Broken But Beautiful: ‘Brink’ Review

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There’s a mix-n-match, polyglot sensibility underlying most of Brink. You can make a character look singularly unique, switch your combat role during a mission at almost anytime, and even in death, decide to hold position and wait for a revive or respawn as part of another wave. The customization potential is exponentially huge, even if you go for the paramilitary look of Security or ragamuffin Resistance threads.

Brink‘s primarily designed as a multiplayer experience, to the point where even if you’re playing solo it feeds back into the stats, gear and abilities you’ll be using online. And players can jump into open public games, but that clever orientation exposes Brink’s biggest flaw.

The network portion of Brink is badly broken right now. Over the last few days, I’ve experienced lots of lag while playing. There’s been terrible hitching and stuttering, to the point where lip syncing in cutscenes is off. The latency renders the game unplayable at times, with basic actions like aiming or moving around impossible to execute. I’ve even gone back to check if the day-one patch offered at launch would help things, but I’m not seeing much improvement. You’re going to need a lot of patience if you want to see what Splash Damage has to offer.

Still, there’s something pulpy about Brink. The modular story design feels a bit like Saturday morning serials and the rough, beat-up aesthetic of the world gives a decidedly bare-knuckle feel to the proceedings. Another thing I love about Brink is how you can choose your character’s voice from the distinct dialect of the Chinese, West African, Irish or Caribbean voice actors. So, yes: It looks good, it sounds good and, when it works, it plays well. Alas, the unreliability of multiplayer dilutes nearly everything that’s great about the game. The solo campaign works on the same principles but the AI comrades you’re given don’t partner as well as real humans.

There’s hope for Brink however: netcode and online stability are things that can be improved and probably will soon. I’m going to recommend Brink, though with strong caveats about the online issues. It’s still a really forward-looking shooter with a nearly improvisatory energy that creates dynamic roleplay centered on positive social engineering. For a game built on maneuvering around obstacles in evolutionary fashion, consider it an investment in an intriguing future.

Techland Score: 8.1 out of 10

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