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Brink

Brink

Any FPS that doesn't grab the Call of duty template, that which defines all the trimmings of the modern day shooter, and lavishly use it as foundations would be labelled brave these days.

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Any developer that strives to create something different in its own field of expertise could be called commendable. Brink does both. And for that neither word would suffice - "ballsy" would. It's definitely different.

There's a lot to enjoy with Splash Damage's objective-based, team-orientated FPS, so its baffling why between sublime mechanics and the deft touch of gaming expertise here, there's some daft design flaws that threaten to stick a foot out and trip the whole enterprise before it can start running.

Splash Damage has striven to create the comprehensive, all-in-one gameplay experience. Aside from a handful of Challenge modes, everything derives from, and joins back into, the main campaign. It's split evenly in two (with some overlap) between the Resistance and Security, one trying to escape the floating city of the Ark (and generate plenty of collateral damage as they go) the other sworn to protect it. You can work out who's who.

Each stage generates rolling objectives which for the most part applied to the attack or defend school of thought. You jump in either alone (with the Campaign slotting in online comrades if you so wish) or leap into Free Play (Campaign maps in randomised order and chosen by majority vote). Within each level you slip between four classes - Soldier, Engineer, Medic, Operative - as objectives and personal preferences dictate.Certain objectives only specific classes can do (Operatives hack, engineers repair cranes, build blockades), so there's a need to keep your team varied to survive.

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Brink

Every Class has special abilities which grow in number and range as they're unlocked through EXP progression. But even at the bare basic level each offers optional buffs they can dole out to allies, such as increased weapon damage and downed ally-reviving syringes. Every team-helping action you perform - escorting friends, building defensive barricades, hacking into enemy stations - accumulates EXP.

So successful Character progression hinges on teamwork, and teamwork is the basis or surviving, and winning, Brink.

There's a lot to take in, and Brink nearly manages to shoot itself in the foot with a rather drab and over-lengthy series of videos stitched together to open the game. Once the video starts racking up minutes in the double figures its a sure thing attentions will wain and thus finer details will be lost either way. Offering the incentive of a big bundle of EXP for time spent watching is poor substitute for a tighter, more enjoyable interactive tutorial. While you do have access to he Challenge modes that focus on some gameplay elements, they're simply not encompassing enough.

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But there are design choices to applaud. Objectives are quickly outlined and selectable from a circular reticule called on screen with a hold of Up on the D-Pad, with a tap instantly assigning the most vital. Each level offers multiple side-objectives to the primary, and they grow in number once older ones are completed. Team consoles, which are located at spawn points and allow you to change weapons and class, operate on a similar system and break down the class numbers within your team at a glance to allow you to fill any glaring gaps. All post-match boards outlining EXP and Level increases, votes for the next map, scores and the option to back out to your custom character menu to upgrade are located on the same screen. This is not a game that wants you to dick about in endless sub menus. This is a good thing.

Level design has been build with the game's movement style in mind, walkways linked by stacked boxes, grates hiding small gaps at their bottom. Towering balconies becomes potential escapes rather than high rise death traps. Brink is more Mirror's Edge than Halo in terms of speed, and runs automatically transfer into multi-wall leaps and climbs as long as you maintain the same direction (and button hold).

The speed and grace of Brink's in-build SMART system is incredibly liberating, and on the larger levels its comes close to matching EA's previous parkour effort. As a result, you find yourself exploring just to find the quickest and by default, more flamboyant, route through each level, and its a great showcase hook to get you enjoying the game's faster-paced vibe from the off.

Brink

With distance being eaten up at a roadrunner's pace, its unfortunate that the levels immediately seem too restricting in size for your new-found olympian feet, almost oppressive due to this new freedom. On smaller, darker levels judicious application serves best - a hop over cover here, a clamber to a balcony there - else you'll find yourself zooming towards a face-plant against a wall at the stage's edge. Likewise the exuberance in which your character will hurl themselves towards any platform edge means attempts at stopping to nestle down on any midway ledge is harder than it needs to be.

Level design does have its issues though. More so in these smaller levels mined with tight curving corridors, the advantage is weighed far too heavily in the favour of the holding team. Objective points sit midway between team starting points, and its not so much fastest foot first, as the number of fastest feet first. Such are some of the layouts that a good holding team could seal a match there and then - as happens numerous times over matches.

Another issue is AI, which is less Glados, more Companion Cube in its effectiveness, AI-controlled allies approaching cascading bullet barrages with all the fascination of a Lemming to a cliff. The hold points become massacres - a fact corroborated by other reviewers who are all but ready to give up on the game.

Its a given that AI comrades won't be as SMART as human players, but Brink's goons lack even a shred of sense or the ability to use the gifts their creator has given them. As a result single player is atrocious, and a potential for warm-up games before multiplayer matches is completely wasted. It's worth noting that again. Single player is NOT an option - anyone hoping for enjoyment from the game but lacks broadband will be left wanting.

When Brink does work, and you get a leaderboard billing that's reassuringly full of misspelt gamertags and 'comedy' handles signalling the replacement of bots with comrades of flesh, bone and dodgy banter, the experience can be as every bit exciting and tense as the digital gods intended.

Sustained protections throughout ten minute countdowns notoriously falter as winning teams' cockiness inevitably causes them to fumble, and there's still one fantastic memory that sees us masquerading as an opposing player with the Operative's face-stealing ability, waiting until the entire enemy team had amassed at a hacked console before pulling out a shotgun and blasting them, and their chances of winning, all over the walls and ceiling. Add in the more enticing class-specific abilities hanging further up the class trees - such as improved turrets, looting and health spikes - there's good reason to keep climbing upwards, in the multiplayer at least.

But the big question that comes with this terrific twisted take on the team-field is the same you ask of every title that is MP-specific: will it sustain an online audience? In the scale of the many months an online title must continue to hold interest and offer incentives to continue playing, quality outweighs quantity. Pickings may seem slim, with Brink offering an endgame that rushes towards you too soon, too fast, but the hooks are there, and those ballsy design choices outshine the problems.

Brink

Yet there's a counter-argument in the multiplayer field: whether there'll be an audience there to sustain it. That's a harder question to answer. From what we've seen so far in the online sessions there's a greater emphasis on folk standing their ground in sustained gunfights and amassing behind cover. Tricks of the trade for other notable games in the genre, with too few adapting or even playing with the likes of sliding tackles, class buffs and the in-built vertical gameplay that are supposed to dominate and define the experience.

People are playing Brink with the rules of other FPS titles rather than playing it for itself, and that's an ingrained style that no video -fifteen minutes or fifteen hours - can break through. Here's hoping that they learn otherwise. There's a good, different game amid the shortcomings here, and that difference is worth the dip. Brink could become a credible alternative to identikit games which build their experiences atop other's foundations, providing it's not brained by players confusedly swinging a brick pulled from those foundations.

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08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Parkour excels the experience. Bold and brash graphical style pleases the eye. Teamwork? TEAMWORK, Work together or die.
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Single Player - oh god, make it stop. Character progression likely to peak too soon.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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REVIEW. Written by Gillen McAllister

"Only when you've a leaderboard billing that's reassuringly full of misspelt gamertags, is the experience every bit exciting and tense as the digital gods intended."



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