Brink

Brink is an FPS developed by Splash Damage, the team who previously made Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which at its core is an 8v8 player co-op multiplayer game that also features a single player mission mode and challenges.

Brink puts you in a world where civilisation has split from the mainland to create a colony out in sea called The Arc.  The Arc is a floating city which is protected by a security force but has a host of rebels who are wanting to leave to find out if there is life outside of this futuristic colony.

This is an objective based FPS. There are eight maps which have stages of objectives to complete for each side. On each map you will play either in an attacking or a defending force. Attacking forces usually have three or four objectives to complete to finish a map whereas defenders only have to stop you completing any single objectives to be successful.

The class structure of this is identical to the previous games by Splash Damage. You have a soldier class who can resupply other players and plant explosives on objectives; an engineer, who can repair damages objectives, build objective objects and buff weapon damage for other players; an operative who can assume the disguise of a fallen enemy player and hack enemy objective points and a medic who can heal fallen teammates and buff other players’ health.

Each class comes with its own unlocks which you will obtain as you play through the game with level points. You can choose to spend these points concentrating on class specific skills like building a turret as an engineer or on core abilities like having the option to reload while sprinting. There are loads of unlockables and class specific options available.

The game also has a unique movement system for an FPS. It looks like parkour. You are able to move around objects and obstacles with great ease (depending on your customised character body type) which adds a nice flow to the game. However sometimes you won’t be able to slide under or jump over certain objects. That aside, it does add some options when you’re in a gun fight, especially as you can sprint towards and then slide to knock over an opponent and then finish them off while they are on the ground.

Now, while the unlockables are pretty essential, there are also weapon and character customisation unlocks available. These are unlocked through a single-player challenge mode, and at this point I would recommend that for everything except the challenges (some of which can also be completed with friends for unlocks) you play every other part of the game in either co-op or versus mode online.

The reason being for this is that the A.I. in the game is so insanely bad, in saying that it would appear that its just the A.I. on your team. The A.I. on the other team is powered by a quantum super-computer which can predict your movement and actions with a 100% accuracy and will quite often just destroy your face for 10 minutes.

When I first started playing, I was getting increasingly frustrated with the stupidity of the single-player A.I. on my team, for example, being killed while a medic is close by on your team doesn’t guarantee that they will help you, for the most likely thing they will do is run back to spawn or just run away and leave you to die. So when it comes to completing objectives in single player its essentially you versus the entire other team.

Given that this game is all entirely hosted online, I feel that the frustrating single-player mode should have been removed from the game.  Making this an online only multiplayer game would remove the starting frustration which I have no doubt a lot of people will have felt while in this game, after all, not everyone is used to jumping into co-op or online when they have just purchased a game, however, with Brink it’s essential and actually brings out the best aspects of the game immediately.

Once you’re in co-op online, the aspects that make this game great all come together. You can actually see the other players working towards the objective, buffing other players with abilites, completing sub-objectives to make the main task much easier, and this is when the game truly comes into its own. I completed the entire campaign in online co-op mode and then I went and did it again, and again and again. For me, this game offers something that I think has been missing on consoles for a good while – a game thats focuses on co-op play to complete an objective. Fighting through to complete the mission gives me a sense of achievement. Even the microphone chat in game was civil, with people actually telling me what they where going for and how many enemies where up ahead.

So if you’re looking for a game thats not a brainless FPS, where teamwork is essential and you want a sense of acchievement for completing a level with your friends, Brink is definitely for you. This game is exactly what I’m looking for in a co-op title, something that I can get friends involved in where we all take a role and work together for an objective. It reminded me why I loved the previous games by Splash Damage