Brink

 So with today's game, Brink, I find myself in a bit of a predicament. First, it's really a multiplayer game, with the "singleplayer campaign" being nothing more than a series of maps tied together loosely with a story explaining the struggle occurring on the Ark from each of the two faction's perspectives. The other issue I have is that I never played it after buying it, but I'll explain that in the conclusion.

There are three core parts of Brink, each of which add or detract from the game to create the final experience. Those would be customization, parkour, and objective oriented gameplay.

Weapon attachments - the hats of Brink.

The customization aspect was supposed to be one of Brink's major selling points, and it is seen in two different ways. The first has to do with weapons, which you can alter with different scopes, various magazines, etc. While at first glance it appears that there are essentially millions of combinations betweens all the weapons and then the attachments and their respective level of bonuses/penalties, in reality there's not much there. For example, I prefer SMGs for their generally larger clips and high rate of fire, trade offs for the lower damage compared to some of the big boys. Yet despite there being seven different SMGs in game, and 8 different stats they could differ across (i.e. accuracy, rate of fire, clip size), they are nearly all the same. Furthermore, once you select a weapon, in the case of SMGs, you can only change four aspects of it - muzzle flare/silencer, scope, magazine, and bayonet/foregrip/speed sling. Most of the changes on the front of the gun, or the scope, are really just cosmetic, and so even though there are multiple red dot scopes, they are not functionally different from one another, though equipping one versus leaving the slot empty does change your weapon's stats. Honestly, the call of duty games have a greater degree of weapon customization.

The other thing you can customize is your character, and much more than just visually. You see, there are four classes in Brink - Soldier, Engineer, Medic, and Operative (think assassin/rogue). Additionally, there are three body types, which change things like what weapons you can wield, how fast you are, and so forth. Now what is really cool is that you can combine the two any way you like, meaning you could have a medic with the large body type, who is thus, while slow, able to wield things like the chain gun or machine gun. Furthermore, you can customize each class, in that as you level up, you can choose which abilities you want to unlock, buffs to increase the power of, etc. The result is that not all characters are equal, so just because you know the other team has a medic, doesn't mean you can write him off as easy pickings, which adds some variety to the game.

At least the levels are pretty...well, at least the ones that don't take place in a dump.

Like the customization portion of the game, the parkour is a mixed bag. While it's great being able to constantly climb up things, slide under openings or out of an enemy's line of fire, I've never seen this used for much more than seeing if there is someone down a corridor, where someone just slides past the bottom of the doorway, presenting as little a target as possible. All those places to climb, and cool paths to get behind someone, while there, aren't always obvious, so people either don't notice them, or just follow the main path. There is a whole psychology to map design, and if you've ever spent time working on one (I did some TF2 stuff for a while), or just listening to feedback, it's surprising how basic human instincts, things like follow the path of least resistance or turn right when faced with a choice, are so prominent in gaming. That being said, it's a nice feature, but not used.

Brink, at it's heart, is all about objective oriented gameplay. This isn't just a free-for-all frag fest. If you want to win, you need to, essentially, capture the flag, escort the VIP, or get that control point. There are plenty of other games that do this, TF2 being an extremely popular example (and a game I've already mentioned once, so it's on my mind). However, what Brink does is combine multiple objectives into a single overarching mission. Maybe, for round 1, you need to spend time attacking a pillar that needs to be blown up, courtesy of the soldier's explosive charge. Succeed in that, and the next round you'll be escorting a VIP. Then the final round could be attacking a control point by hacking it, or trying to capture some information that VIP gave you access to by returning it to the level's exit. The mix of objectives both keeps things refreshing, and keeps you on your toes, since you can't get into that mode of just spending thirty minutes guarding the flag.

A great function, now if people would just use it.

There are other aspects to Brink as well, such as side objectives that can help your time/hinder the enemy, the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game where one class plant's an explosive charge, but another disarms it, and then a third comes in and hacks the panel you just gained access to, a nifty UI that lets you determine which objective you want to assist in, and highlights things accordingly, or just a different way of doing things like grenades or passing out weapon's upgrade kits/med kits/ammo to friends (they all consume supplies, and regenerate over time rather than having a fix ammo). Just like everything else, some are hits, and the others are misses.

Now onto the part about how I haven't played this game since I bought it. You see, Brink has been a free weekend item at least twice on Steam, where I downloaded it the first time, and then played it all weekend the second, about 11 hours worth. Did both the single player campaign, which, as I said earlier, just take's the game's 10 or so maps and tries to make up a story, and played online multiplayer. Overall, nothing about the game really stood out as a positive experience, though it isn't something that I felt I was worse for having playing. Rather, the whole thing was just kind of "meh." I actually debated with myself for a while if I even wanted to buy this game, especially since I felt I was already done with it, even at $6.25, and the fact that I was really hesitant to do so, and now, somewhat regret doing it, probably says more about the game than anything else.

Like with zombies, a double tap to the head is recommend, especially when medics can revive themselves.

If you really want to give the game a try, I wouldn't spend more that $5 on it, and skip all the extras, because Fallout and Doom themed items aren't worth it. I would say the game is one of those ideas that had a lot of potential, but failed in the execution, due to the disappointment surrounding some of those core concepts, or just the fact that people don't think to look up and jump on ledges to access secret paths. At best the game breaks even, not making you feel excited for playing it, but also not leaving you wondering if gouging your eyes out with a rusty spoon would be a better use of your time, like some other games out there door. Probably just best to pass all together - 5 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 5/10

Suggested Price: $5, if you want to really play it