Review: Brink

Brink is the first in-house outing for the Splash Damage studio, known previously for contributory work on the Quake Wars and Wolfenstein brands. A title based solely in online play (the single-player campaign is merely the multiplayer offering, with AI teammates instead of human players), Brink is a class-based shooter based in a dystopian future in which two factions, Security and Resistance, battle for control of the Ark, a floating, nigh utopian city originally developed as a self-sustaining and environmentally conscious living space that becomes the home of its creators and thousands of people displaced from their homes due to globally rising oceans. With a class system reminiscent of the Team Fortress titles, a parkour-inspired movement system for players, and a unique art style, does Brink stand above its competition, or does it buckle under the weight of its promises?

The Good:
The Art Style - The very definition of a "risk", the characters have a very cool, semi-animated look to their appearances, with elongated faces and very muscular bodies; however, due to the slender character models, this seemingly "human" conflict that is the central focus of the game is lost on the player, as the whole thing just ends up looking like a war of the Gumbys (click here if you don't know who Gumby is).

The Class System - A common affliction of first-person shooters is everyone acting in a self-centered manner; everyone is working to get the most kills, often to the detriment of their teammates. This game approaches this differently, by having objectives throughout multiplayer that only specific classes can complete (for example, an operative hacks a database or an engineer fixes a crane) and by having each class perform specific functions during battle: you can have an engineer setting up a turret while a medic improves his health and a soldier provides him with extra ammunition. Team Fortress and the Battlefield games approach this similarly (if only in class function), and it adds a much needed change of pace and depth to the experience.

The Conflict - While the story is not the best ever seen in a game (by a long shot), I very much enjoyed being given the opportunity to play as either side in a conflict; for a missions where I was trying to bomb a wall as Resistance, I would be tasked with holding down that area as a Security member.

The Bad:
Glitches - The first day I got this game, it was nearly unplayable online; massively slowed-down servers brought gameplay to a standstill and every game ended with my quitting back to the main menu leading eventually to just playing with bots for the first few days. This experience is fairly indicative of the final product, which just feels entirely rushed. Texture pop-in is to be expected in the majority of the matches you will play and the parkour-inspired movement system is a glitchy mess the majority of the time. To be frank, unless you are playing on a very stable internet connection, expect frustration, and lots of it.

Storyline - With one-dimensional characters and conflicts that are fairly self-explanatory, this is a very paint-by-numbers game when it comes to the story. Each side fights for control of an island - that's all you really need to know. Everything else is just gravy, most of which goes mostly unexplained.

Security/Resistance Campaigns - When this game was in development, Splash Damage would often talk about how there would be two campaigns: that of Security, and that of Resistance. What they neglected to mention was that they are exactly the same thing. For each mission where you play offense as one side, the other side's mission will be defense, and vice versa. While it makes sense and is fun to play as both sides in a conflict, us gamers as consumers are essentially given fifty percent of the product that we expected to receive; it would have made more sense to have each faction with its own storyline, and players have the option to either play as the opposition to one faction or to play their own storyline.

The "Why?"
Multiplayer Lobbies - This is what I still do not understand: there are games out there that, despite the success and ease of the multiplayer lobbies found in titles such as Call of Duty or Halo, still release their products with a lobby that is either convoluted or simply counter-intuitive to the point of making any multiplayer match a chore (if you can even get into a game). Brink is one of those such games, with several different menus for each mission you can embark on, requiring the player to back out of a menu and find another mission just to go through the menu system all over again. It gets the job done, I suppose, but there were much more elegant and simple solutions to the problem that Splash Damage either chose to ignore or simply was incapable of executing.

My Score: 5.0/10
Once one of my most anticipated titles of 2011, Brink was a huge disappointment. From a multiplayer system crippled by glitches to mission structures that were flat-out unenjoyable, this is a game that completely squandered its potential. The SMART system (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain, or parkour) is the most enjoyable aspect to the game, and even it is functional only about 75% of the time. While this game borrowed heavily from the big names in the first-person shooter industry, namely the Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Team Fortress franchises, it relies mostly on its gimmicks to get by, not learning the lessons that its predecessors have to teach when it comes to crafting an enjoyable online experience. If you want parkour, check out Mirror's Edge. If you want class-based combat, your best bet is Team Fortress 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It is not a horrible game; it just falls short.

My recommendation: Avoid it.