Testing Out Brink

by Charles Onyett - IGN.com | 28 February 2011 12:00
 
Developer Splash Damage refines its brand of multiplayer shooter.
 
It's been a long road for developer Splash Damage to get to Brink. Spawned from the PC mod community, Splash Damage grabbed everyone's attention with the Enemy Territory multiplayer expansion to the 2001 Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Since then, the studio again partnered up with id Software to put out Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in 2007, which was similar to Wolfenstein but on a much bigger scale with Strogg soldiers running around. With Brink, Splash Damage continues to evolve its distinct brand of multiplayer action, this time on its own terms. Unlike its past titles that were all tied to existing high profile franchises, Brink is all new.
 
The fiction of the game world pits security forces against resistance fighters over control of a fantastical city called the Ark. Unlike the huge spaces in Quake Wars, Brink feels like more of a return to the Wolfenstein days with smaller map sizes and plenty of corridors to funnel combat. A big difference this time around is the fluidity of movement. By holding down a button, your character can sprint and scramble up walls, giving it a mild Mirror's Edge type of quality, though it doesn't feel quite as graceful.
 

Brink offers loads of unlocks and upgrades that are made available with continued play, but these are far less notable in this post-Modern Warfare world than they were back when Splash Damage was doing similar things back in 2003. Still, it's an impressive suite of unlockable weapons and abilities for the four character classes. The wide range of submachine guns, shotguns and pistols can be customized with attachments to alter their functionality, and the character models can be outfitted with an array of tattoos and clothing.
 
The gameplay itself, like in previous Enemy Territory games, hinges on objective-based progression through a map. That means when a round begins, one team could be tasked with securing a computer terminal while the other has to try and defend. Both teams fight for position and control, and there's usually more than one approach to the objective. This splits combat into several fronts, requiring defenders police the main approaches while also keeping an eye out for those who manage to squeeze through less obvious spaces. Once the computer terminal is captured, the objective will switch to another point further into the map, creating a sense of structured direction to the match like you're following along with a story.
 
Multiple objectives are usually available regardless of the primary task. They can be made visible by calling up a circular interface and selecting the most interesting one. As was implemented in Quake Wars, there's an extremely helpful icon system onscreen to direct you to quest goals, as well as denote which classes are necessary to complete the task. An engineer is the only class that can repair a machine that's supposed to be escorted through a map.
 
I had a chance to play for a little while and mostly tried out the engineer because I'm a sucker for setting up automated turrets and repairing things. The deployable turrets don't hold up for very long under fire, so it's a good thing the engineer is still effective in combat. Like the rest of the classes, the engineer gets a special buff that can be bestowed on teammates, as well as class-specific upgrades to amplify the effectiveness of the available skills. Medics, for example, can be upgraded to eventually revive themselves, whereas normally they'd have to wait around for another medic to walk by and bring them back to life.
 

As with most games that include revive functionality, medics are key to preventing the number of your troops from dwindling on the front lines of battle and avoiding the lengthy trek back to the fight from respawn points. In Brink, you don't actually need jolt a teammate back to life – instead a syringe is passed off and it's up to the downed teammate to trigger the revive. As with previous games, if you shoot opponents enough times to knock them over, it's a good idea to run up to their bodies and shoot them again to make sure they're dead, otherwise an opposing medic might roll through and bring them all back in a blink.
 
According to Splash Damage, there's going to be very little separation between multiplayer and single-players experiences. You can play through the game with bots as a solo experience if you just want to get all the story bits, but you can also bring the same matches online where live players will dynamically cycle in. I'm assuming this'll serve as a good way to ease you into the gameplay style if the amount of information being tossed at you is initially overwhelming. And good news, the bots appear to be intelligent, going after objectives and using their abilities appropriately. Hopefully that's an observation that holds true when the game's released and everyone gets more time to play.
 
With fast action and some cool class dynamics, it seems like Brink could be another solid shooter from Splash Damage. It's doesn't feel quite as ambitious as Quake Wars, but I'm hopeful the pared down scale results in the same kind of entertainment.
 
Supplied by IGN.com