Brink has emerged as one of the most anticipated games of 2011, but fails to be the revolution in multiplayer first person gameplay it promised.
Brink mixes traditional FPS action with Mirror's Edge-like free running, here called SMART - Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. Players choose one of three body types, heavy, medium or light. While the heavy type runs slowly and can only vault certain objects, the light body can wall jump, run fast and much more.
Featuring campaign and multiplayer modes, set over just eight maps in total, Brink is heavily weighted towards players who want online gaming. There is an introductory video explaining Brink that's over ten minutes long, explaining everything you need to know. That's a good example of how Brink is too complicated. The single player campaign suffers from terrible bot AI, which can go from unfairly hard to unbelievably stupid seemingly at random.
Multiplayer modes are played in the same maps as the single player. While there are enough game modes, it would be a lot more fun with simpler HUD and better maps. There is plenty of room for improvement with future patches and downloadable content in Brink, but as it stands it is simply too short and lacking in content to compete in the FPS Market. Call of Duty, Battlefield and Homefront to name a few, offer much better and multiplayer gameplay, with more content to boot.
Brink's mix of free-running and FPS is a good idea, but it fails to live up to expectations, and the game overall just doesn't have enough content.
