First of all, massive credit to Amazon UK who posted my game yesterday evening and it arrived this morning TWO days before the release day.

I've been lurking and sometimes posting on these forums and over at Splash Damage to get all the news on the game. After a lot of very mixed reviews and plenty of criticism I've lowered my expectation wildly and know what to expect now when I play the game, offline as well because PSN is still down unfortunately but I'll take all that into consideration and give a totally unbiased and honest review once I've put enough hours into it.

ya git i ordered from game hoping it would come tomorrow. oh well enjoy my friend

:O I ordered from Amazon UK as well!! I'm at work now and have no way of knowing if it has come until half 7 tonight! Now all day i'm going to be wondering whether it has come or not.
I hope so because i have a stag party from friday until sunday so there will be no Brink for me over the weekend. T'wuld mean that i can get a good ol shoot in before i go . Ooohhhh Muchos excitement.

Looking like a no (

This upsets me.... I ordered it from there too and no luck for me.

What delivery option you choose?

I got the asap option. Or release day whatever. Maybe the post hasn't come yet. There's still hope! :foodndrink:

I want my copy too. :sadvaultboy:

I got my copy today from a local store here in Mainz, Germany.
But steam won't let me install the game. it says that it isn't released yet.
yes i know, it isn't in europe but why can't i just play the game, at least in single player mode, when i got my copy and the game is released in north america?

can i install it somehow?

I ordered it using First-class. Ironic thing is that I'm in Northern Ireland so surprised it got here so quick.

Anyways, I've just played the game for at least four hours solid non-stop.

I don't think I can fully review it fairly as I'm on PS3 and can't play online, although I can only imagine that the game would be more enjoyable playing with real players, and depending on lag issues, which if present could be fixed. So I'll give a quick review so you guys know where I'm at and to add to the mix of reviews that have swarmed the internet and the forums.

I've been gaming since I was eight years old, always been competitive and always been critical of any type of game from it's graphics to it's content to it's gameplay. I was attracted to Brink immediately during watching the very first cinematic trailer that was uploaded to Playstation Store a long time ago.

So I followed the development and the hype that followed that. I never once expected the next greatest thing or indeed a "revolution". I did expect something unique, artistic, original, fresh and fulfilling as a gaming experience that plays well, offering enjoyment on a competitive and expressive level because of it's customisation, free-running elements and unique design.

Brink achieves that with aplomb.

It's fast, it's crazy, it's relentless and it's a lot of fun. I spent my time creating the character I wanted and I liked the customisation options, they were simple and had enough of what you'd need - it's a FPS afterall, you aren't going to be seeing your character all that often but it's definitely a real nice feature to know you're represented on the battlefield by a character you've created either to look like yourself or the persona in which you wish to fight.

I actually think the AI does it's job. I think it's fierce battling the enemy. I've been playing it on 'Hard' thus far and it's been quite a battle. No matter how skilful you are with the weapon and the movement, it doesn't really mean you'll win the battle because you simply have to support your team and the objectives in the cleverest way you can. I find that AI team-mates are effective enough, they go ahead and try to complete objectives, they buff/revive you and their mates and they use clever movement and tactics when approaching a fight or an objective. I've seen AI team members slide and knock down opponents knowing that on the floor they are svckers for their fully-loaded shotgun. I've watched enemy AI engineers cleverly set up turrets at the last stand in a match and even more cleverly place those invisible mines right behind the turret so any hacker can't just creep up on it and hack it. I got wiped out by that mine and I loved it because it was clever and I didn't see it coming.

So AI for me does it's job.

The other complaints about lag I can't address as PSN is down but lag can be fixed regardless of what platform. Other top titles have suffered bad lag and even downed servers on many occasions with multiple patches and fixes.

The graphics, like the AI, do the job. The maps are nice in design and aesthetics. They're fun to climb around and the AI use every stairwell and corner to their advantage - for example I've seen AI team-mates guard hackers by sitting outside the room and watching the stairwell leading to it, spotting and fighting enemies that try to come up it. The textures aren't 100% pretty, but you'd have to stop and anolyse every little inch of the map to see where it doesn't look so great. The textures do load a second or two after you first spawn, but that's no big deal, I've seen that in plenty of games and it doesn't affect the look of the map once you take your first step forward in a mission.

Another thing that was criticised was the 'Sound'. IGN in particular gave the sound quite a mediocre score in their overall round-up and that's embarrassing because the sound is fine. The music is nice, over 60hrs of it IIRC. Nice mix of keyboards, erhu (which I love) with tense rhythm and then some calm ocean-like tracks that remind me of Mirror's Edge. Beyond the music the guns sound good, the characters and their voices sound good, the footsteps and the SFX all sound ideal. There are some intriguing sounds in the Aquarium map which really adds to the atmosphere.

The parkour and movement is fun. It doesn't always work as perfectly as you'd want it, but you have to measure each map to work out what you can vault, climb and bounce off. The sliding works really well and I love that. Sliding into cover or sliding away from a shooter and spinning 180degrees on the floor to target your pursuer is a lot of fun. Melee works and the knife in one hand with a pistol is fun as well.

As a simple, fun, team-play objective-based FPS Brink delivers.

8/10 and that's without having played it online. If it plays as smoothly online then it'd be definitely edging towards a 9.

If the reported lag is an issue and doesn't get fixed then you'd have to mark the game down again, but surely that'll be fixed? And if it does get fixed then I seriously look forward to teaming up with real players in Brink on the PS3.

:celebration:

Cheers for the review! There have not been that many reviews for the PS3 Version.

It's all just making me more jealous that mine didn't come today I guess Friday it is, with a quick hour of play before trekking down to Bristol to get trashed.
...I Guess it's not all bad