Zero Punctuation: Brink

Bolt-206

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Dec 6, 2010
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I'm probably the first to point out that the gun sounds In BRINK are pretty dang awesome; they sound viscous, Security weapons sound clean and clear while Resistance guns sound more rusty, and Splash damage certainly didn't take shortcuts on the silencers either like other FPSs (I'm looking at you two CoD & Combat Arms).
Yes, I like gun sounds, I like sounds in general. Deal with it.

Staying on topic here, I enjoy the game, the bots haven't really been too much of a problem for me, and all the weapon and body types seam balanced. Speaking of bots; to all those who are saying that the bots in BRINK are incredibly stupid and that they have to do everything themselves, I should point out that I HAVE COMPLETED THE ENTIRE 'CAMPAIGN' IN SINGLEPAYER (All on normal, a couple on hard) WHILST ONLY USING THE SOLDIER CLASS. You just need a bit of patience... and make sure the area is clear.

And I'd probably have to disagree with Yahtzee when it comes to the early classes;
-Soldiers never have to worry about running low on ammo, and they get to throw a few Molotovs every now and then
-Engineer get to buff team mate's weapons (a big thing with sniper rifles), and place mines on the battlefield (I swear those things are worse than Claymores...)
-Operatives get to go undercover and perform wedgies to the opposing team in the form of a shotgun blast to the back of the head.
 

makkebakke

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May 6, 2010
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Brink isn't made by Bethesda! They just get the game from the developer to your local store. Well talk after Skyrim has been released...
 

Marik Bentusi

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2010
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Oh Yahtzee, I beg thee, you ask why people have to grind for unlocking items?
1) Raising playtime for the box cover
2) Arguably giving the player a sense of achievement and growth.[footnote]Tho the intelligent unlocking process that doesn't incorporate grind, especially not for every fucking character you create (concerning the Abilities, not weapons or clothes). Instead the reason why you're not given all the toys at once is because it's an implemented tutorial that makes sure you know how to play with the normal toys before giving you more and more complicated ones. In shooters with different classes this also means you need to learn your role and general strategy.[/footnote]
3) There are actually people that reaffirm their sense of whether they had fun with a game via their play length. Curious, isn't it?

It's really mind-boggling how much Brink tried to copy TF2 without understanding it, especially considering the stylization. The TF2's character stylization works well because it works together with the world stylization and the humor while Brink just stylizes the body a bit (most strongly the head, but those hardly count to the silhouette - hence TF2's easy-to-read-silhouettes haven't been strongly affected by hats... oh Dapper's Topper, you *****).
Brink took itself totally seriously. What's the point of cartoony proportions there?
Not to mention the frikkin color filter ruins your outfits color composition.

I consider myself really lucky since I played it at a friend's. Since TF2 is slowly going down the drain[footnote]Not just because of the artstyle. Community Contributions lead to Valve first picking a model and then thinking up (boring) stats, which are often +stat1 -stat2. Community Contributors orientate their models around already existing ones, which means variety both goes down (except in melee weapons - everything can be one) in style (harder to identify) and in concept. That means we won't get stuff like the Wrangler that's incomparable to any other item in use and looks. And those weapons are the most fun ones. Valve also doesn't have the heart to remove already added items, so QA suffers even more. They can't correct mistakes as easily as before. Tier 2 set items didn't have hats as a requirement anymore because Valve realized it had been a mistake, but Tier 1 still has hats as a requirement because some players payed dearly for the hat because of the bonus. Talk about digging your own grave.[/footnote] I had hoped for a clone with less Mannconomy-Update-induced shite. Brink had more customization, true, but at least it all fit somewhat well together, as opposed to... no, I can't take another shot. Anyway, I underestimated the power of silhouettes once more and I tip my hat to the original TF2 design team.
Because there's no way they're still working on it.
 

Thundorn

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Feb 18, 2010
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The key here really is that Bethesda, like many Game Developers, are well on their way down the slippery slope that comes with money and a few big titles in their pants. Unfortunately, just like cars, once a manufacturer puts a couple of nice titles out there and makes a few quid there are two inevitable outcomes. The first is that they get hungry for more cash, the second is that they will shorten deadlines and push more and more weak titles out onto the market to cash in on their "Badge value".
Bethesda have pretty much existed off the back of Oblivion, and Fallout 3 and pretty much continue to do so.
 

General_Tragg

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May 25, 2011
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Aww man, I was hoping Brink would be kinda Timesplitters-y...
It looks kinda Timesplitters-y, I get that feeling from the trailers anyhow.
 

zad1212

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Apr 4, 2010
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I am going to re-watch this but with a beer, and I thought brink was going to disappointing, and everywhere conformed what I said.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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Lol. That wasn't a bad review...

But the 'staring at a blank screen to unlock the start button' bit reminded me of a couple of flash games that purposely messed with things like that.

The most relevant being:
http://armorgames.com/play/3955/upgrade-complete

And of course, on a slightly different tack:
http://armorgames.com/play/2893/achievement-unlocked

Heh.

It's fun when someone has implemented one of Yahtzee's throwaway comments...
Even (or perhaps because) it's intentional satire, they're actually still kind of fun.
 

DivineBeastLink

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Nov 22, 2009
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Not entirely sure why some people hate on first-person platforming. Metroid Prime did it quite well, and Mirror's Edge wasn't bad at all (just occasionally very buggy).

It CAN be done right.
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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HankMan said:
I guess Brink's attempt to rip-off TF2 (take a drink) just wasn't very
*puts on sunglasses*
Classy
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Well done :p

I'm still waiting for a subscribe to poster button. Is there one? One can never have too many puns.
 

Cid Silverwing

Paladin of The Light
Jul 27, 2008
3,134
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HankMan said:
I guess Brink's attempt to rip-off TF2 (take a drink) just wasn't very
*puts on sunglasses*
Classy
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I lulz'd.

This does create a paradox though. You don't usually see games like TF2 get ripped off, much less THIS badly. I mean, Mario Kart can get ripped off and no one would give a shit (but then again it's Mario). Then when shit like this happens, you really gotta start wondering what's happening to the games industry.
 

Shjade

Chaos in Jeans
Feb 2, 2010
838
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Anyone else a little surprised that Yahtzee went through an entire review about a game full of thousands of customization options in which exactly zero are female without making some form of joke about homoeroticism?

Maybe he deemed it too easy.
 

pneuma08

Gaming Connoisseur
Sep 10, 2008
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One thing that I see overlooked (and this review is no exception) is that there's actually two class systems to Brink - the "class" and the "body type". The body type determines health, weapon types, and maneuverability whereas the class determines how you interact with your teammates, enemies (outside of just them), and objectives. Honestly, this may be a bit too complicated for its own good, as the silhouette-shortcut that Team Fortress 2 uses simply doesn't work in Brink, and to determine someone's class you have to point your cursor at them and pay attention to the floating class symbol (which clutters up the already cluttered HUD even more). This makes it difficult to shoot whatever class that is necessary to complete the objective (i.e. defend it properly) or to shoot those damn medics who keep reviving everyone.

The only other major complaint I have with Brink is that I wish they did more with the parkour stuff in the maps. Usually it's used to climb and slide and that's about it but there's actually quite a bit of depth to the leaping around that I realized during training. (Some of which might be restricted to the light body type, though. I haven't really played around with that too much because I found a style of play that I enjoy and it's not possible to change body type during a game, which is actually very unfortunate, now that I think about it.)

That isn't to say that Brink is bad. It's not. It's just not exceptional. And you need to play it with people because the bots are not adequate as teammates or enemies (and they do swing wildly from ineffectual to overpowering on a whim, which is very annoying). Also, don't watch the intro video and very much do the training (which is filled with training-only unlocks and helps to smooth over the very large learning curve).
 

Mercsenary

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Oct 19, 2008
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Thespian said:
.... WHY MUST YOU NOT LIKE WHAT I LIKE YAHTZEE :(

Oh well. Fair enough review anyway.

... Just give Brink a chance peoples. PLEASE D:
Why? It's another multiplayer only shooter for the price of what a FPS would charge with a single player.

I have those already. BF2142. Team Fortress 2(take a shot). Counterstrike. DoD. All of these go for relativley cheap.

Hell. TF2? 10.00 USD on steam. Bam. Cheaper. Arguably less graphic intensive and a better color palette than brown grey and oh look some blue.
 
Nov 12, 2010
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Did Yahtzee just review a (mostly) multiplayer game? That's the sign of the apocalypse!

How come parcouring doesn't work in the first person? Of course it does: it worked bloody well in "Mirror's Edge". But I do get where he's coming from. I played the PC version and Yahtzee probably played the console one. The controls in the PC version of "Mirror's Edge" were pin-point precise, something a mouse provides. You can't get that kind of precision out of a gamepad. "Mirror's Edge" punishes imprecision more than anything else. Also the close combat was simply amazing in that game, as Yahtzee would've said: "it flows". Probably the only FPS where close combat works.

Frankly I loved it: after all the bland "realistic" shooters "Mirror's Edge" was like a breath of fresh air. DICE weren't afraid of doing something different and for that I take off my hat.

"Brink" looks cool, but I heard it was released raw and unfinished. It's probably better to wait for the patch storm first.