2011年5月10日星期二

Brink (Review)

My rifle’s chunky, deep report chops through the red bar over a stray defender’s head as he rushes to disarm my explosive charge. The lanky engineer should have brought friends, because on Brink’s floating city, one-man-armies may as well slurp up a bowl of bullet soup and call it a day.

The chinny, dreadlocked man crumples to the ground, flailing and praying for a friendly medic. His team isn’t far behind, and the confusion of battle might afford him a Revive Syringe and another attempt my disarming my charge, so I stand over his body and chug rounds into his head until he goes limp and colorless.

As I reload and look up, I realize that the bold, dead engineer unwittingly gave his team the upper-hand on me. It’s too late to reorient myself as his backup rushes through a corridor, and a Molotov cocktail sails into my face, chucking my feet into the air. Too overwhelmed to stand up, I fire maniacally at the invading team as it struggles against my own.

Lucky for us, they’re also too late – my charge goes BOOM and knocks 'em to their asses.

LittleBrinkPlanet

Brink is ambitious. The mechanics boldly corral players into team bonding without devolving into pointless "let’s see who can get the highest score without actually helping the team" pissing matches. There’s not much you can do in Brink, excluding standing around and shooting at your own feet, that doesn’t push your team toward its goal.

Additionally, Brink’s Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain (S.M.A.R.T.) system adds free running to the first-person shooter experience, and its detailed character and weapon customization feels more important than it should (Mohawk or gasmask? Oh, the choices!).

It’s only disappointing that Brink feels so confined by its own premise. Its innovative mechanics far outdo its lifeless, confining story, and, while respectable, its pure focus on multiplayer, team-based objective matches confines it further. Aside from a few “Challenge” maps which test your skills and unlock new weapons, the bulk of Brink consists of only eight objective-based maps, which can be played as either the Resistance or Ark Security.

The Ark is a floating city which was transported into open waters after the sea level rose and civilization collapsed. Ark Security seeks to maintain order, while the proletariat Resistance clamors to escape the city’s slums in search of what’s left of the world. Over the course of six missions (and two "what if?" scenarios), the two sides battle to rescue hostages, acquire intel, and blow stuff up to achieve overall victory. Each mission begins with a brief voice-over and cut scene to set up the scenario, but skipping them to get to the game faster won’t put much of a nick in the experience.

The story isn’t totally uninteresting, but the characters and missions are hardly memorable enough to warrant the number of unlockable audio logs in the game (can we be done with audio logs now?), and Brink’s mechanics feel bigger than the alternating rusty and sterile environments of the Ark. The game’s superbly-designed missions could have happened anywhere, so why limit them to an isolated floating city where the only maps can be isolated floating city maps? It’s like Team Fortress 2 with a story – not really necessary, and it prevents the mechanics from being explored.

As disappointed as I am with its unmet potential, I still think Brink is a great game. It's like a Cadbury Creme Egg - small, but full of rich, creamy filling. I can't describe every individual flavor packed into that filling in this review, because 1000 words on effective use of the Engineer class wouldn't help you understand the overall feeling of playing the game. If you want to know what the game is like, the closest you can get without playing it is to watch it, so I've recorded one entire match (against bots) in two parts. Watch the first part below:


Source: http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/brink/review/brink-super-review/a-20110509142556983053/g-2009052911331493062

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