Brink Is Out! Should You Care?

So!  After nearly 2 years of waiting for this promising game, it came out around 2 hours ago and I dove head first into the PC edition, seeing that PSN is rather...dead. Response to the game so far has been mixed, with reviews being all across the board. Check out my impressions so far after the jump..I'd strongly recommend reading this if you are on the fence so far.



IncGamers: 8.8
Gaming Nexus: B+
Eurogamer: 8/10
Gametrailers: 7.9
Destructoid: 7.5/10
1UP: D
IGN: 6/10
Joystiq: 2/5 (Omitted due to doubts about Journalistic integrity)


My impressions after 2 hours of gameplay are as follows: The marketing, trailers and interviews did not reveal that singleplayer would have no strong narrative. It turns out that the single player campaign consists of a bunch of multiplayer rounds with various objectives, but no real protagonists or what anyone would consider a traditional videogame story. It felt like a bunch of quickmatches with various objectives. The first few 'missions' were chaotic and overwhelming, but I got the hang of it eventually. You're just thrown in after an incredibly brief cutscene which explains nothing about your faction, and you're off.

Gameplay is smoooth, and fun. Gunplay is satisfying, although it was hard to tell at times what the difference between the different weapons was.  AI was completely retarded and broken, with enemy security forces getting stuck or just sitting still while I unloaded pounds of lead into their face. I couldn't find people online to play the singleplayer with on coop, possibly due to a broken matchmaking system.  As a result its impossible to get an impression as to how the game is meant to be played.

The game so far feels like it was rushed out, as its rather buggy and unpolished in areas. It looks fantastic in some areas, but it feels like some of the concepts they were trying to execute never fully came together. I'd recommend waiting a bit while the devs fix all the existing issues.  Its playable, but single player is completely garbage without your friends jumping in. I feel bad for Playstation users who picked this up...This is a very multiplayer reliant game that just doesn't work as a stand alone as of now. If you have the Xbox/PC version with tons of friends, give it a shot(And if you don't have an ATI card, graphic glitches have been reported). If not, steer clear until the issues get ironed out. I feel like this launch is going to draw some definite ire from the FPS community.