How to make Brink entertaining (A Whine and a Video)

(TeoH) #1

So, i’m pretty much done.

The pickup channels are dead, the people i would normally play comp with aren’t interested in the game and i personally can’t see how it can work competitively, we’re left with a few public servers populated by bots and random people who play like bots. I don’t believe that the problems are in the details, that is to say i don’t believe any change that is likely to come in a patch or DLC will actually help the game.

The issues are in the core design, in the sense that the game is designed to be bad, and to be played by baddies, and i don’t mean the band. Brink is a game that desperately wants to tick everything on a checklist of features that a popular console FPS should have. At the same time, it appears there is an aggressive effort by the designers to keep combat in the game as simple and casual pad friendly as possible, by designing weapons and movement in a way that strips conventional FPS skills out of the equation. I do not believe that this is a mistake on the part of the dev team, i have every reason to believe they have created the game that they wanted to create. A design that will appeal to Xbox and PS3 players having casual games with their friends on public servers, who have no intention of stepping up their game, and that is probably a sensible business decision. The fact that their target audience hasn’t exactly flocked to the title doesn’t change the fact that they were the target audience, and the rest of us should not expect the development to do a complete U-turn and suddenly turn into a good First Person Shooter. As with most FPS games of the last decade, the design brief is based more on Mario Party than on a vintage FPS.

That being said, i’ve got a week to kill before SSF4:ae gets released on the PC, so i shall share with the forum the secret that has kept me mildly entertained while playing Brink recently. Behold, the secret to enjoying yourself on Brink public servers:

(MorsTua) #2

sorry dude but your fragmovie didnt entertrain me more than 3 minutes

(its al bout security) #3

agreed, rep attained.

(Hk_Obayda) #4

Yea the video is a bit long… but regardless the music and the footage are pretty awesome… if this doesn’t make people want to play brink… idk what will

(coleym91) #5

Haha. Great video

(MorsTua) #6

i think that he is pretty good in parkour and that was the only thing that could entertrain me for more than 2 minutes…

About the duels it’s boring cause they are all knife kills vs total noobs that dont even move…

Gun duels are random… as always

Quake 3 and ET entertrain me more when i wanna see a fragmovie

PS: Next time for a fragmovie made in brink i suggest benny hill’s music. It’s proper

(BiigDaddyDellta) #7

i wish the parkour was that affective on Xbox. maybe I’m just to basic.

(kilL_888) #8

**** gema

Unfortunately, this UMG-music-content is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights.

wheres the lulz crew when you need em?

(.FROST.) #9

I’m from ger too. Where else can I watch the vid?(myvideo etc…?)

(noupperlobeman) #10

[QUOTE=TeoH;345372]So, i’m pretty much done.

The pickup channels are dead, the people i would normally play comp with aren’t interested in the game and i personally can’t see how it can work competitively, we’re left with a few public servers populated by bots and random people who play like bots. I don’t believe that the problems are in the details, that is to say i don’t believe any change that is likely to come in a patch or DLC will actually help the game.

The issues are in the core design, in the sense that the game is designed to be bad, and to be played by baddies, and i don’t mean the band. Brink is a game that desperately wants to tick everything on a checklist of features that a popular console FPS should have. At the same time, it appears there is an aggressive effort by the designers to keep combat in the game as simple and casual pad friendly as possible, by designing weapons and movement in a way that strips conventional FPS skills out of the equation. I do not believe that this is a mistake on the part of the dev team, i have every reason to believe they have created the game that they wanted to create. A design that will appeal to Xbox and PS3 players having casual games with their friends on public servers, who have no intention of stepping up their game, and that is probably a sensible business decision. The fact that their target audience hasn’t exactly flocked to the title doesn’t change the fact that they were the target audience, and the rest of us should not expect the development to do a complete U-turn and suddenly turn into a good First Person Shooter. As with most FPS games of the last decade, the design brief is based more on Mario Party than on a vintage FPS.

That being said, i’ve got a week to kill before SSF4:ae gets released on the PC, so i shall share with the forum the secret that has kept me mildly entertained while playing Brink recently. Behold, the secret to enjoying yourself on Brink public servers:

This has been the same for any game I’ve ever played: The forum going part of the community is the smallest! For every one person that complains on the forums, there are ten more people that love the game. I’m not saying that this means your opinion is discounted, but one small fraction does not equal what the whole thinks.

This isn’t news. I see the same complaints throughout the net. COD, Killing Floor, WoW, Brink, Team Fortress 2, L4D2, Battlefield, etc…

ALL forums are full of self loathing gamers who love to hate the games they are playing. No game is ever good enough. What people fail to realize is that not everyone has to like every game.

If you don’t like it, that’s great. But there are plenty of people out there who do.

Video is pretty cool, I would rage quit if I was playing against the person in this video. It brings back the gut wrenching thoughts of knifers in the call of duty series shudders.

(Senyin) #11

I think your vid is hilarious :smiley: I love the kill from 2:47 till 3:10.
Good choice of music too.

(Ashog) #12

Hehe, nice vid :slight_smile:

I was already starting to think you dared what I never dared (first gaming vid with death metal tune) :wink:

Highly entertaining vid, great skills!

Too bad after watching it I still will launch my old trusty ETQW rather than Brink.

(funsize) #13

lol, you shouldn’t have posted the video because it takes away from an otherwise true and accurate post. Case in point: notice how the console kiddies are commenting on the length and content of your youtube video rather than the substantive and serious points raised in your text. Or was it your intent for them to comment on the video all along?

(jazevec) #14

Thoughtful first post, made me look at Brink from a new perspective. And the video is genuinely fun. I love off-the-wall action like this. You managed to stay positive.

(AltoKnallo) #15

Nice vid :smiley: and maybe the best way to conclude this chapter with.

(Stretchmarks) #16

Some of you PC players are truly dumb ****ing mouth-breathers aren’t you? You provided absolutely zero examples of why you think this game is aimed at consoles. Anyone that picks up this game and plays it for more than 3 minutes can tell this game was designed on a PC, for PC players, more so than console players.

The pace of the game, the movement of the characters via the SMART system, the way guns, their recoil and spread work, switching between gadgets and grenades; hell, even the menu interface, are all better suited for a mouse and keyboard.

Face it, some of you PC ****s have become so god damn ignorant of the fact that the ever-growing popularity for consoles, and the new tech being designed for them, is the way of the future for gaming that you seem to blame every, EVERY, failed game for the PC on the consoles. When in reality the reason your beloved game turned out to be mediocre is because the developers and publishers behind it just aren’t that talented.

(wolfnemesis75) #17

I wish you luck in your future gaming endeavors. peace out bro. the music was cool. too bad you couldn’t stick around and help us get this game more positive spin. it ain’t all bad.

(TeoH) #18

[QUOTE=Stretchmarks;345660]Some of you PC players are truly dumb ****ing mouth-breathers aren’t you? You provided absolutely zero examples of why you think this game is aimed at consoles. Anyone that picks up this game and plays it for more than 3 minutes can tell this game was designed on a PC, for PC players, more so than console players.

The pace of the game, the movement of the characters via the SMART system, the way guns, their recoil and spread work, switching between gadgets and grenades; hell, even the menu interface, are all better suited for a mouse and keyboard.[/QUOTE]

The pace and movement?

What you seem to be missing is that from the perspective of oldschool PC FPS players, the game is slow, the movement is simplistic, the weapons have huge inaccurate firing cones that do not reward precision aiming. The SMART system is a 1 button consoleification of the bunnyhopping, air control and acceleration, ramp tricks double jumps etc. that have been an important part of classic PC FPS, and by comparison the system is incredibly limited.

Perhaps Brink actually is slightly faster, and rewards combat skill slightly more than typical console FPS games. Personally i’m not seeing much difference, but maybe you could make the argument that part of its failing is down to somehow hitting some magical tiny gap where it’s too fast for console players and too slow for the PC crowd. I could buy that when thinking about some of the stuff i read on this forum.

lol, you shouldn’t have posted the video because it takes away from an otherwise true and accurate post.

Well i wanted to paste the video anyway because i enjoyed making it, but think of it this way - it kills any counter argument about me believing the game is too slow due to “not understanding the SMART system”. Which would be a ridiculous comment as there’s nothing more to it than looking in the direction of a wall and pressing a button, but the forum is full of trolls.

(Ino) #19

[QUOTE=TeoH;345789]The pace and movement?

What you seem to be missing is that from the perspective of oldschool PC FPS players, the game is slow, the movement is simplistic, the weapons have huge inaccurate firing cones that do not reward precision aiming. The SMART system is a 1 button consoleification of the bunnyhopping, air control and acceleration, ramp tricks double jumps etc. that have been an important part of classic PC FPS, and by comparison the system is incredibly limited.

Perhaps Brink actually is slightly faster, and rewards combat skill slightly more than typical console FPS games. Personally i’m not seeing much difference, but maybe you could make the argument that part of its failing is down to somehow hitting some magical tiny gap where it’s too fast for console players and too slow for the PC crowd. I could buy that when thinking about some of the stuff i read on this forum.[/QUOTE]

One of the best posts I’ve read on this forum yet.

(.FROST.) #20

I’m a casual gamer, far remote from being a knifing, killing machine like Teoh here. But I have to admit the game is too slow. I can’t play a medium and I can’t even imagine how it would be like to play a heavy in MP. The pace should be raised one body type. Heavy=medium speed, medium=light speed and light gets faster than it is by now. Once you’ve played a light body type you can’t switch back to the other ones(except for fun once in a while). It feels like you where stuck in a pool full of honey.