Their “verdict” post sounds quite fair, and there are some insightful bits I haven’t seen before:
I feel like even though the game goes to great length to explain its objective-based stuff, you really have to have played each map a couple of times to actually know what’s going on.
(…)
Alec: I do have the serious reservation that you don’t really notice what anyone looks like in game, because it’s a flood of UI elements and tiny people running away. Actually, that bothers me a bit – there’s a bit too much clothing dedicated towards a certain kind of punkery. I’d hope it would be a bit broader in its aesthetic.(…)
Alec: Yes, the level design. It’s bewildering corridors with epic backdrops, isn’t it? And there’s a strong, strong need to learn the maps.
Jim: I barely notice the epic backdrops, to be honest. It’s tunnel city.
Quintin: It absolutely is. While the levels all have plenty of paths through them, almost all of those paths are incredibly enclosed.
(…)
Quintin: You know, I was watching TV with the girl last night, and an advert for Brink came on. It looked incredible- people parkour-ing over rusty containers, scrambling all over this beautiful playground. And that’s the game I want to play. I don’t want to be pushed down into gulleys and killzones.
Alec: Yeah, it feels a bit mathematical, learning which areas you can climb and which are just a bit too high.
Jim: I think the thing that disappoints me most, and it’s a bit of an odd gripe, is that all the weapons (grenades aside) are basically dakka-dakka machinguns. There’s no big thumping plasma weapon, no flamethrower to mix it up.
Alec: there are some shotguns, which I guess come to the fore if you’re defending something.
Jim: It feels oddly like the multiplayer of Kingpin, too, and the flamethrower was what made that sing. And yes, true, there ARE shotguns.
Alec: It’s got that problem of wanting to offer all the unlocks and upgrades in the world, but also fearing that anyone gets too much of an advantage. I wonder if that’s why the weapons are so of a kind.
Quintin: On the subject, the grenades are pathetic. You can be staring at one from seven feet away when it goes off. Unless it’s a flashbang. In which case, yeah, staring is unwise.
Jim: But it despite the diversity of weapons there doesn’t seem to be any diversity.
Quintin: You mentioned Call of Duty before- even CoD has crossbows, rocket launchers, knives.
(…)
Alec: Yeah, we talked ourselves/were talked into thinking it would be something far beyond a decent team shooter
(…)
Quintin: Tell you what is spectacular. The audio.
Alec: It really is a decent team shooter, and in time I reckon we’ll be happier about that. It’s the ever-present problem of hype and expectation, but I think this was critically, critically miss-described to the outside world at important points in its development
(…)
Alec: they’ve made a team shooter that doesn’t feel like a mod, doesn’t feel like COD, that includes a bunch of very complicated elements without being overwhelming. They may not have lived up to all the originally talked of, but that they actually made all this stuff work is pretty impressive.
(…)
Jim: It’s a disappointing game, but not a BAD game, bugs aside, and those will be fixed. I’m enjoying plenty. That said, I am only enjoying it about as much as Section 8 Prejudice, which has a lot more crazy crap going on in it. Brink is JUST men with guns. There’s no vehicles, no getting into a fight with a giant ape bot, and no falling out of the sky. Given that Section 8 is the underdog this month, it’s also $15 and has coherent single player.
(…)
Jim: It’s not the sum of its promises, no. But also most of the criticisms that surfaced in the initial barrage of 360 reviews are tosh. One was even criticising it for rewarding teamplay, which made little sense. This game cannot be judged on its single-player, because it’s a demanding multiplayer game, and utterly focused on that.