A hopeful start and interesting multiplayer isn't enough to save it from the idiotic AI and disconnected story.
If you have played online shooters before, you can understand the ideas behind missions in Brink. The basic controls are the same as any other FPS around, but it is the game mechanics that will throw the average player for a loop. Each mission gives you a handful of general objective that must be completed in order, as well as some optional objectives. Most require some variation of defend or attack a position. There are four different character cIasses and quite often only one will have the ability to secure a given objective. Most of the time, it will be required to stand at an object, activating it for thirty seconds or more in order to succeed at your mission, so teammates protecting you is a must.
The game has a great artistic styIe with its cel shaded look, but it is hardly unique. The Security team constantly reminded me of Crackdown and the Resistance looked like they were pulled straight out of Borderlands. Actually, the first commercial I saw for Brink I originally thought it was the sequel to Borderlands. As with most games that have cel shaded graphics, everything looks cool, but nothing actually impresses, and Brink is no exception. Once you get used to the game world, it feels somewhat dull.
I have to be honest, after a few minutes of having the game on, I was excited. The setup is quite intriguing. You must pick your side right from the start and create a character. The options for customization are impressive, with many locked at the outset until reaching a certain level or point in the story. Weapons and skills are also locked until reaching the required level, much like your average online shooter. The gameplay is identical whether playing online or off, with AI teammates and enemies filling in for any slots not filled by players.
Which brings us to Brink's game-destroying downfall: the single player AI. The basic design seems to have them programmed to run to the objective and shoot any enemies they come across. This works just fine when you need to defend a spot, since the spawn points for the defending team are usually closer than the attackers. This means just about you entire team can reach the location before coming under attack. The game falls apart when you need to attack. Your teammates still simply run to the checkpoint and try to take it whether or not they have support. Since most of the time the entire enemy team will be there, your team will continue to get slaughtered one by one until you fail the mission.
Even in the event that you manage to secure a location, you still can't rely on your team to do their jobs. If, for example, you need a soldier to plant a bomb while you defend him, he will continually leave his position and start shooting if enemies get near even if he has the entire team covering him. This leads to you having to continually switch cIasses in order to do everything yourself, which is something that this game is clearly designed to not allow. I had moments where I put on a brilliant one man show in which I killed the entire enemy team at an objective yet they had time to respawn and arrived to kill me before anyone else from my side showed up. They also clearly have no concept of time sensitive objective either. Often times I would find myself trying to assault a required enemy objective with thirty seconds to go and I would hear a teammate call out, "I'm taking this health station." Really? That's your main priority? A miniscule health boost for the team is more important than winning the mission? Item deliveries are also broken. Countless times I have seen a teammate pick up an item that needs to be delivered and simply run around the room they picked it up in. Once, they had grabbed the item, ran halfway to the checkpoint, then turned around and ran back to the room they picked the item up in. There is no way to take the item from them, so your only choice is to follow them around and wait for them to die. Most of my time spent with Brink found me screaming in frustration at my teammates, which is not the best way to remember a game.
Single player AI typically isn't too intelligent in any game, but most titles are designed to let the player be a one man army. In a game where teamwork is an absolute necessity, it destroys the experience when they are this dumb. The final level will definitely be on my top ten most frustrating video game moments, and I was playing on the easiest of four difficulties. The concept of difficulty level in this game also baffled me. Since everything in the game is designed to be balanced perfectly, the only way to make it any harder, would be to make your teammates even dumber.
The plot has a great setup, but falls flat once the game starts. Society has collapsed and in order to save themselves from the ruthless world, a group of people created the Ark, a floating and self-contained city. After a while, the two sides formed. The Security team wants to maintain order and keep themselves isolated from the outside world. The Resistance feels oppressed and wants to escape the Ark. The setup does a good job of making it so there is no good or bad guys, just opposing factions. Once the campaign starts, though, the story is limited to a short intro explaining the objectives of the mission. Most missions aren't tied together, so there is no flow to the plot. The Resistance end movie even shows the developers disinterest in the story by saying to you almost word for word, "Now you have seen both sides, but who knows what will happen on the Ark," which implies that neither or both sides won. It is a frustratingly ambiguous end to a story that didn't flesh itself out in the first place.
The length isn't anything worth writing home about either. It matches the moronic industry standard of five hours, but even goes out of its way to make it feel shorter. The game is split into two campaigns for each side and eight missions each. However, four of these sixteen missions are 'What-if' scenarios that don't actually occur in the main plot line. When the story is an afterthought anyway, I really don't care about what might have happened. The other thing that kills your time with the game is the fact that even though there are sixteen missions, there are only eight maps. The Security and Resistance campaigns take place in the same locations and same missions, with you just playing the opposite side depending on your alliance. This makes your actions all the more pointless once you realize the next mission occurs with the same objectives regardless of which side you are playing on.
I'm not sure what happened with Brink's development. It clearly started with a great idea, but either the team didn't know how to execute the game properly, or it was designed as a quick cash-in with a limited budget. Either way, Brink is a perfect example of how to kill a great idea. I get the idea that it is meant to be a multiplayer shooter, but with many better online shooters around with far better single player experiences, there isn't really any reason for Brink to exist.
Pros:Interesting concept; Umm... looks like other, cooler games.
Cons: Broken AI; Throw away plot; Too short; Recycled levels in a game that is already too short; A general insult to solo gamers everywhere.
Bottom Line: A hopeful start and interesting multiplayer isn't enough to save it from the idiotic AI, disconnected story, and frustrating progression through the game.