Over the past few months, people who pre-order games to have them on release day have consistently been disappointed with the overall quality of the games they’ve received. The list of complaints is endless – unacceptably short single-player campaigns, poorly-designed multiplayer, game-breaking bugs … the list just keeps going.

Sadly, the only way Brink is different is in the degree of disappointment, which exceeds every other poorly received title to date this year.

Brink is set in a self-sufficient floating city called The Ark, which was built to showcase sustainable development. Sea levels started to rise and The Ark was forced to move to a new location – however, refugees found it anyway, and suddenly the sustainable practices weren’t enough to meet the needs of this expanded population. That strain on resources resulted in two factions forming – one of which wants to protect The Ark, while the other wants to leave to find dry land and other survivors.

As I type this, it occurs to me that the incredibly limited plot in Brink (it’s too thin to call it a story) has a fair bit in common with the plot of “Waterworld,” and frankly, I think I’d rather watch Kevin Costner filter more of his own urine and drink it than devote much more time to this game because it’s difficult to determine where to begin in describing Brink’s many shortcomings.

Which is most problematic? The wildly unbalanced multiplayer in which the Engineer class can hold off multiple soldiers due to automated gun turrets and landmines? The limited number of maps? The single-player campaign using the same maps for its missions? The ridiculously short single-player campaign which can be beaten in about six hours? The dumbest AI system in recent memory? All of these issues are critical problems, especially in a game in which the AI spawns lemming-like teammates who will run directly into suppressive fire repeatedly, and rewards that behavior in multiplayer since it’s often easier to respawn with full ammo and supplies than wait for a medic.

While it’s normal for games to borrow from other titles to make sales and marketing easier, Brink is less a game than a collection of borrowed ideas. To wit:

• It borrows its setting from games like Borderlands and Mirror’s Edge
• It borrows its visual design from Team Fortress 2
• It borrows its parkour (free running) from Mirror’s Edge
• It borrows its leveling system from Bad Company 2 multiplayer
• It borrows its match communications from Call Of Duty

However, this is not praise – it is not good when a game feels like so many other, better games because that generally means it has no identity of its own and can't stand on its own two feet and relies on that familiarity to carry it to modest sales. While Brink looked like an innovative game which offered players nearly endless choices before release, the game that players received more closely resembles a flaming brown bag on a doorstep.

With that disappointment firmly in mind, let’s get this out of the way so I can play Portal 2, which seems to be the early contender for game of the year and is fantastically fun, while Brink is the early contender for 2011’s most rapidly discounted game in the clearance bin and is already a front-runner for worst game of 2011.

Brink’s failings are many – the developers somehow managed to create a character generation system which allows players to generate 100 quadrillion character appearances, not one of which is a woman. Keep in mind, 100 quadrillion appearances is significantly more than the total population of everyone who has ever lived on this planet combined.

Most of Brink’s missions can be completed in 15-20 minutes – given that there are 16 missions total (8 Resistance and 8 Security), that suggests an average playing time for the single-player campaign of roughly 6 hours. That play time is only extended by failing missions repeatedly, which is easy to do in solo play since AI-controlled team members seem slightly less useful in a firefight and for completing tasks than broccoli, or perhaps an especially astute carrot.

Moreover, once you’ve completed the single-player campaign, you’ll be seeing those maps again in online multiplayer. The same small number of maps, over and over and over. In just a couple of hours of versus matches, I had played every single map again. While it’s easy to blame the AI for poor tactics in offline solo play, the developers bear responsibility for creating slaughterhouse maps like Container City, which has one of the single worst chokepoints ever found in online multiplayer, despite offering two methods to flank. Those flaws, given the ridiculously limited number of maps in Brink, are magnified far more than they otherwise might be because players simply can’t get away from them – those maps appear very frequently because Brink only offers a handful of maps to play.

There are additional game modes – challenges which grant weapons and weapon attachments, the ability to create public and private games with set rules and so forth, but these modes generally seem as thin as the rest of the game, and just as frustrating.

The challenges are similar to the Special Ops campaigns in Modern Warfare 2 – they present the player with a challenge and a win condition (accomplishing a goal within a time limit, most commonly) and provide rewards based on how well a player did. However, while Modern Warfare 2 based rewards on performance, Brink requires the player to play a level three times to earn all reward tiers, regardless of how well the player performs – in short, a player could perform well enough on the first attempt to earn the rewards available on the second attempt, but the game requires players to successfully complete the challenge again to earn those items.

Fundamentally, Brink feels like a set of features taken from other games and bolted together to try to form a coherent whole. When players gain a level, they select a new ability from a list, much as players do in Bad Company 2 multiplayer. Players gain experience from performing tasks assigned to a character type, much as players do in Bad Company 2 multiplayer. Players move and jump around and over and under various obstacles, much as players did in Mirror’s Edge (which, like Brink, also felt more like a demonstration of what a game engine could do and less like an actual game). The environment feels like Borderlands and Mirror’s Edge, depending on where the player is. The game provides a set of win conditions and a time limit, then yells at team members to accomplish the objective and notes the remaining time, much like Modern Warfare 2. The list goes on. And Brink winds up feeling much less like a coherent whole and far more like a mish-mash of ideas taken from other, vastly superior games as a direct result.

It’s now two full days after I purchased Brink. I finished playing every single campaign mission and I’ve played every map in multiplayer. I’ve completed a number of the challenges, except the ones that require twitch reflexes that are beyond my abilities. In short, I’ve completed just about everything there is to do in the game in less than two days with the exception of achievement hunting.

When compared to Brink, Homefront (the other early disappointment of 2011) looks like a masterpiece of game design and storytelling, with sterling, world-class multiplayer. Compared to a game that’s good, Homefront still fails to impress, but that illustrates how poorly-conceived and executed Brink is. It is, at this point, an absolute mess of a game which no amount of patching or DLC seems likely to fix.



Accessibility Issues / Concerns

The most basic, fundamental accessibility issue with Brink is the lack of subtitles. There is no readily visible way to turn them on, and I’ve checked with other people to make sure I’m not missing anything. It seems that Brink simply doesn’t have subtitles of any sort. Considering that the game provides instructions and tutorials in voice-overs, handles in-game communications with bot players using voice-overs and so on, deaf gamers should avoid it entirely.

However, there is a story behind Brink’s lack of subtitles which is far messier. Steve Spohn, Editor-in-Chief of AbleGamers.com, spoke with representatives of Splash Damage at PAX East about the lack of subtitles and those representatives told him they would be adding subtitles before launch. Apparently, they failed to do so. It’s not clear why – there really isn’t enough content in Brink for the developers to claim that it was something they couldn’t squeeze in before the release date. It appears that a Splash Damage representative simply lied to Steve.

Brink partially succeeds in one area of accessibility in providing a number of controller layout schemes, as well as limited controller remapping. Brink provides layouts consistent with Halo, Gears Of War, Call Of Duty, Killzone and other well-known first-person shooters. Furthermore, players can remap almost anything but the commands on the d-pad, including which stick controls movement and looking. While limited remapping is nice, it effectively requires players with use of only their left hand to buy a specialized controller since the d-pad buttons cannot be reassigned to common game functions. To summarize, players with use of their right hand can reassign the A / B / X / Y and other buttons on the right side of the controller to meet their needs. Players with use of only their left hand cannot reassign the d-pad buttons and will have a significantly more difficult time playing Brink.

Players with precision concerns will experience typical issues with Brink – aiming is manual and the parkour requires holding down and pressing buttons. Targets move quickly and can be difficult to shoot. However, this is offset somewhat by the roles a player can assume. Using a nearly identical skill system as Bad Company 2, players can gain experience by performing tasks within their role. Medics buff health and revive players, engineers build and repair things, and buff players weapons, soldiers are a traditional fighting class which can resupply players with ammunition and so on. Brink grants more experience for buffing and completing tasks than it does for combat, meaning that it is possible for a player to stay in the rear with the gear and still help.

Players with a form of color blindness may experience difficulties. Brink uses red and green for meaning, although not usually at the same time. Players holding an object who need to be escorted are outlined in yellow. Enemies identified by an operative ability are outlined in red. When holding the X button down to achieve an objective, a green circle will gradually fill up. As players are wounded, the screen turns grey.

In short, Brink has the same accessibility problems that every first-person shooter seems to, but overachieves and leaves out subtitles to really distinguish itself from the pack of accessibility failures.

Frankly, there are likely more problems with Brink, but it’s such a failure in terms of both game design and accessibility that I simply can’t be bothered to put more time into it when I can be playing and enjoying Portal 2 while I wait for L.A. Noire.

My original purchase price: $59.99
Recommended purchase price: If you simply must play it, rent

Mobility: 3
Visual: 5
Hearing: 0

At A Glance

Precision: Brink is a typical first-person shooter requiring precision and twitch reflexes. This is offset somewhat by including support roles which can gain experience by buffing other players, build and repair defenses, revive downed players, etc. Recommend rating of 3 out of 10.

Deaf Gamers: No subtitles appear to be present. Recommend rating of 0 out of 10.

One-handed: Limited controller remapping is possible, but the d-pad buttons cannot be reassigned, meaning that players who only have use of their left hand will experience greater difficulties than players who only have use of their right hand. Recommend rating of 3 out of 10.

Subtitled: No subtitles appear to be present. Recommend rating of 0 out of 10.

Color Blind: Red and green are used for meaning, but not at the same time. Recommend rating of 5 out of 10.