Brink - Review 8.0/10

I give this game an 8 out of 10.

Tug-of-war... with guns. In Brink, two factions, Resistance and Security, battle in a once-utopian city called The Ark, a floating city above the waters of a flooded Earth.

Lets start with the art style. Stylized! Different. Something that works and works well. As everyone probably already heard, it's a good mixture of the objective gameplay in Team Fortress and the light RPG features of Borderlands. Brink has a look that people say looks dated, I say it fits very well. Imagine if everything looked photo realistic, I think it wouldn't work well.

Everything from your guns, clothes, armor, beards, face, scares, tattoos, etc are very well done and extremely detailed.

If you place a tattoo or a scar on your body, it's there for good, so you must be sure you really want that full body tattoo or a face full of staples (I have that one).

Click the photo for full size.

As you progress and complete challenges, you will start to unlock more weapons and attachments. You have to complete the challenges as a solo player, if you try to complete this with your buddies, you will NOT get any of the extra weapons or attachments. So just keep that in mind.

You have two factions you can pick from. The security, which are kind of like the "good guys" and are policing the Ark. Then you have the Resistance. They are the rebels that are fighting for basic needs.

Once you pick your faction you go into the customization. You start off with the medium class and you must progress through the first few levels to start unlocking the other two sizes. With each size comes pros-and-cons.

You can see all the amounts of detail in the way you can make your character.

Click the photo for a larger view.

Light Size - The ability to do the most parkour, the fastest size, but extremely weak and only can use SMG and pistols. Along with the pistol you get a knife. It doesn't have a single slice kill, but it surly does muck them up.

Medium Size - Assault Rifles and sniper rifles. You are a basic size, decent speed and pretty much a good amount of parkour. You can't do a lot of wall running, but you can jump up most ledges.

Large Size - Big ass guns, grenade launcers, machine guns, gatling guns and the ability to take the most amount of damage, but at a great cost. You are slower than dirt and pretty much your parkour is limited to most things that are waist high, THAT'S IT! You cannot get to the majority of places, but this class plays well as a medic or defense.

Here is some concept art just showing the medium and large size.

Click it for a kick ass photo.

Maps - 8. The same amount that Call of Duty launched. The guy over at IGN said it was ashame and wasn't good that it launched with such a small amount of maps. This couldn't be more wrong.

With the ability to do so many things, so many objectives, so many places to climb, etc. the maps ARE MASSIVE. Think Bad Company 2 but inside and outside in this floating city. It's pretty much massive and a must see with your own eyes to realize how big these maps are. They are more then enough for the start of the game.

While I am on the gameplay, I bet the whole game (both sides) in about 10 hours with 5 of my buddies. I am level 13 and have the majority of the challenges done. Each challenge gives you three different levels. 1 star, 2 stars and 3 stars. Each one getting harder. Each challenge gives you weapons, attachments, etc. Like I stated above, you must finish these on solo to get the goodies.

Gunplay - Solid. It takes a little while to get the hang of the guns. The big guns have a crazy amount of recoil. I found turning OFF the aim assistmade my ability to shoot about 10x better. It gets annoying when you are trying to focus on one enemy and have your guns "lock" on (doesn't lock on very well, just helps a little) target after target and it gets a little crazy at times. So try turning off the assist and see if it's better. It really helps with the sniper rifles.

Tug-of-war - Just imagine both sides trying to do an objective. For example the Resistance is trying to blow up or steal something, while the Security is trying to stop you. So it goes back and forth quite often. If the Resistance steals the files, the Security can kill the person who has the files and then return it back to the safe (where they have to rehack it).

The game is different. This really scares a lot of people. They expected something new and it was delivered. They promise a new approach and they hit the head on the nail. It just takes a few hours to get use to the gameplay and gunplay.

Here's a pretty cool 1280x1024 wallpaper.  Click it to snatch it.

OH, the AI. Someone said that the AI was stupid. I found out that's true and not true. The AI you are fighting against has some of the best aim with their grenades. It's almost sickening how fast you die. You will spawn, only to get smashed down in two hits while you try to blast a entire clip into them.

Here's another pretty cool 1280x1024 wallpaper.  Click it to snatch it.

The AI on your team is as dumb as a bag of rocks. They really don't stay with you and a lot of the time they will run away from you, not really buff you and really doesn't do much in terms of killing the enemy AI. They really seem to make it feel like you have to do everything when you're messing around in the challenges.

Sorry for the massive post. Enjoy the game ladies and gentlemen.