If you played other games previously developed by SD they made the game solely based for the PC, later ETQW had a port for console.
The ‘f’ use button for everything, is a common console gameplay mechanic. PC players have no problem pressing a different button/bind specifically for one purpose, or using mouse-wheel(item bank). Controllers only have a certain amount of buttons so it makes it easier for them to use the same button for many different actions. Not to mention it auto turns/runs towards to the target, console gameplay mechanic.
The interface doesn’t need much explaining, everything for the most part is fine, but before the game it would nice to choose a team/spectate, class to spawn with, skip movies, and the end game movie only interferes with chatting to other players. I like to see end-game comments, such as GG, good-job <player>, etc, right now it gives off a feeling of being disconnected to other players, almost feels like I’m playing with bots, every once in a while you see something in the chatbox.
If you look at the browser it seems as if it has no future mod support, the browser is very simple. You can’t see who’s in the server before you join, can’t see if its bots, or not, etc common on consoles.
Spectating isn’t something to do in Brink. Every id-tech game I played you could spectate to hang out, chat, free-float, admin the server, etc, see if anyone is hacking (can’t do this in thirdperson). Hacks are common in every game, vac2 isnt gonna stop it, their is no way to check if a player is cheating or not.
Customizations & cvars are no where to be found in brink. What really makes a PC game a PC game is the config file you can develop. Brink has absolutely no customizations, the only thing I can change is Field of Vision. I can’t do anything else, and this is sad as a id-tech game. Take a look at ETQW (the same engine as Brink id-tech 4 just modified), I can do a crap load of customizations to my CFG/hud/visuals/graphics/etc and later the ‘pro’ mod that came out allowed more, that should of been released in further ETQW patches but it got its last patch. I’ve been told that the developers will unlock the cvars, etc but still Brink will have no customizations, the only locked cvars are for FPS boosts, etc
Now gameplay is a touchy subject, but as a player who has played previous SD games and enjoyed them, I will say Brink is a step down for PC players. Other than customizations/sdk/mods/etc what else makes a PC game not a console port is the speed of the game. Who can imagine playing ETQW or wolfenstein:ET on a controller? I sure can’t. But actually I’m fine with the gameplay, its unique and different and thats fine. The only thing that bugs me is the constant use of ‘f’(use) for everything. The ‘item bank’ like in ETQW (forget the specific name for it) was better competitively.
For example the Satchel Charge ability for Soldiers, first you have to click ‘4’, hold ‘f’ to plant, then to detonate it you have to click ‘4’ then ‘g’(grenade). If Satchel charge/remote had the same bank slot it would be better for PC players.
Now imagine if consoles never existed and Brink was being developed, and then was released. Do you REALLY think that Brink would be the same as it is now? I honestly do not. Consoles changed a lot of today’s, and future games, I have seen it over the past few years. I can honestly say Brink was made for consoles in mind.
Still to this day quake 3/quakelive/wolfenstein:ET/CS 1.6 is being played competitively. I honestly can’t say it will be the same for brink on PC, I can see it happening on consoles though.
Playing Brink has made me want to reinstall ETQW or wolfenstein:ET again, its been a while, but they truly feel like PC competitive games. I was hoping that Brink would be the next step forward in competitive PC gaming, etc But I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I knew it was being developed also for consoles, and reading reviews of players who got to play the game first about a year ago, playing on a controller instead of a mouse/keyboard.
Basically I was looking for the next competitive PC game, and Brink didn’t fulfill it for me. Still think it was worth the money, and hours invested into it, but it’s not the next game I will be playing years from now. If we can get some die-hard PC gamers like me such as from wolf:et, etqw, quake, unreal, cs, etc Tell me how you feel.
