Playing
BRINK. If anyone wonders why I'm playing so many games from a few years ago, I'm going through my Steam back catalogue.
Firstly; so far as I know,
BRINK doesn't actually stand for anything. That's not a good start.
The art style won me back instantly. The men are caricatures, but you're so used to seeing touched-up male-model heroes in games that the lanky, big-nosed scallywags of The Ark are actually jarringly realistic in comparison.
I'm a sucker for customisation. I have remarked in the past that "I would play a slug racing simulator, so long as it let me choose the colour of my mucus". So when I first loaded it up, I was genuinely delighted.
After making my bloke look as much like me as possible (Standard practice for me - in this case it was "The Nose" face, blonde hair and, erm, acid burns.), I spent an enjoyable half an hour tinkering with my young punk's costume, settling on a striking black/red colour scheme for my Resistance guy and a grey digital camo/orange detailing scheme for his Security guise.
In the space of a couple of hours I unlocked plenty of outfits, enough to update my distant descendants' wardrobe twice. Resistance-Meechie went from "Deadbeat Dieselpunk" to "
Urban Aviator" to "
The Least Heroic-Looking Fireman Ever". Security-Meechie went from "Sensible Health & Safety Officer" to "Gimp Policeman"* to "
Street Cyborg".
It's probably obvious that I'm focusing a lot on the aesthetics here. That's because sadly, I enjoyed those much more than the actual game.
Out of all the tutorial missions, I actually enjoyed the movement one the most. It was just a checkpoint race around a small parkour set, but swinging, vaulting and sliding felt so comfortable and natural that it eclipses the rest of the gameplay. Of
course you should automatically jump a gap if you're running. Why don't other FPSs have ledge grab? Having to crouch and waddle rather than just sliding through a gap will never feel right again... All you do is hold Shift and you flick into sprint mode, and you'll pull all the necessary stunts to get to where you're pointing.
It power-slid downhill from there, sadly. There's three dozen guns to pick from, but I had trouble finding any real differences between them. I just picked the ones with the highest damage-per-shot and left it at that. In-game, it's just
CoD style rat-a-tat popping up from behind crates - though at least sliding makes you look cool when you get into cover (as well as being very annoying to the person trying to shoot you. Duck!). Fairly mundane and thoroughly unimpressive. You can butt people in the face with your gun to knock them over, though; which as well as being
hilariously satisfying, can also save your bacon if you're out of ammo or just want to run away.
The class system was pretty dull too. Since
TF2 every game developer and their dog has been shoehorning a class system into their game, and here it just doesn't fit. The fact that you can change your class on the fly during a match without so much as a respawn is really a testament to how shallow and unimportant
BRINK's classes are. The only real difference you'll notice is a) The buffs you can give you teammates (Engie/Damage, Soldier/Ammo, Medic/Health) and b) The objectives you're able to complete.
The latter is an artificial restraint put in by the devs. Regardless of name and class restrictions, all objectives just amount to running to a location and holding F while desperately trying not to die. This means that almost everyone just changes to the class that fits the current objective and rushes it. Again, a meaningless class system.
While we're on the subject of objectives: There are too fucking many. No FPS should have more than a primary and a secondary objective in multiplayer -
BRINK can have more than four, constantly updating and shifting. If you reach a point where players have an entire key dedicated to picking what objectives they want to show on their map, IT'S TOO COMPLICATED.
The former is not without flaws either. Operatives can't buff anybody, so nobody likes them. Playing one myself (i.e. not very well) practically inspired pantomime "Boo! Booo!" responses. Medics are useful, obviously, as players die rapidly (it's got a
Battlefield-style "incapacitation" system - dead players can lie around "Waitin 4 rez"), but can't do much besides heal their teammates. Though the Engie buff is big enough to make you really feel like you're helping (and also self-applicable - making you actually more effective in combat than the Soldier), you only really need one or two to just hang around doling out buffs to reinforcements; So
you yourself aren't really needed. Soldiers giving ammo is helpful, since there are no drops, only munitions-dispensing Command Posts which can often be half a map away if your team is losing; But I must admit that I rarely ran out of ammo mid-fight. Maybe that's just because I die a lot.
That's an admission I have to make. I'm not great at fast-paced twitch shooters. Something a bit more sluggish and varied, like
HL2 or something; Fine, bring it on. But bouncy mob wars, not so much. When I consider whether it's the game's flaws or my lack of ability that stopped BRINK from being enjoyable, I'm forced to conclude that it's probably a bit of both.
Team Fortress 2 managed to hold my attention for years, even though I wasn't great. It had character; well -designed roles for every type of player (even sluggish ones! I AM COMMEEENG) and an all-pervading sense of
fun.
BRINK has character in spades, but it's only skin deep; one role for all players, with a few downright negligible variations; and a frustrating, chaotic mass of button mashing and team division over multiple goals.
Halfway into the campaign and a few rounds into the largely bot-populated multiplayer, I'm convinced that I've seen all
BRINK has to offer.
Sadly, it's just another case of great looks, good style, zero personality.
And seriously, don't capitalise your title if you're not even going to try and come up with an acronym. Your one for SMART (Smooth Movement Across Rough Terrain) was pretty good!
*This one in particular was very entertaining, sadly I'm missing a screenshot. It was basically a European police uniform... but with a gimp mask on his head. The rubberised neck emerged smoothly from his tie and collar.
I don't know why I did a big review for a game I don't really like. I just feel like doing that sometimes.