Brink (2011)

I did not like Brink. Back when it was announced, I already had mixed feelings about this little project, and, when finally playing it, my mixed feelings turned into boredom.

Brink is a FPS Parkour game in which players fight each other on different maps. You can choose various classes like the Soldier, who’s primary job it is to kill stuff, blow up stuff and throw ammo at teammates. Then you got the Engineers, who build stuff, upgrade stuff and disarm stuff. The Medic heals stuff and buffs teammates with health bonusses. And finally, the Operatives, spies who hack stuff and can see hidden landmines.

Each class also has a body type, which gives them different advantages/disadvantages. Light bodies are the fastest and most agile, while Heavy bodies can take more damage.

You earn experience for kills and completing various objectives, which you can use to make your character stronger.

The mechanics in Brink are relatively unique, until you realize that they ripped straight from Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. This is not a problem perse, but I rather play that game than a reskin with some added parkour in it. Other than the burrowed mechanics from Wolfenstein, the new objective system, in which every player receives an unique objective, is kind of cool. This way, you have the feeling that you are actually contributing to your team (or let them all down by dying). Each team also has a Squad Commander, with his own different objectives.

In terms of graphics, Brink all right, however, the color pattern of the environment makes it kind of blend and lifeless in my opinion. It is missing color like in Team Fortress 2 or Overwatch. Animations and walk cycles of the characters is decent enough.

Sound wise, the guns sound like pea shooters. It is not the worst I encountered, but it is far from special.

The controls and parkour itself works pretty well. The implementation of SMART, automates parkour when running towards a certain wall or gap. However, besides looking cool, jumping over a wall when being pumped full of lead, and reaching some higher ledges, I did not think it added that much to the game.

My biggest problem with Brink is simply that I did not get “a feel” with it. I thought it was unbelievably boring. This was mainly because I could not get into the play style, but the graphics and mechanics also did not motivate me to play any longer. Maybe Brink is/was not so bad after all, but I just considered it as “another so-called innovative online FPS” that did not add anything to the genre.

Another reason, for me at least, is that this game is Multiplayer only. Now this is fine, but there is a whole story and tons of lore behind this game about Global Warming, a floating city in the future, civil war between factions. It would have been great to have some sort of single player campaign. But no, although you can play the “Single player mode”, it is just multiplayer with offline bots.

In Online, or Single Player, I had exactly one hour of fun, jumping and parkouring around, but after that hour, I died of boredom immediately and de-installed the game.

So, based om my own personal experience, I would not recommend Brink.