People make the point that Brink is too much like ET to be considered new, but others say that it’s not enough like ET to be good.
Its ET without the core components that make ET a success.
Some will argue that since they removed those core components , its essentially not ET.
And on some level thats also true.
As far as it being new. Its new to the market they were going for.
[QUOTE=tokamak;388662]This is the article the big boys over at Bethesda as well as Splash Damage should have read.
It really is that simple. The success of a video game revolves around one single question and that is ‘Would you recommend this game to your friends?’. To boost the ratio in which people answer that question with ‘yes’ should be the sole purpose of a video game developer/publisher.[/QUOTE]
Good article. My employer is a big believer in NPS, with one of our organisation goals even being ‘most recommended’. We listen to our customers more than ever before.
Going to be controversial but I think Splash Damage actually believed they had a great product here. They even promoted why an open beta wasn’t needed - but I think they were/are just out of touch with what the consumer wants/enjoys. I’d call it naivety as it was their first entry into console space (even though they took on console centric staff). I just hope they’ve learned some valuable lessons and don’t have the blinkers on just because it shifted decent numbers as a new IP. That would be career suicide.
Exedore did explain that the low accuracy in the weapons is to promote team-work. After all, when the whole thing becomes a matter of probability then it’s the number of players on each side that determine the outcome of the firefight. It turned Brink into a numbers game (Risk). I understand the sentiment behind this move but it took the fun out of the game for most.
The problem with that is that it doesn’t actually promote teamwork in the sense of teammates working together skillfully. The extent of team strategy when you play the numbers game is, “pile on the enemy spawn and don’t let them get out,” which correct me if I’m wrong, is already a problem in most team-based shooters that don’t promote that element. Spawn turrets can’t help you if your enemies just stay out of their line of sight.
Brink was well-meaning but a lot of the design decisions seem like they obviously wouldn’t create a sustainable game. How could Splash Damage not have seen this? I recall them specifically calling out “corner of the map” snipers and expressing their desire to get rid of that sort of gameplay pattern, but the thing is that pattern wouldn’t even emerge as a problem in Brink because of the level design, not even because of how the weapons were balanced. So snipers in Brink are pretty much doubly useless.
It’s semi-automatic teamplay by giving obvious synergistic advantages to groups of players and thus favouring them over individuals. In ETQW this was the case as well, but in ETQW groups ALWAYS had an achilles heal that an individual player could press at if he knew how to find it.
[QUOTE=Humate;388674]Its ET without the core components that make ET a success.
Some will argue that since they removed those core components , its essentially not ET.
And on some level thats also true.
As far as it being new. Its new to the market they were going for.[/QUOTE]
My thoughts are basically along these lines.
It is an ET game but badly implemented… it’s not even bad. It’s just so forgettable and that’s the problem. It’s got the core principles there: the classes (although simplified) and the objectives… it’s just the interface and the gunplay and the SMART that differ (if you ignore models and paintjobs and story since we’re talking gameplay). The interface is worse (IMO) as is the gunplay (even though it’s so customizable ironically) and SMART is quaint but doesn’t actually do much at the end of the day.
It’s like watching a drunken Leonardo De Vinci trying to paint with a carrot. So much potential, so wasted (yes… a pun. how droll). But after laughing at him for a while he passes out and ceases to be interesting anymore and you may as well move on.