Developer Splash Damage built Brink for Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC with dizzying action that pushes one’s senses to the “brink” of tolerance. It is a first-person shooter experience that is as recklessly joyful as it is excessively frustrating, designed to look and feel like a multiplayer experience even when it’s not. If Brink were flawless in its execution of AI-controlled team play then this might be acceptable. As is, Brink all but forces its players to seek out friends and avoid the single-player campaign at all costs.
Brink’s campaign and multiplayer modes take place on The Ark, a floating refuge from historic floods where security forces are engaged in a conflict with a Resistance movement. There’s a throwaway plot to both sides so simplistic that no one will care, much less pay attention to. At any time during the campaign you can switch-sides which effectively kill any momentum the narrative might have mustered. The cut-scenes, specific to the Resistance side, are merely a chance to take a break.
The prime objective in Brink’s campaign is to kill or be killed by running around frantically while numerous enemies fire non-stop with deadly accuracy. Splash Damage’s unique hook to the mindless mayhem is that players can use the proprietary SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) system to initiate seamless parkour-inspired movements through, over and under spaces to surprise an enemy or escape from a trouble spot. SMART is fun, no doubt, but it feels like an afterthought more than the game’s crux as presented. Its novelty wears off almost as fast as its animations play out.
Unequivocally far from “smart” are AI teammates who are supposed to help clear objectives and move through the game’s maps. Brink’s allowance to change classes such as engineer, medic or operative with each re-spawn is a fantastic inclusion when playing online with friends, but horrifically managed by computer squad mates. More often than not your team will spawn heavy in classes that don’t match the current objective. They love to run mindlessly into enemy fire and drop like flies, and forget about forming any sort of strategy to get past the more challenging spots.
When you do die in Brink, and you will often, a time limit is imposed for one of the designated medics to toss you a revival canister and be resurrected on the spot. Should the timer run out before a medic can reach you, it can be started again. Alternatively this on-the-spot resurrection can be skipped to immediately get back in the fray at the team’s dissemination point. Providing the choice is a clever way of awarding the side with forward momentum when soldiers fall, but only minimally penalizing players who have fallen in an area where the medics cannot reach without being gunned down themselves.
There are times in Brink when remaining incapacitated on the ground feels like the only means to an end. Thanks to some insanely difficult and frustrating heavily fortified choke points, making any sort of advancement toward fulfilling a current objective is borderline fruitless. AI Enemy fire at these points is so strong and persistent that lobbing a grenade before being instantly flattened results in failure 9 times out of 10, if not more. The medics will rarely get to you at these points, so it’s back the beginning for a 20-second or so jaunt to the choke point and then instant death once again. The bitter irony is if the same AI were flowing through the pixels of squad mates as the enemy then it would be a far more enjoyable fight.
Along with the re-spawning system and being able to attack while wounded on the ground, changing classes is one of the Brink’s few highlights but it is cheapened somewhat by the loose XP rules. XP is earned throughout the game for class-specific objectives: sharing supplies with squad mates, building turrets, hacking firewalls to take control of command points for new re-spawn points, etc. Rather than XP be permanently assigned to a player and class, it can be sold and reassigned at any time as easily as it was acquired and initially assigned. This may benefit players with short attention spans, but it detracts from the sense of accomplishment from building up and becoming invested in a uniquely designed and attributed character over the course of a full campaign.
Brink offers early potential as the SMART system is toyed with and the first few campaign objectives are completed. Additional play reveals as many frustrations as thrills. Jumping online to play with friends – where Splash Damage continues to patch network issues – alleviates much of the pain as Brink becomes as fun as it was intended to be. With SMART as its only real claim to fame, Brink feels decidedly average and is as easily forgotten as it is to die countless deaths.
– Dan Bradley
Shop for Brink on the platform of your choice for a discounted price at Amazon.com.