Brink and Bad Reviews.

(Shotgun Surgeon) #21

One reviewer said that there was no incentive to be a lone wolf… in a game that was designed to DISCOURAGE lone wolves.

I have more fun with this game than I have ever had with COD:BO and MW2… both which received high review scores.

(Shotgun Surgeon) #22

[QUOTE=hailey;301112]Maybe if we had a map editor to create our own SMART challenge courses

or a game type where you have to jump around on stuff?

The problem is that it doesnt have much application in the actual game. Yeah you can climb over things, but in any other game it’s stuff you’d jump onto anyway, hardly revolutionizing FPS gameplay[/QUOTE]

BRINK scenario:
Cut off an operative w/ briefcase by sliding through the ducts, jumping off the walls, onto the top of the stairs, using speed and agility to sliding under and over cover to avoid bullets, and sliding into his defenders to knock them down, but then get killed in the process (hey, it’s a team-based game haha should’ve gotten help from teammates)

Other game scenario:
Sprint after objective w/ briefcase. Follow him up the stairs. Engage his defenders. Get in an unnecessary gunfight with defenders. Die from grenade.

It has its applications… you just have to be innovative.

(Artheval_Pe) #23

I don’t understand why Brink are getting such bad reviews, how do people not see how great this game is.

Because a lot of reviewers are a idiots who couldn’t achieve anything in an FPS based on Teamplay even if their life depended on it.

Sometimes, I read reviews I don’t agree with, but that I can understand (OK, the shooting in Alpha Protocol being bad is a gamebreaker in your opinion. I don’t agree so my review is different). Brink is one of the rare games that I’ve seen getting bad reviews. Bad like badly written. Bad reviews in the sense that they don’t really inform you about the game and why you may or may not like it. Bad in the sense that they include irrelevant or even downright stupid criticism, written by people who do not fully understand the game.
This review for exemple is particularly bad : http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/10/brink-review/
Same for the 1UP review (which is surprising, honestly) : http://www.1up.com/reviews/brink-review?pager.offset=1

But I think that this “bad reviews” issue shows two problems :
-First, Bethesda and Splash Damage, you screewed up (especially Bethesda I think). It’s a bad idea to send everyone review copies of a version of a game that you know has bugs. It honestly took balls at Game Informer (surprisingly) and Ars Technica to decide to postpone the review. For a game like this, it was absolutly necessary to let the press play online for a few days on the most polished version (PC). Since most website share reviews between platforms, it would even have increased the ratings on Xbox 360.
Anyway, giving a buggy review version to the press is always a BAD IDEA. It’s better to postpone a game than to do that.

-Second, there is a serious problem in the gaming press that is tied to the economics. You need a lot of traffic to make a website profitable enough to be professional. So you need to attract a lot of viewers, most of the viewers, all the time.
When reviews get released, those that get read the most are the first ones to be published. Always. Even publishing a review 6 hours or 1 day in advance can give you a huge amount of traffic. And if you publish your review late, except if you have a lot of fans that love your website, you’re screewed.
So, game reviewers have to write reviews sometimes very quickly, often without playing the way most users will and without having the time to really understand the game they are playing if it is a bit complex, deep or new. And so we get bad reviews for good games, when they are too hardcore, not mainstream enought or too deep. Just look at the way most website have bashed the excellent S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series…

As for Brink, I’ve seen a lot of french hardcore pc FPS players writing “I’ll wait for the Nofrag review” or “I’ll wait for the CanardPC review” which is encouraging since these two outlets will probably write very interesting and informed reviews (regardless of the score they give).

(PsYcHo) #24

The german gaming magazine “4Players” also posted an article just a few moments ago that the 360 version is nearly unplayable online. They also said that the bug with the textures is very annoying. And that it freezes sometimes. I think that this means a bad score for the 360 version. The said the PC version is on a good way.
But i think those things are the reasons for bad reviews.

Source (german): http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/360/17073/2060043/Brink|360_Version_online_fast_unspielbar.html

(advocacy) #25

After the lag and graphical issues have been resolved, I hope that the professional reviewers that rated this game as mediocre will give Brink a second opinion.

(bookoo) #26

Yea it seems that it score was hurt by the fact that it didn’t have a real single player, but some of the reviews really destroyed the game for no apparent reason.

The reviews that think of this game as a multiplayer game are giving it great scores and the reviews that seem to focus on the single player portion are giving it lower scores.

IGN called the game repetitive and he was clearly addressing that towards the single player because I can’t think of FPS game out right now isn’t repetitive in the multiplayer portion.

Ya it sucks that people are having some bugs and glitches with their game, but I have heard of a game out recently that hasn’t had terrible bugs like that.

Black ops on PC and PS3 was nearly unplayable for a LONG time, PC actually may still be unplayable for people with only dual cores, but since I have upgraded to an i5 I haven’t had any issues. But it got good reviews

Killzone 3 had some connection issues for a lot of players and the single player was pretty terrible, but it got an good reviews.

I think this game is great and I have been having a blast playing it, but I didn’t go in with the expectation of a single player mode (I actually thought it was well known that they were really just bot matches). I just wish some of the more negative reviews would take the time to point out that this game is really for those who want a team-based objective multiplayer game, not for those looking for a single player.

(Petrolbomb_Tom) #27

Which goes to show the game was not beta or bug tested to any sort of state which resembles a finished game and not being able to review a game is the same as giving it 0 out of 10.

I really can’t understand why the Splash damage community is not up in arms about this instead of just flaming newcomers who have legitimate complaints.

(ibivibiv) #28

I also feel like as most here. This game isn’t a 10/10, but what is up with the 3/5 or 6/10 stuff? Really? Did they play the game for more than 30 minutes? I have to admit I didn’t like my first 30 minutes. It was a tough learning experience. Honestly the winning move is to play the challenges first and get into understanding the way the devs wanted this game to be played. THEN get into campaign maps. Maybe if that was incited somehow, people would have had a better initial experience? Who knows. Either way, I am playing Brink and loving it.

(Om3ga) #29

There should be more PC reviews, less console reviews because xbox MP is laggy and PSN is down.
And Brink is desinged to be MP game.

E: Well PC seems to have still some probs with Graphic cards.

(BrigandSk(A)) #30

So True!

Splash Damage points the way and some refuse to online community + team work

(Geese) #31

You can’t advertise a game like this:

“Brink is an immersive first-person shooter that blends single-player, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay into one seamless experience, allowing you to develop your character whether playing alone, with your friends, or against others online.”

And then expect people to realize “it’s really not for those looking for single player”.

Believe me…I get it. This is a great team-based MP game (or will be when the technical issues get resolved on all platforms) - but it’s just not fair to advertise a great Single Player experience when you know it’s not.

(Artheval_Pe) #32

If I recall well the gameplay presentations, Brink is build to entice players of single-player games to go and play online. It’s just that they should have sold the game differently to the gaming press.

When I first heard Paul Wedgwood say that it would blend solo, coop and multiplayer (and make jokes about his father wanting him to work at a bank or something), I thought “How the hell are they going to do that ?”. Then everyone figured out very quickly “Ok, the solo is going to be the multiplayer maps with bots. It’s objective-based, so it’s going to make sense as far as the story is concerned. I wonder how they are going to handle most of the narration though”.

And every game journalist with half a brain figured out pretty quickly that the solo game was going to be a gloryfied training session with a story. Nothing bad with that. Brink is a multiplayer game and we should review it as such. But that’s something you should tell players in the review, not bash the game for that. Valve made the same claim as Splash Damage with Left 4 Dead, and no-one gave it a D or a 2/5 because the solo is not fun and the bots are … well they’re not brain-dead. But they are still stupid… in a bot’s way.

As for bots being dumb… well they’re fracking bots. It’s pretty obvious that when you are playing with bots you are going to do most of the heavy lifting yourself. And it’s good too because it’s challenging. It’s hard to make good bots that are both not powerful enough so the game doesn’t win by itself or with minimal help, and not stupid enough so that they don’t seem useless. It’s never a perfect balance since it depends on the skill of the player but it works quite well in Brink for me, at least.

The only part where the stupidity of the bots is a pain in the ass is in the challenge mode where you have to do a lot of objectives very quickly. Your teammates are almost useless so you either spend your time killing the enemy team or dying… and the objectives don’t complete themselves. But maybe I’m not good enough yet so I’ll dwelve more into that before passing a definitive judgement.

(Jamieson) #33

At the moment metacritic has all 3 platforms scored as

PC 74 - 7 critic reviews
Xbox 360 69 - 49 critic reviews
Playstation - 77 - 9 critic reviews (i thought PSN was down?)

I imagine the PC score will go up once the higher reviews are counted, I have read the 7 critic reviews (IGN 65 included) but there are alot of 8.0/9.0 reviews out there that have not been counted which will boost the score up. I predict it will most likely end up around the low 80’s similar to ETQW which also didn’t have a SP. It just baffles me that COD MW2 PC got a score of 86 from 40 critics when the game doenst even have dedicated servers and from what I have heard the multiplayer is heavily unbalanced.

(Dorian Gray) #34

[QUOTE=AKASneaky;300634]Lag is not something they can fix for you, get a better internet provider and play on servers with lower than 100 ping (as in closer to where you live).

And the game is a multiplayer FPS. the singleplayer part just mimics the multiplayer but with bots. It’s been done before, worked very well and didn’t have a whine boat floating on a river of tears.[/QUOTE]

I hate idiot comments like this. So my internet just happens to crap out at the same time I put brink in, then the second I put in any other online MP game it just happens to start working flawlessly again. Man, I must have some really bad luck then. Jeezus what an idiot. :rolleyes:

(xTriXxy) #35

[QUOTE=PsYcHo;301203]The german gaming magazine “4Players” also posted an article just a few moments ago that the 360 version is nearly unplayable online. They also said that the bug with the textures is very annoying. And that it freezes sometimes. I think that this means a bad score for the 360 version. The said the PC version is on a good way.
But i think those things are the reasons for bad reviews.

Source (german): http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/360/17073/2060043/Brink|360_Version_online_fast_unspielbar.html[/QUOTE]

but there is an update

Update: Inzwischen hat sich Bethesda mit folgenden Worten 4Players gegenüber geäußert: "Lags, die derzeit von Game-Testern in Deutschland wahrgenommen werden, sind zum großen Teil dem Umstand geschuldet, dass diese mit Spielern in den USA gematched werden. Zum morgigen Release von Brink werden die Server mit Gamern aus Deutschland und Resteuropa gefüllt sein und Lags werden auf das übliche Minimum reduziert."

in short, tomorrow no lags, or minimum lags.

(Geese) #36

[QUOTE=Artheval_Pe;301391]And every game journalist with half a brain figured out pretty quickly that the solo game was going to be a gloryfied training session with a story. Nothing bad with that. Brink is a multiplayer game and we should review it as such. But that’s something you should tell players in the review, not bash the game for that.

As for bots being dumb… well they’re ****ing bots. It’s pretty obvious that when you are playing with bots you are going to do most of the heavy lifting yourself. And it’s good too because it’s challenging. The only part where the stupidity of the bots is a pain in the ass is in the challenge mode where you have to do a lot of objectives very quickly. Your teammates are almost useless so you either spend your time killing the enemy team or dying.[/QUOTE]

I had no preconceived notions that Brink was going to have a full-fledged SP story like Halo or COD. I knew exactly that it was going to be MP with Bots. My problem is that I expected it to be good…mainly because they said it was going to be great AI. I didn’t just “hope” it was going to be good. They told us it would be. A year ago the AI was being touted as “indistinguishable” from human. Granted - that’s obvious hype - but it isn’t even decent (much less revolutionary) AI. The AI in ET:QW provides a more rewarding campaign experience.

It’s not fair to just say “they’re bots…what do you expect?”. I don’t expect “indistinguishable from human”, but games like Gears, UT3 and QW:ET prove that AI can definitely provide a rewarding experience.

(kilL_888) #37

reminds me to quake3. only with wallhops and slides. :smiley:

(undeadeath) #38

Take it from someone who loves the Rainbow Six games that I’m no stranger to team based gameplay and an FPS that requires a degree of strategy to complete but this game was not worth $60 and it was essentially a $10 downloadable game charged for a lot more. The AI that was supposed to be revolutionary was terrible with medics running away from people that needed to be healed and enemies standing right next to me ready to be gunned down and never hiding behind cover. Not to mention, the storyline which was hyped up ended up being 30 second cinematics with no depth to them and 5 second outros to a game that amounts to endless bot matches. The SMART system is also pretty superficial as for the most part it doesn’t gain the player any serious edge in combat or change it up too drastically from countless other shooters (and there is no wall run or any other complex parkour maneuvers) but instead just climbing up, jumping, and sliding. Customization is a joke in the game because most of it is dedicated to decorating your character in different skins but since you can only see your character in gameplay if you equip a certain skill its a pretty dumb feature, and the attachments that you can get for weapons are nothing we haven’t seen before and most of them are pretty useless and don’t help the player (i.e. silencers). Overall, this game was the multiplayer portion of game without the single player campaign and that’s pretty sad considering the development time and all the hype poured into this game. Splash Damage should consider making a real game next time and not tricking people into paying $60 for a game that isn’t worth anywhere near that price tag.

(hailey) #39

a million times better than SMART

(engiebenjy) #40

This is really cool - I have read a few reviews but had no idea this was in the game! Like mirrors edge style time trial parkour. That was awesome to compare times with friends and try different routes for more speed.

If PSN isnt up on friday i can certainly play some of this!

[QUOTE=Jamieson;301398]PC 74 - 7 critic reviews
Xbox 360 69 - 49 critic reviews
Playstation - 77 - 9 critic reviews (i thought PSN was down?) [/QUOTE]

As for the bad(ish) reviews I think alot of that comes from the “mingleplayer” aspect of the game. Simply put bots cannot substitute for humans in a game like this - and reviews are being hurt because of it.

The graphical issues and lag dont help either, although I expect these to be fixed soon