So I've been waiting with eager anticipation for Brink.

I've followed this game since I got a glimpse at the very first trailer for it. And it's turned out to be not at all what I expected in both good and bad ways.

I'll start out with the good because Brink has some very strong good points that will keep my playing it.

The Good.

#1. The SMART system. This has been needed in an FPS game for so long that I can express how much I enjoy being about to vault over objects, dive under them, and climb up vertical surfaces. Just being able to go where I would be able to go in real life in a game and find new places to hide or get the jump on my adversaries is an incredible advancement in the FPS genre. Kudos.

#2. The theme. The feel the theme and the vibrancy of the world is great. Say what you will about the caricature faces and body types, but it works. Just like the simple polygon models and cartoony textures work for World of Warcraft. Brink has created another whole new art style to games that I think will last well on for many years to come and will be the standard by which other FPS games will be compared to.

#3. Co-op and multi-play. Yeah sure, co-op has been done in other FPS games, but Brink makes it fun and challenging with AI that isn't a pushover, nor does it feel like it have godlike omniscience. It's made it really easy for me and some friends to team up and compstomp while we drink ourselves to inebriation, yet be challenging enough for us to actually need to co-ordinate to be successful. And a multi-play that doesn't center around John Rambo style death matches. There's objectives and they matter and you've got to work together to accomplish the mission and win the match.

#4. Hands down the best character customization system ever. Even the UI is simple, streamlined, and easy to understand with little fuss. My avatar looks just like how I want it and I didn't have to spend 3 hours dinking with sliders and radial buttons and color wheels to do so.


The Bad.

#1. Bugs. Getting stuck inside walls and even getting stuck inside other players and other really strange behavior when a host has sub-optimal ping. Getting shot through walls, and other odd AI behavior doing things that don't make sense at all. Kinda expected that things like that would have gotten noticed in playtesting.

#2. The weapons and weapon mods. I understand the idea behind less-is-more. But there is very little difference between most of the assault rifles and there seems to be like 2-3 assault rifles that are actually worth using because there really isn't much difference in terms of accuracy or power with or without mods. Three different muzzle breaks that all do the same thing? And three dot scopes that have no pip customization at all. Sniper weapons are so very situational that running around with one seems to be pointless because AR's are nearly as accurate at range with controlled bursts. I'm not a fan of the shotguns for some reason. I can't put my finger on it. The weapons need some love, because as it is there really is very little difference between the assault rifle stats, and the maps and objective based system does not lend well to people that like to play the sniper role.

#3. I know this really isn't anyone's fault. But when I got the game I expected more of an open-world free-range kind of game more along the lines of STALKER or Fallout that let you jump in and out of scenarios at will. But the maps are all very much the same as CoD or Battlefield. And it feels very sandboxish and I wasn't expecting that at all. But it was kind of a let-down. I was really expecting an open-world type of deal that let you run around and get into mischief or be the guy stopping said mischief.

#4. The level and mission objective design. Right now on co-op against AI it doesn't really matter much. But on PvP multiplay maps, they're small enough and have some absolutely brutal choke points that the matches turn into engineer and medic turret camps versus the hopeless efforts of the zombie horde. And breaking that and getting a win is a herculean feat. Which is both a good and a bad thing depending on one's perspective. But it feels like the engineer/medic turret camp tactic is overused and is somewhat too powerful and does not have a real counter with the other options available to the team that is assaulting.

You where expecting this to be an open worlded game? LOLFAIL!

+1
Epic Fail

I agree in all points, Incindir.

I think you waited for this game with too much anticipation, that you sit there with too much expectations aswell.

No wonder you got disappointed, you fall from a high sky to the real ground.
I prefer just to check games out when they are out, better that way.

To be quite open about this, if BRINK was open-world, it would be strange and good at the same time. It would take even more years to develop and publish it and would probably be even more buggier.

I have never gotten stuck in a wall or shot through a wall, so I have no clue what you're talking about bud.

If you get stuck in a choke point, you deserve to lose. Its called Moltov and frag grenades pal. They help alot.

I agree on basically all points besides the openworld one, and i especially agree with #4 of the bad, some maps are horribly imbalanced.

I thought all the assault rifles were the same too until I started using them more extensively, then their differences, although subtle in some cases, started to show.

edit: I've never experienced getting stuck in a wall either.

Only thing I think is unbalanced is hacking - needs to be sped up, or possibly the Engineer reversing needs to be slowed a little.

Fix that, and there's no problems I've seen balance-wise with maps, etc.

Yeah I totally get what your saying about the choke points, but really thats what I like about it. It makes it soo much more rewarding. My friend and I were doing a all vs game, we were resistance pushing the bot through the hotel place with security trying to stop us. We beat them with 1 min left on the clock, and we felt so badass afterwords.........

But the only problem I have with the game is the lobby system, I have not seen one but their probably is, I dislike how I have to keep opening up my xbox main menu to join my friends you know?