Brink Written Review

My little brother was stoked when he heard that there was a 1st person shooter with free running going to be released; He immediately pre ordered Brink. I looked up the game and didn't think it looked very good, so I tried to get my brother to get a different game. He was excited when he finally got the game and played it for hours on end before he let me have a turn. When the game started the unique character design and graphics impressed me and for a moment I thought that maybe this game would be a diamond in the rough. The games character models resemble those of team fortress 2 that have been slimmed down and given a more detailed look. The character creation is very nice and allows you to create your own character that you will play as throughout the campaign and multiplayer. The campaign is set in the future, where the ice caps have melted and the last of humanity lives on a floating city called "The Ark". This experimental island was only meant to contain 15,000 people; but due to the loss of land mass for people to live on, "The Ark" now holds 50,000. You choose between a group trying to escape "The Ark" or as the security company tasked with keeping these rebels under control. I was sad to see that there was nothing more to the story than that. There is nothing else whatsoever, your character is just a grunt and you must carry out orders from higher up. Everything was fine until the game actually started. You are given the inventory screen before the battle starts and you select your weapon and class. The four different classes are soldier, medic, operative, and engineer. When the game started I was given an objective, protect the so and so, simple enough. As soon as the mission actually started I was horrified to see that the game is plagued with stiff animations, unbalanced combat, and glitches galore. You give your squad a command and it does not actually affect whether you will win or not. The free running does not actually help you in any way shape or form. While you can get to a higher vantage point, you also lose the total amount of damage you can take, and which weapons you can wield. Enemies and allies alike spaz out at random times while simply walking they flail their arms. The classes are incredibly unbalanced. No class brings anything to the table as far as support. You won't need to change your class at all. There is a whole slough of unlocks including weapons, outfits, attachments and abilities. Unfortunately, spending the time to unlock these goodies is not worth the trouble. All in all, the game is fun but not worth the $60 price tag. While you can have some fun playing this title, you will not see anything that really catches your eye or revolutionizes anything. You will get frustrated by the crappy AI, and you will get pissed when you are killed after an unbalanced shootout. This game gets a 6/10 from me.