Brink ReviewGenre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: Splash Damage
System I Played On: Xbox 360
Year: 2011
A couple years ago, Brink came out, and it was one of those games that would catch your eye. It had a cool style, and was meeting somewhere between mainstream and obscure. It promised a lot. Now, for a person who plays only for single player, I obviously wouldn’t have any business playing this game, as it marketed itself as this game that integrates online and campaign. Well, the marketing said a lot that pissed people off. It got this game some bad reviews, and I remember one of my friends telling me it was one of the worst games he’d ever played. And I get that, personal hate totally comes into play with an opinion when your game screws you over. (See my Fable III review for example) But I’m sorry, I got this for three dollars, and heard it sucked, so if anything this was better than I thought. Not that it’s good. I played through the campaign which took some time. The campaign has actually a really cool concept. There’s an ark that is suppose to be a haven for people, but now a civil war type scenario has taken place, and a bunch of people are trying to escape. And just that thought of being stuck on ark, stuck with your enemies, it really could be cool. But no, it’s not. It’s your run of the mill first-person shooter. The game itself is almost crying out, "No, we’re different, we’re unique.” But doing some changes to the typical first person mainstream thing is actually less unique to me. It would be like if somebody wrote a book about a school full of wizards, but mixed things up and acted like it was unique. I will say my favorite part though. The look. This game has a really cool style, reminding me of Crisis and Mirror’s Edge. And of course the characters look amazing. They have very cartoonish faces that are definitely their own look, and the customizing on them is amazing. I remember making my guy thinking how could a game with this much customization suck. Seriously, making your dude look cool in his two different costumes might as well have been what the game was marketing it as. But enough about that, what about the game-play? Well, it’s your normal shooter. Two matches full of people shooting. But it tries to mix it up, firstly by giving you classes. For instance throughout the game I was a medic, and my job was to revive people who fell, and also buff up their health when I could. That was actually really cool. Everyone felt relevant to their class. And each mission, there are two different goals. One team will be trying to for instance break into something, the other is trying to ride the clock, forcing them away from whatever they are trying to get into. It doesn’t sound fun, and it’s not amazing or anything, but I found it more entertaining than any ordinary Call of Duty match. But considering that there are only a handful of matches to choose from with both sides, and the sides reuse the maps, it’s not saying much. But there are other things, like the customization comes into play in the fighting. If you’re a small guy like I was, you run really fast, if you’re big, you take more damage. But most of the game-play came be summed as running, shooting, trying to do your objective, and listen to the fucking narrator repeat to you about the supply post. OH MY GOD. Yes, he will repeat over and over again, about these stupid supply posts that are worthless. They are unimportant, and don’t need to know when they’re being taken, or when somebody is going off to go get one, but you’ll be damn sure they let you know about it. In fact a least a quarter of the noises you hear are you and your teammates yelling at each other. As for the story, as I said, it might as well be nonexistent. Cutscenes are just… stuff. They’re like a couple seconds of random people showing you what life is like for these sides. And yes, it shows how nobody is a winner on these sides, and both are right, and both are wrong. But it feels like somebody had a really cool idea, and it got wasted. I would give credit to Bethesda, because maybe they had the idea, and they designed some of the stuff, and had good ideas. But they rushed this thing out, and I don’t think they cared much about this if that’s the case. Brink was one of those, "It could have been,” type games that people will remember it as. It really had me at a extremely light three, but for once beating the game made me realize just how underwhelming it was. It’s just an average game, and might of held fun for a couple hours, but not much besides that.
Brink gets a 2/5
Spoilers: That one thing with the missile was pretty cool… that’s all I can think of.
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