I don't know if any of you have seen previews for Epic Games new title "Bulletstorm", but while the title is aiming for something completely different than Brink I can't help but fear that a few of the concepts in Brink might not be so innovative once release roll around.

To me being able to slide in an FPS that is not bogged down by slow combat is a wonderful thing (by slow combat I'm referring to Fear, Condemned,) and now Bulletstorm has that same ability.

I'm just curious if anyone else might try to take ideas that have made me so excited for Brink's release, it would be a real shame to have a market full of "copycats" (and yes I do realize that innovations deserve to be replicated, yet look at how may CoD games are pumped out to the masses).

Thoughts?

I think looking into the original Halo game, and then FPS games in the years following may give you the information you're looking for.

Halo was released in 2001. Previous FPS franchises like Doom, Duke Nukem, and Quake, lacked much of a plot and were just mindless shooters. Rainbow Six, Metal of Honor, and Battlefield began the trek towards "realistic shooters". Half Life, and especially Half Life 2 started exploring actually having a good storyline. Throw in Counterstrike and you have a lot of very good games, but they all have very similar mechanics.

Amid all of this, Halo was made, with regenerating shields, well balanced multiplayer, an interesting story, as well as unique vehicles and weapons. There were also a lot of smaller additions that were unique to Halo at the time, like the ability to throw grenades and melee without putting away your weapon, making combat much more interesting. Within a year, just about every FPS game had at least some of these features.

Copying what works is a safe way to guarantee sales. Its not even as bad as you might think, there are any number of ways to mix concepts, allowing developers to make unique games without having any truly unique elements.

But the FPS market has been largely dominated by sequel after sequel ever since Halo came out. With lesser sales going to blatant Halo clones. I expect the same to happen with Brink if it becomes as popular as I think it will.

Bulletstorm just looks like a hack and slash with guns. No objectives (like Brink), no teamplay (like Brink) just, rack up the coolest shots/combos you can think of and decimate everything. I've never been a fan of God of War, Dante's Inferno, etc., because gameplay is less about quickly and efficiently killing enemies, and more about killing them with varying combos just so a player can gain more EXP.

You make many excellent points here xShadowcat, I do hope that Brink brings innovation to the FPS genre in general as I'd love to see things shook up a bit.

And as for brink being popular, I really hope that people see the tactical advantage that SMART gives them and at least give it a try

Bulletstorm does look like fun. Does it have SMART? Class driven/objective driven multiplayer? No it doesn't. Actually does it even have a multiplayer?

I understand the differences, yet since I had just finished watching the new trailer it was still fresh in my mind at the time. I am fairly positive that it will have some form of multiplayer, though I admit in part I'll be getting this game for the Gears of War 3 beta that's said to be included.

It's single player only; there's no multiplayer aspect to Bulletstorm. Wikipedia says so.

Shows what college teaches you, and they say Wikipedia isn't a reliable source!
In that case I might just borrow the game from a friend, since I know he'll be getting it.

All those mechanics BRINK uses aside, the really important thing is probably the fact, that single-, coop and multiplayer are fundamentally the same. (Which is the point Shadowcat was trying to make, I believe.)

The first game which was about to do that, was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhroZHTjNFw. In fact, The Crossing would have been even more dynamic than BRINK will be, but unfortunately wasn't finished ever.


So now BRINK will be the game which makes a good story part of the Multiplayer and thus probably will make objective based gamemodes alot more valuable.

Bringing Prince of Persia like acrobatics to an FPS is certainly an innovation all in its own(and having it actually doing what you intended). They are one of the few FPS that have tried a new approach since Halo/Rainbow 6, while still pulling from what made previous FPS games sucessful. There is a great article about innovation in the October issue of Wired. You cannot make huge leaps in innovation, or people aren't willing to accept it/dont have the means to implement the innovation. The computer was actually designed in the 1840's, and wasnt actually built until the early 1900's. The concept of a steam engine was actually developed by the Egyptians(not to be used again until the steam driven locomotive 1000+ years later by the British), but they had such massive labor force, there was no practical need, and they had poor metalworking skills(other than gold). Anyways I'd suggest reading the article, excellent! As for how it actually plays out, we are all waiting(im freakin dieing) to see.
Of course the blending of single/co-op/multiplayer is 100% original(and actually making it work).

Thank you for the link, I really enjoyed the game trailer (it showed a lot of promise, sad to know that it will never be).

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. My university has done a study: They compared real encyclopedias to wikipedia and they came to the conclusion that the amount of false info in REAL encyclopedias contain more mistakes if you divide the mistakes by the amount of subjects.

im confused on the solo coop and multi thing do they mean the charater is the same or the gameplay is the same like they say they are the first to make a system where u edvance ur same in game charater so like when u play solo on campain or online in a multiplayer match ur the same guy but halo reach has that to and so do like all rpgs or is there something im missing

You will use the same persistent characters on the same maps with the same storyline regardless of who you are playing against. The Only difference between multiplayer, Co-Op, and single player is that in co-op and single, either one or both sides will have AI. Actually, there can even be AI in multiplayer, if you allow AI team balancing.

The compendium has all the answers to you questions, my friend.

So true, the compendium is amazing.

I'm confused by your Zero Punctuation.

Generally speaking, however, the terms Single-, Coop and Multiplayer are just misleading, if referring to BRINK. Because it's essentially all the same. WIth a different number of AI players.

Just think of it as two modes. There's Story Mode, and then you have the option to play by yourself with and against bots, or allow other people to take the roles of both your allies and enemies.

Then there's a competitive type mode, where teams would get a shot at both sides etc. I play as Security the first round, win, and then the other team is Security and I'm Resistance. They then have to beat my win time as Security. There also isn't any freebies for bad players, like the example they gave with the intel. It's just a straight versus round, no handicaps allowed.

I think Bulletstorm looks amazing.

That being said, I still think Brink brings a lot of innovation to the table. The SMART system actually seems like it'll work the way we want it to. Not to mention the environments and art style are phenomenal.

The classes seem great. It looks like everything has its own niche in-game, and one person being a generic "soldier" class can't dominate the entire game.

Brink's definitely the game I'm most excited for in the coming months.

For me playing a class based FPS is going to be amazingly fun, it's been a very long time since I've played class based anything. Valve's TF2 on 360 was not as well received as the PC version and sadly did not get much love.

we're on a forum for a game does it matter how i spell or if i use punctuation marks as long as people can read it and understand it i dont care

take a look at the difference that simply adding (or in my case removing) punctuation can make....

having 100% correct spelling punctuation and grammar isn't important but when these 3 things start getting in the way of people understanding what you're trying to say it makes conversation difficult its not that hard to go back and break up your thoughts up into sentences and maybe paragraphs if you're feeling ambitious forcing your readers to have to read your post several times to try and figure out where one thought ends and another begins is a good way to make people just ignore what you say


Having 100% correct spelling, punctuation and grammar isn't important, but when these 3 things start getting in the way of people understanding what you're trying to say, it makes conversation difficult. Its not that hard to go back and break up your thoughts up into sentences and maybe paragraphs if you're feeling ambitious.

Forcing your readers to have to read your post several times to try and figure out where one thought ends and another begins is a good way to make people just ignore what you say.

i kinda agree i just dont get the punctuation thing unless im sayin we're not were then i need that ' so ppl see the difference and the grammar thing is kind of important 2 but i think as long as ppl can read it and understand it i shouldent need to put , . ? and ! and i manly use abrevations for most words like people and because and the "ing" at the end of some words would be "in" instead

I think he's just saying slow down a bit. Not only will you be able to communicate better, but I can honestly say proper typing gives an enormous advantage in life.

ya but put this in account idk how old u guys are but im a freshmen in highskool so im not perfect an im a rebelious one im not much for spelling an slowin down i cant stand bein in one place for to long so i speed things up an forget everything eles