Brink Review

Another shooter to hit the consoles and PC, and with a good advertising campaign on the internet, and TV. Does Splash Damage’s, Brink, live up to the name of Revolution? Continue reading and find out.

This year so far we have had the likes of Bulletstorm, Homefront and Operation FlashPoint: Red River which have all sold very well in this current climate, whilst also showing how strong the FPS market is. Brink is a different kettle of fish and has many opportunities to be great, and be completely awful. As issues such as connecting to online games is a no show. Splash Damage has created a unique game, with great ideas, but just not having a strong enough infrastructure to please the singleplayer crowd, and the multiplayer crowd. A campaign which is very short, and offering challenges which seem more fun than the whole entire campaign altogether.

Story:

Brink allows you to pick either the Resistance or Security, and playthrough each campaign down their routes to what happens on the Ark. The Ark was created due to raising water levels around the world, and there it was, a oceanic paradise, but turned into a civil war. The plot is very linear and you will get it straight away, with no characters having no weight to make it more interesting. You do have the two leaders of each factions, but that isn’t enough, as the story is very poor, as they don’t have that much input into the game at all. The campaign is that short you would think they were nothing but challenges, even though the game does offer challenges, but I will come onto that shortly. You have ‘What If’ missions as well, showing what if this happened instead, and they don’t have any significant weight to make you think that would of been cool. The Resistance leader is Chen, who wants to escape the Ark and see if their is any civilisation out in the world. The Security want to prevent the Resistance from doing that, as they are causing unrest, and they want to save the Ark and fulfil order across it. As you can see, Splash Damage has’t really thought this through as the Ark does look spectacular, but just wasn’t used in the right way.

Gameplay:

Brink uses a free-running smart movement system, which allows you to slide, jump and climb pretty much anything. If this mechanic wasn’t implemented, Brink wouldn’t of had a chance and this does shine. With a poor plot, the gameplay shines in comparison, as it is the main attraction to the game. Sliding underneath pipes whilst shooting doesn’t get old, and running away jumping over stuff to escape your pursuers is brilliant. You have four classes at your disposal offering different abilities such as; solider, medic, engineer and operative. As you would already know the first three classes I mentioned is self-explanatory on what they do, but the operative is where it raises the eyebrow or two. The operative allows you to hack enemy turrets, and of course opening up new pathways for your team to navigate the level, as you will have a primary objective with many side objectives to boost your chance of success.  The operative has a very nice ability up its sleeve, by disguising as a enemy, where you can really dish out some punishment. Spot enemies for your comrades or just go straight for the primary objective, right under the noses of the enemy. There is a levelling up system which gives you more abilities and weapons, plus clothing to the very large customization outfitting to make you unique on the battlefield. Its not entirely offering anything new to the table of the FPS scene, but it does with the Mirror Edge style of flair with the normal shooting.

Brink does have many flaws, as every mode can be played with friends, which isn’t a bad thing, but when playing singleplayer, you will spot the flaws. The campaign missions whilst playing singleplayer can be fun at times, but its the poor AI which makes it a complete utter sour experience. You could be incapacitated, and your medic could just run straight by you, and then turn around to heal you, and then there is the rest of the team. Holding RB brings up the objective wheel, which you can highlight to capture command posts, defend or blow up something or do the primary objective. Whatever you highlight, none of your team members will follow, but just do their own thing, which is just go for the primary objective and do the side objectives. Brink screams out team-play but with just you and the AI, it becomes a Lone-Wolf journey, with the odd occasion of being fantastic when the AI does respond to what is happening.

The game offers a huge outfitting with many content to unlock for your character. Splash Damage have really gone into detail here, which could of gone into the plot and the AI to be quite frank, as I do like clothing to make my character badass. I would of preferred other areas of the game to actually be more polished, and interesting, so I can really enjoy the game. The challenges are fantastic, and my personal favourite is the free-running challenge. The challenges are broken down into 1 star rating, 2 star rating and 3 star rating. You must do 1st, then 2nd and then of course 3rd, and when you have done that challenge they do get harder and they are addicting whilst providing a lot of fun. The online has gone down from 8 players to 4 players due to connection problems, and this kind of ruins the game, as having 4 vs 4 isn’t on the same scale as 8 vs 8. Playing the game with your friends will make the game ten times better than playing on your own, as its beaming with multiplayer written across the box. The AI is a poor substitute to help you on your own, as the objectives require communication, as it will have many blemishes of greatness.

Overall, Brink just doesn’t do it. Great ideas from Splash Damage, as the gameplay nails it and I did have great fun playing the game, regardless of my frustrations and the plain obvious mistakes this game has. I like the balance of great gameplay and story, but Brink only offers one, which just doesn’t do it for me. The plot is very poor, and is the most poorest plots I have witnessed so far this year. They could of used the Ark and the factions in a complete different way to really make it interesting, sinister, and to throw the player to what you are really fighting for. I recommend the game when the online is fixed and more variety is added, and of course dropped down in price dramatically as well. Brink is a fun little grenade which just doesn’t have the explosion to make a name of itself.

Positives:

• Great gameplay.
• Looks great.
• Massive outfitting wardrobe.
• Fun to play with friends.
• Fantastic challenges.

Negatives:

• Poor story.
• AI isn’t responsive.
• Campaign very short.
• Online connection is poor and loads of lag when in a game.
• Not much variety in terms of game modes.

7/10