12/03/11 Brink Review

Brink.

This game. Do not buy it.

No seriously I mean don't waste your $5-$20 + tax on it.

I'll get to why in a second. But I just wanted to reiterate this fact. Because I feel that my not that exceedingly valuable time was wasted :/


So I'm sure you're thinking, well why the animosity? Brink has a decent premise, the graphics aren't too bad, it's "innovative-ish" and it's a team-based FPS... What's there not to love?

And then I burst your bubble. All games have their flaws. This one has several balancing issues that make it unfun. No, unfun isn't a word. But after investing enough hours into this game to pump out a lvl 19, I've realized that I've either wasted my time or I was just a fool to think it was fun to begin with.

The "Incapacitation" screen

So yeah to start this story, Steam had it for free this weekend. And like most gamers, free means full game that I might as well try for the shitz and giggles. And while the 6 gigs of what I thought would be exceeding amounts of fun was sucked off of the internet, I contemplated to myself *pensive look* Hmmm... I might as well read up on it and get an idea of the where I'm going to be spending the weekend. It's wiki page isn't well populated and I guess that's largely because this game has a small fanbase. That and/or it's kinda dying and was more of a one-shot wonder than a real game. (Much like what happened to MNC)

Anyway the story of the world is that in the near-distant future, global warming fucks the world up. Think Earth gets flooded. Luckily... or magically before that happened, the world of tomorrow was built. Eco-friendly, full of sustainable energy and designed as an Eco-resort, an island? was built: the Ark. Of course when shit happens like this those who lived after the flooding try to go here. Which is an issue. And so the Founders (capitalized as it's the name for the group) decide to separate the Ark into two distinct sections for the rich and the poor (the "Guests). It's all nice and such but this leads to issues of rationing supplies and protection and disease and all that jazz.


Move a few years into the future and you have the present story line. It's 2044-ish and the Guests are pissed off that they live in the makeshift universe of decayed ships, containers and generally corroding everything. While the rich are on their piece of paradise still. (sorta like today's 99% rallies arguing that the rich own too much of the wealth, multiply that by several hundred). And while morally I understand why it's important to help your fellow person and what not, the idea of giving out your own resources when the world is already fucked up doesn't make much sense. This on top of the fact that the Arkoral (a portmanteau for Ark + coral) that the generally not well described base of this location is built on; yeah it's dying and crumbling too.

Character Selection Menu

So it's now the future and this world is divided. The Founders have put together the Security (Blue faction) to keep the order and protect the Ark. The Guests make up the Resistance (Red faction) who strive to capture the Ark for themselves and eventually go off into the world and search for other survivors. (There really is no real story besides that. As the ending sequence shows basically the same thing of the leader of each side being pensive and what not. Finishing both stories is just about as easy and leaves the player with another interesting cutscene that also doesn't answer any questions.  And yes if you were wondering, there are survivors out there, and no it doesn't make any sense that no one has yet come to visit these people.

Among other new things that this game brings is the SMART system. SMART is an acronym for something or another and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment. Anyway basically speaking the game automatically attempts to scale or slide the character through terrain obstacles based on how the character moves. For example if you're running at a wall with a ledge, lighter characters potentially vault forwards and climb upwards; or if you're aiming down at the space beneath a pipe you'll run and slide underneath it (also useful for slide kicking enemy characters). This feature is in reality useless. Because if you're sprinting (running-ish and making sure to follow group characters), the AI will magically think that yes just because you haven't stopped holding down the sprint button, you as the player wants to climb on EVERY GOD DAMN TABLE, LEDGE, and BARRIER... No seriously this was arguably the single most irritating thing that would happen, (because during this time you can't fire or heal or anything, you have to deal with 2-5 seconds of your character trying awkwardly to climb (as opposed to jumping or I don't know... some other action) onto a two-foot table.

Probably the only weapon I liked the color design to.

Good things about the game:

1. Detailed models of weapons, outfits.

2. Mix of Fallout + Resident Evil-ish world.

3. Attractive storyline/premise.

4. Every class can use every weapon, potentially.

5. Customizable weapons.

6. Switch classes and weapons mid-battle.

Detractions about the game:

1. Ping system based map that doesn't show environmental barriers.

2. SMART system is retarded as fuck. - What I noted above.

3. AI would favor running into mobs firing at them than completing objectives. - No seriously the easiest way to rack up EXP is to play a healer and run around reviving the AI, almost a guaranteed 13k+ exp each mission.

4. Pip based supply system favors dying and respawning over management of supplies and actually surviving. - Pips slowly recharge and ONLY the soldier class has a realistic recovery system for them.

5. Weapons have unusual spread and stability realism factors. - Not sure how my handgun's aim gets progressively worse when I'm shooting with my iron sights on :/

6. Character HP doesn't always reflect amount of damage able to be taken. - I've seen characters take two shot gun rounds to the back and magically survive. No Just NO.

7. Armor is basically an aesthetic characteristic of this game. Has no real purpose, has no real reason. - It doesn't add health, durability or anything else. Hell I could be in the nude and take just as much damage as some guy in full riot control gear

8. Character creation menu annoying and clunky to control. - Slow loading of features/color schemes and the like.

9. Each character has to individually unlock all outfits :/  - Why would I want to level a second character ever?

10. No female character. - Literally everyone is a guy. Only 2 female voices in the game. And neither of them are EVER seen.

Neutral things:

1. I swear I keep hearing the sound from the Assassin's Creed menu.


ANYWAY Yeah don't get this game. To be honest since it doesn't have a solid fanbase like TF2 and CS do, it's likely to die sometime in the near future. It's already hard enough to find a non-cheating Private Server to play with other people on, no point in bothering with it anymore.