Good article. My thoughts exactly.
Releasing it on the consoles later would have been a better idea. It was the console reviews that misunderstood what it was about.
At least SD made a game that stuck to its previous efforts. They can hold their heads up high knowing they made the game they wanted to make and not something for the dribbling masses
[QUOTE=Kurushi;318001]Good article. My thoughts exactly.
Releasing it on the consoles later would have been a better idea. It was the console reviews that misunderstood what it was about.
At least SD made a game that stuck to its previous efforts. They can hold their heads up high knowing they made the game they wanted to make and not something for the dribbling masses[/QUOTE]
how about release it to PSN first…allow the 140 people there beta test it for us?
This pretty much sums up most of it and while expectations were being built up there was very little going on to explain the core gameplay experience. That had an impact on people who didn’t know what to expect there too.
Also, not trying to derail but I still maintain SD put all their eggs in one basket with Brink. Such efforts to reach out and engage the mass market only to do so with a product that’s proven time and again very inaccessible and confusing. The dilution of which may have also weakened their existing following. Crap on CoD as much as you like but people seem to pick it up and play it in droves, Brink SHOULD have had some other modes to keep people playing and then draw them into OBJ, the challenges were a nice and very innovative attempt but ultimately they seem let down by their limitations.
I fully agree with its contents. Much like WoW has been the death of a few good MMOs ("…he this game isn’t exactly like WoW, so I’ll quit playing it and go back to WoW rather than embracing this new game for the things that make it stand out") CoD has been the “benchmark” for many of the younger gamers out there.
Being 33 myself upcoming May 31st I have seen the whole evolution of the FPS-genre, it being my favourite game to play online. We have essentially come full circle, since the FPS genre started of as a Deathmatch focused setup (Doom, Duke Nukem 3d, Quake etc) and then moved on to a more teambased playstyle (Team Fortress, Counterstrike, Unreal 2 XMP etc).
So right now “good old” brainless Deathmatch is at the top of the lists again in terms of popularity. Personally I’m amazed how a stale shallow game-series (Not a flame, just my personal opinion folks so I can fully understand it if you disagree) like CoD can sell so well.
Since CoD4 the gameplay in the series hasn’t moved one inch. All they do is upgrade the graphics engine, throw in some new maps (or lazy rehashes of old “classics”) and sell it again for 60 Euros a piece. The downside to all of this indeed is that any new FPS game is automatically compared to CoD, because the poor deluded younger generation out there considers it to be the best of the best which (as Jeremy Clarkson no doubt would say)…well, it isn’t.
Truth is that at the moment for the FPS genre you’ll receive better ratings if you make a stale, shallow “13 a dozen” game with 0% new features than a game that truly tries to innovate, even if both games have flaws.
I’ll be the last to say that Brink is perfect, there’s definitely a few serious issues that need to be addressed, but it’s not receiving sufficient credit for what it tries to achieve.
I do agree that most reviewers simply didn’t understand Brink (or spent almost no time playing it) but after watching some of the TV ads for Brink their marketing was advertising a different game. One of the triailers shows a Light dual-wielding pistols. Really?!?
I’m happy with Brink for trying something new and despite numerous mistakes the S.M.A.R.T. system was fantastic. If only the maps were better, the skills forced actual choices and the weapons weren’t dominated by the Carb-9.