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 Post subject: Brink - Review
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2011 7:59 pm 
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Brink
Review Details

Console - Xbox

Price - £39.99

Time Played - 7 days

Completed? - Yes

If ever a game lived up to its name then Brink truly is that game. Its a game that brings so many great little ideas but like the proverbial long lost ex girlfriend, it brings far to much excess baggage along for the ride to.

Its a shame really because it all starts so well, the story is decent enough, set on a floating city known as the Ark. Because of global warming and the usual back story of human conflict the sea levels have risen to such an extent that now all remaining life is based on this one not to insignificant floating cityscape. Which would be okay if we could only 'just all get along' but if that was the case we wouldn't have a game, and we wouldn't have the two factions that feature in Brink.

The Security and the Resistance. The story mentions each of their leaders but to be honest that doesn't really matter, as the only time they feature is to guide you into each level as a narrator. Apart from that the only time you hear from each of them is to tell you how badly/well you are doing in each level. A missed opportunity I felt. So the security are as they sound, the Ark's security team, featuring a mixture of heavily armed behemoths, middling soldier types and small lighter classes who are able to do all that parkour stuff you may have seen featured in some of the preview videos.

At this point i was expecting the Resistance to throw up some different options, but in the name of balancing the resistance are the same as the security team in all but name and appearance, with the same class set ups, and weapons, the only difference is the clothes they wear.

The game features challenges mode, Campaign or Freeplay. I'll cover Campaign first.

Campaign is split into 8 levels for each side plus 2 'what if' missions. Rather then have the usual structure of progressing from one mission to the next, the campaign can be approached in whatever way you see fit, with each mission being treated as a completely detached scenario in many respects. There is a story linking them all together but in all honesty you'll struggle to see it once the bullets start flying.

Campaign features a list of primary and secondary objectives. This is where the 4 different classes come into play. Each team either starts as defending or attacking the primary objectives, but in order to do this your team needs to feature a mixture of the four class types to be successful. The classes are:-

Soldier - The typical grunt character, can replenish ammo for other team mates, is the only class that can plant bombs on objectives and can (Following promotion) lay satchel charges.

Medic - Again the typical Florence Nightingale character, can heal characters, buff health, strengthen allies, revive and is the only character that can recover fallen VIP's.

Engineer - Can build barricades, disarm bombs, build turrets, lay mines and buff team mates weapon damage.

Operative - The spy type class, can disguise themselves as the enemy from fallen enemy bodies, is the only class that can hack objectives and at later progression levels carries a rather lethal neural cortex bomb that they can set off when incapacitated.

A successful team will need a mixture of each of these classes, in 'single player' campaign don't get to attached to one type of class because you will need to swop them repeatedly throughout the level in order to progress. The AI tries to capture objectives for you as well but without your guidance your likely to be wiped out extremely quickly.

Campaign can be played as a single player affair (With AI replacing human players on both teams) or as a co-op/versus experience. In co-op up to 7 other players can join your team to fight against AI controlled enemies with the difficulty nicely matching the skill of your team, meaning each match is a challenge, or in versus up to 16 players can join the match with a true 8 vs. 8 campaign experience. Something I was at first impressed to see as it was campaign with real players filling all of the roles on both teams making the matches a real battle and giving a real sense of achievement when your team won. If you don't have internet (cough PS3 cough) then the computer fills the role of team mates, and this is where the problems begin to start.

The AI was spoken very highly of when the designers where being interviewed. We were promised cutting edge AI that would behave exactly like real team mates, capturing objectives, defending and backing you up in firefights. After having played the game on single player without my mates I can safely say that my mates are nowhere near this shit, and that's saying something because some of them are complete retards in co-op matches.

The AI then is completely hopeless. They seem to lack some of the most important strengths to have in a team/class based shooters and that is cohesion and actual intelligence. AI will spawn and rush off towards the enemy choke point in single numbers, rapidly getting chewed up and needing to be revived or worse respawning back at base to repeat the whole thing again, they don't wait to form a more powerful wedge of players, they ignore fallen team mates, they very rarely attempt to take objectives and hardly ever try to support you if you are taking an objective. What I also noticed is that they only really seem to come together as a team in the last minute of an objective ticking down to failure (Objectives are timed you see). Its almost like the game gives them a massive kick up the arse in the last 60 seconds and tells them to stop being so bloody useless.

Fights then will often become a grind of one man heroics on single player until the last minute when everything tries to come together. In MP its not so much of an issue if you have some friends who each understand the nuances of their particular class or role in the team. Even with people you don't know it can end up being a really fun game. Its just disappointing that the AI let it down quite badly.

Whilst we're on the subject of campaign there are a few things you need to be aware of. Firstly their are a ridiculous amount of choke points in the levels. I don't mean multiple entry points either, I mean in each level there is at least one section of it that falls down into one route that one of the teams must get through to complete an objective. This doesn't present much of a problem when playing single player against AI, because as I've already said, the AI is stupid. But against human players who are actually playing as a cohesive team, prepare to swear... a lot. Its a potential game breaker is this issue because if your playing a relatively switched on team they will know exactly where this choke point is, and then proceed to build what can only be described as the beaches of Normandy circa June 6th 1944 around it. Expect to see 6 or 7 turrets, numerous mines, medics backing up the engineers, soldiers chucking satchels and operatives dressing up as your mate to stab you in the back. If you manage to get past these sections then congratulations, you truly have balls of steel, the patience of a chess player or the blind luck of a lottery winner. Repeatedly in online games you will fail a mission because of these choke points being so well locked down with no other way around them. You will swear. A lot

The other thing to be aware of which concerns MP is that there are no lobbies or party system in the game, which considering the entire game is built around drop in/drop out MP matches is possibly the stupidest idea since someone decided Paris Hilton had a singing voice. To miss such a crucial aspect of MP games the world over is just plain crazy. Joining your mates becomes a real pain in the arse, to the extent that me and my mates had to constantly join each others games in the hope that there would be room in one of them for all of us.

The final thing to be aware of in Campaign (And overall to be honest) is the appalling lag that the game is experiencing at launch. This would be slightly more excusable if the game featured massive amounts of players, but we're talking 8 vs. 8 maximum here and sometimes less then that (A maximum of 8 real players on campaign co-op versus the AI) and yet you will still find yourself turning a corner and finding yourself staring blankly at the wall you walked past 5 seconds ago... again. Get into a firefight and its really a case of firing like an extra from Rambo in the hope you'll hit someone. Its disappointing that such a MP focused game has these sorts of problems because the potential was here for some massive laughs.

On the plus side though (If you can ignore the above) I don't think I've played a game that rewards team work as well as this one in a long time. XP is earned in each match which ranks your player up, ranks unlock additional clothes and unlock points for your classes, points can be spent on upgrades that affect all classes (Better grenade damage for example) or on class specific upgrades (Bigger turrets for the engineer, the nasty neural cortex bomb for the operative etc etc) Again don't get to attached to these upgrades as you'll continue to need to switch classes in each match, but these extra upgrades do prove useful.

XP itself is rewarded for successfully completing a map, capturing objectives, supporting your team mates through buffs, heals, defending them, defending objectives and killing enemies. Its the last one out of this list that you get the least amount of xp for. Which is a refreshing change from the COD way of rewarding you. You will earn and rank up far more quickly by completing objectives and supporting your team. I tended to play as the medic class and hand on heart right now, there were at least two levels I didn't actually kill one enemy and still topped the scoreboard at the end of the match because of the amount of support i gave the team. If you want to progress your going to have to work as a team. I like this idea, because it does channel you down the route of thinking about others, rather then just rewarding you for going all Han Solo on your team. The game will still allow you to go and have your mini killing spree if you want. Just don't expect to top the leader board at the end or progress in rank as quickly as your team supporting friends.

So that's campaign then. Freeplay is campaign but with more options tweak able, allowing higher level players to join you, allowing friendly fire etc etc.

Challenge mode is the final play option and is a massive let down. Its a set of 4 different (More are promised as DLC) levels with specific objectives that need to be completed. Success provides additional weapons and weapon attachments that can be used in the main campaign. There are 3 different difficulties to each level and obviously the greater the difficulty the better the unlocks. But what's amazing is that you will probably complete all of these challenges in your first 45 minutes, such is the ease. In fact its easier to do these first, unlock all the weapons and attachments and then go and play campaign because if you return to do them later as a higher rank, the computer will also rank the enemies alongside you, meaning instead of facing weak enemies with pop guns, you'll be facing big ass heavy classes carrying mini guns.

Customization was one of the things that was bragged about when the game was in its preview stages, we were told about the quadrillion different options you would have. I have to say I didn't see it myself, other then having a different color pair of trousers or a slightly different style to someone else, it adds very little. Different clothes add no multiplier to your skills and it basically becomes a race between you and your friends to see who can make their character look like a sex offender first.

To summarize then, Brink does have some nice ideas. I liked the story, I liked the option of co-op campaign against real life players, I liked the upgrade paths on offer for each of the classes. The whole playing as a team and reward for playing as a team is I think not beaten by any other class based game out at the moment such is the way it is done. There are so many snatching victory from the jaws of defeat stories I could bore you with as well but also plenty of having defeat snatched from the jaws of victory ones to...

The lack of a lobby or party system is a massive negative for a primarily MP focused game, this is criminal considering all of the above. The punishing lag at the moment will stop all but the most determined players from joining an 8vs8 game. The choke points against a switched on team will piss you off no end until you rage quit or break a pad and the stupidity of the AI players will have you sobbing into your broken pad afterwards.

So Brink then really was on the precipice of gaining a good score. When it does things well its nigh on unbeatable at what it excels in. But its drawbacks pull it away from the brink and instead plonk it firmly in the average at best camp. I expected so much more. Disappointing

5 out of 10

 

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 Post subject: Re: Brink - Review
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2011 9:09 pm 
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Thanks for than sir. One to avoid then, I see.

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 Post subject: Re: Brink - Review
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2011 10:56 pm 
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DBFmancini wrote:
Different clothes add no multiplier to your skills and it basically becomes a race between you and your friends to see who can make their character look like a sex offender first.


Best line :clap:

Was looking forward to this game too :(

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