Brink

If treading the waters and building up a solid roster of characters sounds appealing then Brink could be the alternative shooter you've been waiting for.

The hype around Brink was huge and the game doesn't live up to all of the expectations. The campaign is extremely short and so it's the online gameplay that saves this game from demise. With the right teammates you'll have a ton of fun online.

It's a bit rough here and there but it can also deliver a lot of good times. If you have co-op on your mind, leveling up with mates has its moments but it quickly devolves into a frustrating group training mode. Single-player gamers? Jog on elsewhere. [July 2011 p.82]

The parkour-style approach to this team-based shooter is not unique enough to overlook its lack of an authentic campaign, broken maps, and terrible A.I.

Brink tries to present many good ideas, but it falls short and, in the end, it's just the same gameplay mechanics we've seen many times. The SMART systems is not as dynamic as it should be; the game modes are all the same; the feeling, overall, is that we have a fun and interesting multiplayer game (even in its Campaign mode), but users are left without new emotions. Many customization options that, in the end, are nothing new.

In the end, Brink is another of those games that we see every so often; the games that have incredible potential and truly unique ideas but fail in their implementation. This could have been a great game, it could've been a hit and it could've given shooter fans a reason to return to a genre that has lost much of its originality over the last handful of years. Unfortunately for us and for its developer, the keyword here is "could've", because there's little here that makes Brink the genre redefining game some of us hoped it would be.

We were promised a nice mix of everything from Battlefield and Borderlands to Mirror's Edge. And while we do get some of that, the Brink experience just doesn't feel smooth and after a few hours of playing, there isn't enough that will make you come back for more.

Brink is not a bad game. If Splash Damage can stabilize the performance and fix some glaring omissions (like a pre-game lobby) with a patch, I'd gladly spend more time with it. But with only eight multiplayer maps, 20 progression levels, no clan support, and average gunplay, it's not a good value proposition. Especially considering many Xbox Live games offer a similar amount of content for a fraction of the price. [July 2011, p.86]

You can get a sense of the minute-to-minute gunplay being something special with the right group of friends. [Issue#206, p.87]

Potentially a great game, but most of that potential not realised.

But with a slew of little problems, a bunch of repetition, a campaign that isn't anything like a campaign (let's face it; this is a multiplayer game only), and lacking environmental variety, it's tough to recommend. There are other games out there.

Brink's PR did everything to make people wonder just how the eight-versus-eight multiplayer-focused, story-based shooter would change the genre. The short answer lies in the clever tweaks it brings to the formula, whether it's your character's body type or the vast weapon customization options, all the way down to the teamwork needed to succeed. The SMART system feels more like a gimmick, and when it gets down to the actual shooting, it's nothing that we haven't seen before. Top that off with the issues it tries to parkour over, both off- and online, and Brink isn't so much of a revolution as it is a suggestion of where it wants to be.

Brink is essentially a mess of interesting ideas that fail to amount to anything larger. [Aug 2011, p.86]

Brink feels like a breath of fresh air in the shooter genre, but turns out the victim of its own ambitions. That's mainly due to the large amount of potential that Brink holds, which is why it fails at other essential shooter-elements. Nothing's wrong with the way it plays and the class-system, but the lack of a decent amount of game-modes and maps, the below-average artificial intelligence and the constant network-delays, make it so that the qualities of Brink only show themselves very sporadically.

To say that Brink is a bad game wouldn't be accurate, and instead it's a good game that falls short on delivering its full potential. Had it come with more maps, and a little bit more emphasis on the story to make gamers want to learn more about The Ark, it would have been a great class shooter. Straight out of the box it is just a decent one with bad A.I.

On the lively and intriguing battlefields of Brink, technical deficiencies and design issues can be as deadly as enemy soldiers.

Brink has heart, but the overall package is lacking.

Loaded with shortcomings, not really generous in terms of content, Brink still remains an FPS with some really neat ideas, mostly in the way it promotes good teamplay. If you have several buddies with whom to share the experience, and take the time to organize your strategy, you won't be disappointed. But even so, the clear lack of polish, the not-so varied environments and average technical side prevent it from being an excellent FPS; it's only a good one.