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Video

Launch Player

Red Dead Redemption ³⁶⁰

Lost Planet 2 ³⁶⁰

Preview

Brink

Format Xbox 360

Developer Unknown

Publisher Bethesda Softworks

Genre First Person Shooter

9-Mar-2010 Marooned. Desperate. At war. We go hands-on in the floating nightmare that is The Ark...

2 Comments

The stakes are high. Playing as a puny light-build Operative, we're hiding in a rusting ship's hull clutching a hacking device - edging closer and closer to the doorway and the terminal we're attempting to access.

The closer we get, the more signal bars on our iPhone-esque device, and the faster our code-assault on the missile system currently training an arc of mass destruction on the hub of The Ark, Founders Tower, will be. Getting closer also increases our chances of being spotted by Resistance 'terrorists' roaming outside amidst the bodies of our fallen comrades.

The tension is immense as we sit listening to the sound of scampering terrorists desperate to hunt down the lone Security hero attempting to quell their uprising. Then, well, it all abruptly ends with several shotgun blasts to the face. But it backs up the fact that Brink (much like Left 4 Dead) is going to be very much an anecdotal game - one that will prompt no end of 'Wasn't it awesome when... ?' conversations after games with your friends.

The area that we're fighting through (in between being shot into a bloody mulch and having to plaintively cry out for a restorative self-administering syringe from a friendly medic) is The Ark's shipyard. Once upon a time, this was where vessels were repaired but when the earth was flooded and The Ark seemingly became the last bastion of humanity, it was here that ships were ripped apart for metal and spare parts.

These days it's the only place that's uninhabited on the over-populated archipelago, free from both the hoity-toity official residents protected by the Security forces and the desperate and impoverished population represented by Resistance.

"It's a very dangerous place to be, not only because things are falling apart but, as in the terrible case with the sloping beach where they tear the ships apart in Bangladesh, it's incredibly toxic. Chemicals, heavy metals - it's a horrible place to be," explains Brink's writer Ed Stern, as we sit in one of Splash Damage's offices, while outside the team earnestly code in the pursuit of greatness.

"It turns out that there's one missile still active on one of the ships. Security have just missed this thing that's been sitting right under their noses. They've been looking for spare pistols and things that could be used to make fertiliser bombs, when there's actually a fully operational missile defence system that's been brought back online and will fire... I'm sorry." Mid-flow and suddenly distracted, Stern looks away, then back again with haunted eyes. "My manager just mooned me through the glass wall. He's a pale fellow. It's like... the exhaust of the Millennium Falcon. Slightly blue. Blinding light."

Workplace arse-reveals aside, depending on the way you want to play it, Brink is largely an eight-on-eight player objective-focused shooter. However, it has AI bots waiting in the wings to fill any gaps in the teams - potentially going all the way down to you on your human lonesome fighting through the story with help from automaton buddies in single-player mode.

In this new shipyard level it's the role of the Security forces to caper around destroying barricades put in your way, moving a bridge into position to let you into the second half of the level and finally attaching a hacking device to a blood-spattered computer terminal and cowering nearby until the missile has become less interested in the loss of civilian life.

If you're playing as Resistance, meanwhile, it's all about defence: stopping Security from fulfilling their various objectives and constructing (and reconstructing) the barricades that are making their life more difficult as the timer slowly ticks down to launch.

When playing Brink the action is frenetic and weapons feel supremely meaty. Lining up a collection of bots for a sequence of headshots is hugely satisfying and comes with the added benefit of some booming gunfire noises that can't help but reverberate within the less developed and more primordial parts of your brain. There is, however, more going on here than simple overzealous policing.

"The idea behind Brink is that you take on a combat role that suits your preferred playing style." explains Paul Wedgwood, head of Splash Damage. "So if you've got a cracking aim, you can be on the frontline pulling off headshots or planting heavy explosive charges and that kind of stuff as a Soldier. If you want you can play as an Operative, sneaking behind enemy lines, disguising yourself as the enemy, hacking into computers and opening back doors. Or maybe you'd just like to play a supporting role, in which case you'd choose Engineer; constructing turrets and laying down landmines to shore up your defence or constructing and repairing objectives."

Show off your skills
You appear on the map as your chosen class (of which Medic is also an option), with three different abilities that you'll have bought with experience gathered in former sorties. You'll also be decked out in the tattoos, bandanas and amusing hats that you'll have unlocked to reflect your status (or lack thereof) on the battlefield. After this, though, your path is an open book. Tap up on the D-pad and you're set the most useful task that your team requires. Hold it down and you're be able to choose from an array of objectives - with the most necessary ones weighted with a larger XP reward.

In the Shipyard map, for example, a soldier is required to set an explosive charge on one of the Resistance's barricades, while you might be asked to head to the nearest Command Post to become an Engineer, then move the central bridge into position. Otherwise, you can run around healing those who have been shot in the face (Medic), torture incapacitated enemies into revealing enemy positions on your team's shared mini-map (Operative), run around sharing ammunition (Soldier) or simply have a good time running, gunning and generally causing the enemy a headache (everyone).

Another objective you may well take up (as well as constant under-running mini-battles within the greater story arc) is the battle for the Command Posts littered around each level. As each of these are captured, they add to the health of your comrades or increase the shared power pool from which all heals, buffs and turret constructions are drained.

Stay smart
A useful, but easily neglected safety net is the SMART system. This cheery little mechanic sits beneath the left bumper that will have your character run forward and grapple up ledges, or slide under barriers lying in your path automatically. The elite players probably won't touch it, but once you're aware of its presence you'll certainly find yourself using it when smooth movement is required and you're not fussed about speed, but are fussed about messing it up. Although when under intense time pressure there'll almost always be a high drama shortcut for you to tackle manually, in a more hasty fashion than where SMART is liable to take you. In other words, it's not something for the hardcore to fear.

The XP gathered in each mission, meanwhile (through resistance/security tykes killed, ammo doled out or objectives fulfilled, and all whether you're online or off), can be spent on expanding your library of abilities - three of which can be taken into each bout, much like the perks in Modern Warfare 2. There are masses of these, and they come in flavours that are both general and specific to each class. After playing through the level several times, we earned the Engineer's ability to buff weapons, the Operative's sticky bomb that turns grenades into a variant of Halo's plasma grenade (that can be set in a doorway before sticking to the next pair of legs that walks through), the Medic's power of self-resurrection and the more global ability to unlock the Heavy character build (see Body Form, previous page).

All fun stuff, though a sneaky peek through the raft of potential extras after some serious experience harvesting promised even greater wonders that Splash Damage are toying with. Healing grenades for Medics, Pyromines for Engineers, the ability to control enemy turrets in a first-person fashion as an Operative and take-out unsuspecting foes... some truly intriguing concepts.

Right now though, in the current build, it can't be denied that it's an engaging, yet initially confusing system; you can tell that there's still a year of development work still to be applied to it. Rough edges and half locked-down design decisions are common, so when playing with AI bots it's difficult to work out the flow of play and, often, what the hell is going on. Discovering how single-player gameplay with the AI is going to be half as engaging as playing over Xbox Live is another brain-teaser.

All the ingredients of Brink are premium-grade, true Sainsbury's Taste the Difference stuff, yet Splash Damage hasn't quite worked out how much it needs to weigh out onto the scales, nor the oven times. The result is a mixture that tastes fine, but you wouldn't exactly want to feed it to the grumpy bald man on Masterchef.

It could be the multiplayer event of 2010, but it could also be a fleeting distraction - right now it's genuinely too early to tell. Watch this space.

OXM Staff