Before I am crucified, here is what the gaming press thinks
IGN: 6/10
GAMEPRO: 3.5/5
1UP: D
METACRITIC: 6.9(by user’s)
G4 2/5
First off, I am reviewing this game from a competitive gamers perspective. For those of
you who enjoy games for the carefree “FUN” and do not care much about personal progress
and self improvement in games, this thread is NOT for you. Though for the curious, from
that “FUN” perspective, I will rate this game a 7/10. I know it is early to judge, and
alot of this might change, but here is the FIRST IMPRESSION from 8 hours of brink
gameplay. Yes, it release at 10pm my time and i played till 6 AM (my work schedule is
9-5). So yes, lol I didnt hop on for 30 minutes and run away. So this is a pretty valid
review id say for a first impression. Lol.
I am a very competitive player when it comes to games. I don’t have anything against
player’s that play for the previously said carefree “FUN”, its just not my cup of tee.
I get enjoyment out of pushing myself to the next level in gaming.
For those that this thread is for I rate this game a 5/10. Im not rating this game for
what it could be. Im rating it for what IT IS. AT THIS MOMENT. Like many other
reviewer’s have stated. This game is literally, a few patches away from perfection and
being one of the best games of all time.
Graphics:
Good enough to understand what is going on, meets par requirements for a competitive
FPS. Most importantly, VERY friendly with older hardware, GJ splash!
Sound:
Was hyped up to be better than it really was. It is still a solid sound, just not the
innovative sound that everyone was making it out to be.
Balance:
This is the BIG CHEESE for competition. In balance, I will include the damage point
system, controls, gameplay, maps, customization from a competative viewpoint, and
more… For those of you coming into this game from Counterstrike or any BF or CoD
game. I must remind you, these are the guys that made quake. The point system is NOT
built for realism at all, but more an arena/fps hybrid. You CANNOT down enemies, with
2-3 bullets (except with shotgun and sniper). With an SMG or AR, unless you are
shooting the “small” class, you should expect with an accuracy rate of roughly 70% to
spend 3/4 of your magazine to kill one person. Sometimes I run into a heavy who hashad
his HP and ARMOR buffed. In those cases it usually takes 1-2 full magazines to down
him.
With that in mind, I am now going to judge it from that viewpoint of the type of game
it was meant to be. This style of game is meant to be extremely cooperative. No solo
run and gun’s here (unless the enemy team is extremely stupid). You must choose
objectives and when you have done so, they light up and you go to that point and do
stuff. Pretty Simple. One team does stuff, other team stops them. Firefights tend to be
more of a brawl because of the higher health points, and focus fire is a must.
Communication is also key as you must be able to organize your team into doing
objectives and pushing forward with a competent strategy. Teamwork is a must! Medic’s
Buff Health and res peeps, Soilders Buff Ammo and blow up ****, Engineers Buff Damage
and fix **** while laying down turrets and mines, and Recons trick the **** outa
unaware enemies while spotting those pesky mines hacking dead noobs to reveal enemy
positions. Timing is a key, as is evident with the team respawn system. Map awareness.
Understanding what objectives are being hit, or need to be hit and who is going to
them. You get the jist.
Here is what i feel they did wrong. First. Not showing KD ratio. How can a game be
competative if it doesn’t show a KD ratio? How can you keep track of your combat
progress? Yes, some will say, that kill’s isnt everything, and it isnt. In counter
strike, you can get alot of kills, but then they rescue hostages, or blow your much
valued wooden crates to hell. In Bad Company 2, you snipe and everyone fears you,
except that one brave soilder who blows the **** out of your porn stash (any other idea
on what is in those crates?) or takes over your valued strategic locations totally
empty warehouse/house/barn whatevs. Lol. BUUUUUUT. At the same time, Kills can mean
alot. SO many times, a very player who happens to think 40/7 or 27/2 is an easy sqaush
KD will destroy any thoughts of would-be point disarmer’s, bomb difuser’s,
peoplewholowerbadguyflagsandraisetheirowner’s by, well… shooting them in the FACE!
Kills DO mean alot. Its a first person SHOOTER! not flag $%&@ing football. You kill all
the baddies, and trash their belongings before they magically reappear via this
mystical process called respawn… though sometimes they stay dead(cs, S&D CoD ect.)
So now that we have that figured out. The fact that you can’t see your KD makes it
extremely hard to get better at killing people. How do you know what your doing works?
Do you have to have good enough memory to tally all your K’s and D’s(who knows, maybe
everyone else is way pro and has some secret, like using alphabet spaghetti-o’s to keep
track or something). Maybe, but your try doing that and keeping your mind in the game.
You know how you die alot when you press TAB in an FPS? imagine that, except not as
easy cuz when you press tab, you don’t see **** for a KD. This just takes away from the
overall feel of an FPS. How can you feel useful, if you have the lowest points on the
team, EVEN IF you are wrecking the enemy team and defending the **** out of that slow
ass moving bot. Stand next to it you say? DUMBEST IDEA EVER, tactically, that is sooooo
sooooo sooooo dumb. The bot is always out in the open and able to be flanked. Anytime
there is open ground, it is always more tactically sound to aquire targets at a medium
range and eliminate them at that distance. Those who are on the bot should be gunners
whose sole purpose is to SUPPRESS SUPPRESS SUPPRESS so the bot can move. Ideally in the
end I see that there are other elements, other than killing that wins the game, though
in an FPS, killing is kinda the main one. It’s all about hitting them in a weak spot
and pushing forward when you see an opening. Getting kills so that they must fall back,
retreat, or are unable to lay down enough fire to stop you, then you move forward. This
is how it works in real life. And don’t give me crap saying brink is an arena game.
Because if that was what the dev’s where going for, thats stupid. I’d just play Monday
Night Combat, Team Fortress 2, Unreal, Tribes, or something of that sort.
Another thing I believe is broken is the way the medic functions. Say you are shooting
this dude and hes like at 10% hp. A medic can come along, buff his health and what, hes
not only instantly at mex, but has extra hp and hes, btw, still shooting you… Also
self revive seems to take away from the teem aspect, and invincibility, EVEN WITH ITS
CONDITIONS(you take all damage after duration) in any FPS is NEVER a good idea.
Also i feel they failed with customization. And when i talk customization, im talking
what counters. Who gives an english muffin’s boiled bottom or w/e if you can make your
guys wear a trenchcoat over a suspenders and have some really weird mask on(who knows
maybe it adds psycic powers). The art director stated his reason for the customization
and art style being needed so you can quickly identify friend from foe in battle… if
anything it makes it worse. Running around and trying to aquire targets is always
easier if uniforms are specific. Say I run in a room and i have 3 optional targets. I
want to hit the medic first, so that the others can’t be revived. But it is extremely
hard to tell who the medic is. Shooters should always have predetermined uniforms. Any
customization should be minimal and Affect the overall appearance of the character. yea
yea, I know everyone wants to be special and feel like their character is real. FPS IS
NOT FOR YOU. go play an MMO, I hear their customization is pretty decent.
Now one been I have that should never have happened is the ammo situation when you
equip some guns with the drum mag. You actually end up carrying only HALF a reload.
Literally. your guy carries around only half a drum for a reload. Literally. NOTHING
ELSE. yea maybe thats what people tossing you ammo is for, but still. Sometimes you
don’t spawn with someone who can give you ammo. And really, what soilder runs around
with only half his drum loaded… a half ass soilder, who must also be in a half assed
game.
Also what’s with the constant knock down. Yes you can fire while being knocked down,
though your ability to move and look around is extremely limited, hell your knocked
down. As i contiue to play, what i am starting to see, is players who just slide around
and knock your entire team down. I mean really, is everyone extremely top heavy, or do
they have bad balance. It is not uncommon to see 1 light class run in and in quick
succession knock 3 dudes down and shotgun them all.
Maps… i don’t have to say much, they are just very unbalanced and very closed off. Yes you have like 1 or 2 options if you play a class and go another route and do this and touch whose grandmother and pay that druglord of, whatever. Its nothing new.
All in all. Brink has done NOTHING new for a competitive FPS. In fact it’s done alot of things real good that have already been done. yea kinda like BIG HYPE FOLLOWED BY A BIG FAIL… YEA YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT. and honestly, MW2 can be a great game, if you play clan scrims with specific rules and restrictions, otherwise… well… haha.
Hell the parkour in this game feels just like climbing up boxes and **** in MW2. I guess wallruns are cool? but how oftern do you actually do that?
all the guns feel like weaksauce. THERE IS NOT ONE ENJOYABLE GUN PERIOD! AT ALL.
At this point im starting to rant so…
Here is my rant now. I won’t use logic for this. All emotion. This is the part that you
trolls… actualy troll lol.
Id compare this to Global Agenda, but in First person, and with roughly the same HP
points as team fortress. In fact, imagine the the demo, scout, sniper, medic, spy, and
heavy in TF2. Ok? Got That? K now the main gun types in Brink are SMG’s/AR’s, Pistols,
Snipers, Shotgun, Big Giant Chaingun. Do you have a feel for how much damage those do
in TF2? now to simulate hp, imagine a small in Brink is about the hp of a scout with
the same mobility. the medium is about the hp of a medic, and the heavy about that of a
pyro or demo. This isnt exact, just the feel. Got that? Now imagine that as these
classes, you can play with any of the weapons of another class. Say as a demo, you can
use the scouts shotgun, or the snipers rifle? This is basically how Brink feels to me.
Though in a different art style and also if it had sex with mirror’s edge but they
didn’t like the baby, so they shoved it into a closed pathing map that feels like a CoD
or CS map with parkour. Blam BRINK sorry, just had to get it off my chest. I am
obviously biased against the point system, though honestly, the point system isn’t
“broken” it’s just not what im used to. Alot of competative games use higher HP point
systems, i just feel they were actually advertised and labeled correctly. I DO NOT
count purely by the frequency and volume of lead in the air, but more by the blood on
the ground. And im sure many other gamers aggree. I know it may be my fault, because I
always flank the enemy, or totally head shot 3 of them when I a room. Gosh i forgot,
its leg shots. Normally you’d expect 3 headshots=kills, or running behind 2 dudes
sniping on a roof and spraying the **** out of them with an SMG=kills. In the case of
the second, youd probably get 1 kill, but rarely 2 if they are even half competent
players. In the first, youd have to be extremely lucky to get a kill. YOU GET FOCUSED
DOWN BEFORE YOU CAN DO ****. Normally the person who shot 3 people in the head would
have 3 kill’s but in this game, it plays out differently. You shoot them in the head,
but since HP is SOOO high and cover is VERY LIMITED, they point all 3 guns at you, and
kill your face before you even got 1 guy dead. (obviously situations differ, but with
any competant team, this is how it will always play out). Yes people will scream, TEAM
GAME! you need 3 if your fighting 3. this is sounding way more like an arena game. The
player that is more skilled, and reacts faster, out maneuver’s and moves more
accurately should ALWAYS win. I agree with Gamepro’s review saying there is no feeling
of power when you shoot someone. A real FPS should ALWAYS give the user a feeling of
power when weilding a gun. Shooting someone in brink honestly feels like im beating
someone to death with a spoon, kinda like this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9VDvgL58h_Y and when they finally get downed i look up to see an entire field of
people writhing around in what feels like an assgrabers paradise where you have to go
wang slap ever one in the face. Also who invented the abilities in brink? honestly.
there is this one that makes you invincible for a short period of time, after which all
the damage you took hits you at once. Problem? lots. whats to stop a team from buffing
and entire attack force, sending them into a room to clear everyone dying, then just
beind resed by a few medics. Also, SELF REVIVAL? WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF honestly?
Brink feels less like an FPS and more like an 8 year old’s rendition of roleplay. "hey
if you get shot, you gota like lie on the ground till someone says you can up, or you
can run back to the spawn point…" yea. so what? you can run into the cramped hallways
and shooting distances. SO much for parkouring everywhere, honestly, it basically feels
like MW in that aspect. Nothing extra special. you just climb ****. but you cant really
go anywhere out of the way, like on top of entire buildings running accross rooftops to
hunt down your prey, you know, like they ****ing made it seem like it was gona be.
Honestly Brink feels more like that $10 indie game you buy on the walmart value shelf
than it does a genre redefining giant. The solo play hideous. Bots are a piss poor
excuse for teaching a person how the game actually plays against people. You can
complete all the challenges on all levels. btw only 4 challenges, and it takes less
than a couple hours. Im not really for single player content. Personally i would have
rather had brink be a strictly multiplayer objective match game with no solo play. Just
hosted servers and very competitive play. If the solo play sucks, don’t put it in. It
feels like they did what you do when you have a 10 page report due to your professor
and you need filler for the last 2 pages so you write bull****.
More ranting about the point system. Alot of people do enjoy more hp. Many rag on the
camping shooters out there. Here is some news. REAL LIFE, If i’m a sniper, NO ****, im
gona find a comfy as spot, and sit there and shoot the **** outa bads. In any
battlefield title, if someone snipes, there are SOOO many ways to stop him. Counter
snipe from an endless 360* zone with limitless options for cover, use said cover to
move closer and have a gunner suppress while the others tag him, Use sight lines to
ignore him safely… so many ways. If someone is camping a building, usually you can
entire that building in multiple locations, throw explosives in, and in the badcompany
seires, you can %^*$ing blow a hole in the building till he has no cover, and if that
isnt enough, bring the entire thing down.
If anything, THIS game is more campy than many of those titles. I know this because i
have sat in a comfy spot in brink with my semi auto rifle BY MYSELF keeping the entire
enemy team off and object. To cover my backside, i have a mine and a turret. its idiot
proof. Imagine and entire team doing that. So much for flanking, when the options are
really just as limited as many other games… i would take a step out and even say
that you have more flanking options in CoD.
Camping is only a gay strategy when there is no counter.
Brink did not impress me at all. Way bad impression actually. Unless they fix it, it will fail and or flop.
W/e i guess this was part review, part biased opinion, but whatever. post your interesting or creative replies in the comments section. BE-LOW!!!