Not a review: Brink

I wrote a lot for this Blog entry about Brink, mostly defending this game.  But I realize.. it doesn’t need any defence. Any reviewer or critic that hated this game… hates teamwork and innovation and would prefer every game be about Kill/Death ratios and kill streaks.  Hey… if that floats your boat… cool.  If being the greatest individual in a teamwork scenario is what you’re about… you will hate Brink. Brink will eat your face the moment you think you can go solo on ANYTHING!

I’m getting better and better at being a “Solo Op” meaning like Bond… I do my best work alone.  High risk/High Reward.  With me on your team you wont need to send a team off to hack a command post or shut down a shortcut, I can do that by myself.  But that  behaviour constantly screws my team over. If I’m not there for a Comms hack (reveals ALL enemy positions on your map) or highlighting enemies (so everybody on my team can see that one enemy even through a wall) … So because of my Solo skills I HAVE to succeed in my solo ops 99.9% of the time because I’m screwing my team over every time.  Teamwork always pays off more than a solo effort… 

The rapport I have with the Engineer class is amazing.  After leveling up a bit.. I can hack enemy turrets and turn them against their masters… but… I level up a little more and I can use the Turret like it’s a mounted gun… BUT REMOTELY… so now I can watch over two points of entry.  I’m still a “one-man” special ops team most of the time but I need my team to pull it off. 

But does my team need me? I hope so.  Without me the hack based objectives would be very difficult.  I’ve got my hack technique down pretty good.  I’m in… caltrops get dropped at the hackbox and now I’m hiding close by hacking the thing remotely.  A lot slower with distance so.. PROTIP: I’m hiding REALLY close by.  Now the enemy has to either find me or deal with the caltrops I dropped that cut them as they try to deactivate my hackbox.  Then even assuming they find me to do me in… I can blow myself up after you incapacitate me. So I’m a threat even in death.  Remove me from your team and you are already at a disadvantage. And I’m just one guy (9 times out of 10 I’m one of two operatives on my team) And chances are the other Operative does not play the same style that I do.

You’ll see my actual real review in a week or so. . but for now, look at videos of the game and read all the mixed to positive reviews. And if you still want to play it… rent it first.  It’s a good game.  Is it perfect? Not even close! But it’s the best attempt I’ve seen since Counterstrike and Team Fortress CLASSIC to try to move team-based/Objective based multiplayer forward.  And for that it should be commended!  I’m so bored by every DOOM/Quake/Unreal clone.  It’s boring to me. 

So if you can still feel good about spending 60 dollars on roughly the same multiplayer modes you’ve been playing for the past 5 – 10 years Brink is just gonna piss you off because it’s not the same game everything else is.  So if you want the same boring stale shit you’re used to… go out and get Call of Duty or something.