Zero Punctuation: Brink
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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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).
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).
Why? It's another multiplayer only shooter for the price of what a FPS would charge with a single player.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:
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.
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.
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.
I dig me some Brink. I also dig me some Zero Punctuation. What's cool is that I can like both.
Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this game. Meanwhile, I am loving the Operative and Soldier classes. Stems from nearly every other person on the internets wanting to be a Medic. Fear not death, especially when you can take a few of 'em out with you.
Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this game. Meanwhile, I am loving the Operative and Soldier classes. Stems from nearly every other person on the internets wanting to be a Medic. Fear not death, especially when you can take a few of 'em out with you.
I bought this, and I regret the purchase. The much-hyped SMART system basically amounts to the "push A to vault object" system that the Call of Dutys and Gears of War has had, and that the Halos have bypassed by giving you a jump button. It's something like Mirror's Edge... when Faith was holding an assault rifle. Also, you can't get rid of the rifle.
The close-quarter maps make all the objectives a total clusterf**k, and the AI's are flat-out STUPID when they're on your team and only incrementally better for the enemy. It's just a huge pissoff to be relying on them to complete an objective, or relying on them to be your medic in case you try and complete an objective yourself.
Even worse than mentioned in the review is the fact that all your customizable gear can have its color changed. Player model isn't a reliable indicator of faction, color isn't working either, it's basically down to "do I get a display over this guy's head when I look at him" for team differentiation. Same for telling what class a player is on your team. Bad Company 2 has better class distinction despite everyone wearing modern camoflauge patterns. Go figure.
For all the hype, this game has been a MASSIVE letdown. STAY AWAY unless you're getting it for $20 or less. Or if you'll buy my copy from me.
The close-quarter maps make all the objectives a total clusterf**k, and the AI's are flat-out STUPID when they're on your team and only incrementally better for the enemy. It's just a huge pissoff to be relying on them to complete an objective, or relying on them to be your medic in case you try and complete an objective yourself.
Even worse than mentioned in the review is the fact that all your customizable gear can have its color changed. Player model isn't a reliable indicator of faction, color isn't working either, it's basically down to "do I get a display over this guy's head when I look at him" for team differentiation. Same for telling what class a player is on your team. Bad Company 2 has better class distinction despite everyone wearing modern camoflauge patterns. Go figure.
For all the hype, this game has been a MASSIVE letdown. STAY AWAY unless you're getting it for $20 or less. Or if you'll buy my copy from me.
Oh, but I did see his review. But that doesn't even matter, since he summed it up in two or three words in his review of "Brink".randomfox said:
I think it worked well. Sue me. If they would've gone with the 3rd person view it would have been just a "Prince of Persia" knock-off. I think I fell in that series of games about as many times as I did in "Mirror's Edge". I didn't find it frustrating in neither: it's just how those games are.
Yahtzee clearly didn't play Shinobi. It was really bad in that regard: pitfalls were your worst enemies, controls weren't as sharp and it had an equivalent of a timer as well.
That is actually my point: as long as the game has great controls it doesn't really matter which view it uses. First person might even be the best one, since you don't need to adjust camera all the time (oh, the non-existent god, how I hate this. I hate bad auto-camera even more). One more thing: can you parcour in 3rd person in real life? I don't think so.
Not found this game very appealing and this reinforces that feeling. Very funny though, wonder how many people actually got drunk watching this!
First off, well done sir. Long time fan, very well done. Second off, anyone else catch the really weird nike advertisement at time 3:39? Look on the wing of the butterfly. There is a friggin nike swoosh symbol! Why is there sneaky advertising in beautiful ZP? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Yahtzee's review is exactly what I thought about the game. My friend got me into buying the game since I don't like that many of games he likes and vise-versa and really, the SMART movement is entertaining at times but I feel the game doesn't really make good use of it, or at least I haven't played to see how the Light class moves so I wouldn't know.Oh yah and the "you have to keep moving" is bullshit, I found myself just doing cover based shooting instead of running around because the Smart system is only useful was a Sprint function which isn't that good anyway.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:
The character customization is rather pointless, I found myself not giving a shit about how a character looked because the action was so fast I only noticed if a guy was wearing a helmet or if he wasn't. Not to mention it's not that free, all you get to do is make the same horse head in different colors, some different clothing as well. But really, Bethesda made another FPS that had much more satisfying customization then Brink, i.e. Fallout 3, I got Broken Steel the same day I got Brink and I pondered on that. In Fallout 3 you had distinct outfits, you had distinct hair styles, you had different skull anatomies, in Brink you don't have that.
The missions make you think each of them are different at first but in reality all of them are the same, blow up/capture then escort. The story is a joke, the cut scenes don't build up anything and I don't remember anyone's name, hell I doubt anyone had a name in the first place.
Lastly the levels, rather pathetic level cap, at 20? You can get to Level 5 in a few missions , sure later on it takes more time to level up true for every game, but say AC Brotherhood had a level cap at 50, and not every skill is in the levels and you had separate challenges you had to do, like saying kill someone with a particular skill or escape under a condition etc., in Brink you don't have this, in comparison a game like Fallout 3 it also has a level cap of 20 which you can get raised to 30 if you have Broken Steel, each level brings boosts that let you get into certain parts of the game, get you better at using guns, get special perks like eating people or having a guy help you out in VATS, Brink has none of this, just skills like reloading while you're running or noticing someone aiming their iron sights at you.
Although I'm rather mystified why Yahtzee didn't mention the Operative class, that one would've been different.
For people brilliantly yelling "It's was developed by Splash Damage Yahtzee!" Just remember, he was talking about player visual customization when he mentioned Bethesda. This is the kind of thing that probably does land on the publisher. It's simply a marketing style gimmick, not gameplay. That type of thing is often driven by the publisher of the game demanding a certain style for marketing reasons. He could have mentioned both, but if you had to choose which one drove the player visual customization, it would be more logical to pin that on the publisher and not the developer. The publisher does drive those types of decisions in most cases, and the developer implements them.
I enjoyed Quake Wars, so I did like this game, but the multiplayer is still unplayable. What really bothers me is how this is always compared to TF2. Red and blue teams are common on a ton of games, not just these two. Sure these games both have classes, but Brink is objective based. TF2 is about as objective based as Call of Duty.
[Obligatory "I liked Mirror's Edge" post]
I am miffed that parkour has been jammed in that already overflowing bag of minutiae that every action movie and game feels necessary to empty out once per product like some tacked on shadow of it's former glory.
District B13 is released and shortly after some totally arbitrary 'parkour guy' fights Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4. I've also heard though not witnessed the villain in the most recent Hulk reboot did parkour. I don't even want to imagine that.
I am miffed that parkour has been jammed in that already overflowing bag of minutiae that every action movie and game feels necessary to empty out once per product like some tacked on shadow of it's former glory.
District B13 is released and shortly after some totally arbitrary 'parkour guy' fights Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4. I've also heard though not witnessed the villain in the most recent Hulk reboot did parkour. I don't even want to imagine that.
