers!

Watch how often the enemy boost each other. Especially on 2 and 3 star challenges. Try an AR wep / SOLIDER with some attachments, hit high chest and head shots and see that you almost get one hit kills.