Review: Brink (360)

+'s

-deep customization for weapons and characters

-weapons and abilities seem very balanced

-satisfying progression to unlock XP and abilities

-very cool graphical style

-very customizable game types (co-op, versus, offline are all drop in/drop out)

-well thought out classes, abilities, and XP values lead to great co-op play when there are people playing

-SMART is outstanding--this should be the standard for FPS movement

-'s

-no counter to tell you how many people are playing each game type (after only a week, it's hard to find anyone else playing)

-very limited and disapointing campaign story (very brief mini-cutscenes before each mission. Missions seemed strung together without much focus or reasoning. Very hard to follow what is supposed to be going on)

-Challenges are supposed to teach you the game, and completing them unlocks weapons and upgrades. They are EXTREMELY cheap and poorly designed. It shouldn't be so frustrating to unlock upgrades, and they must be done solo to unlock them (a very strange decision when everything else in the game can be done co-op seamlessly)

-content seems lacking for a $60 game ($30-$40 seems about right)

Neutral

--This game is structured somewhat like the Left 4 Dead series, with more robust features, ,but still manages to be not quite as good

Overall, Brink is a dissapointment mainly due to Bethesda's tendancy to overpromise and underdeliver (see my Fallout 3 review for example). They made a huge deal about how they were revolutionizing how the campaign and multiplayer integrate, but really there isn't much of a campaign at all. The game was fun for about a week, but the lack of story and repetitive missions make $60 much too high to recommend. This is very much a game for players that want to jump into a co-op experience here and there and don't care about story.