Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 85 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 362 Ratings

  • Summary: Brink is an immersive shooter that blends single-player, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay into one seamless experience, allowing you to develop your character across all modes of play. You decide the role you want to assume in the world of Brink as you fight to save yourself and mankind’s lasast refuge for humanity. Brink offers a compelling mix of dynamic battlefields, extensive customization options, and an innovative control system that will keep you coming back for more. A man-made floating city called the Ark, made up of hundreds of separate floating islands, is on the brink of all-out civil war. Originally built as an experimental self-sufficient and 100% "green" habitat, the reported rapid rise of the Earth's oceans has forced the Ark to become a refuge for humanity. Crammed with the original Ark founders, their descendants, as well as tens of thousands of refugees, the Ark exists in total isolation from the rest of the world. With 25 years of social unrest, the inhabitants of the Ark have reached their breaking point. It's up to you to decide the future of the Ark and the human race. Blurring the Lines Between Offline and Online - Advance your character’s development across every gameplay mode: single player, co-op, and multiplayer. Gain experience points that you can spend on customizing and upgrading your skills and abilities, designing an entirely unique look and feel for your character. Brink uses the familiar shooter controls that you're used to, without frustrating, artificial constraints and takes advantage of a new feature: the SMART button. When you press the SMART button, the game dynamically evaluates where you’re trying to get to, and makes it happen. No need to perfectly time a jump or vault, the game knows what you want to do. Objectives, communications, mission generation, and inventory selection are all dynamically generated based on your role, your status, your location, your squad-mates, and the status of the battle in all gameplay modes. You'll always know exactly where to go, what to do when you get there, and what your reward will be for success. Brink’s proprietary technology, Virtual Texturing, breaks new ground on current-gen consoles and PCs with an even greater focus on highly detailed characters, realistic environments, lighting, effects, and atmospherics. This competitive lead on the squad-combat genre helps thrust players into the gritty reality of the Ark's epic secluded arcology. [Bethesda Softworks] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 85
  2. Negative: 7 out of 85
  1. May 10, 2011
    88
    If you're looking for an in-depth, engaging experience that rewards practise and team work, and represents a welcome break from the stagnate place the genre has found itself, then you can do a lot worse than Brink. If you're looking for a drop-in/drop-out, ten-minutes-a-night-and-I'm-done shooter then you could do a lot better than Brink.
  2. May 10, 2011
    86
    It blurs the line between single-player and multiplayer styles, introduces an effective new movement system, and finds ways of discouraging all the obnoxious behavior common in most multiplayer shooters. The campaign is long, and the different classes allow you to play each mission over and over without getting bored.
  3. May 12, 2011
    72
    If treading the waters and building up a solid roster of characters sounds appealing then Brink could be the alternative shooter you've been waiting for.
  4. 45
    Gearheads might keep coming back for the toys and outfits, but everyone else will run like hell. [Aug 2011, p.77]

See all 85 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 98 out of 186
  2. Negative: 51 out of 186
  1. The game Brink is one that could use a bit more polish then what is on it. The real problem with it over everything else is the lack of a decent party system which is needed for a game like Brink. The amount of teamwork required for a "skunk" isn't at all that much, just that players need to play their classes like they were designed.

    The thing I don't understand is why Bethesda (the publisher, mind you) is getting so much flak for a game they didn't even create. Splash Damage (the developer) did a fantastic trying to bring the FPS genre out of the same crap seen in every COD/Halo/enter generic shooter title here. The addition of the free running only adds to this. The in game art, the character design and the use of color makes this one very pretty game to look at. The classes were well thought out and essentially this game is a smaller class based game like TF2 but with customizable weapon loadouts.

    The only thing I did not like about this game, other then the lack of a party system, was the fact that you could unlock almost every gun and attachment in about a good 20 minutes of playing the challenges. If they would of spread the attachments out as well as the weapons people would still be playing this like crazy just like the do with their CODs and Halos to unlock everything that they wanted to. COD with the weapons and Halo with the outfits.

    But overall, it's an excellent game.
    Expand
  2. Upon purchasing brink< I can honestly say I had my doubts as it was getting all of this nonsense PR yet I had not heard raving reviews, praising it as the new dawn of FPS games. Skeptically, I watched the tutorial video and went on to play the first mission. Right off the bat, single player AI is something you have to get used to, and coerce them into helping you do the ACTUAL objective. However, with a little patience you find yourself in a world that mixes Borderlands and Battlefield in almost a perfect blend. The resupply/aid system in the game is awesome, considering that the game is based much more on teamwork and tactics than all out slaying. This is not a game you can jump into, and expect to have your weapon as your best friend. There will be actual times where *OMG* you will have to take cover and work with your team. Another thing is the way you can effortlessly switch between classes, and unlock the virtually hundreds of items to use in the game. Customization is the name of this games revolution, and so far there is nothing that can match it. The fact that you can build multiple characters to even further the customization makes this game have thorough replay value. For all those who are bored with CoD and KIllzone, it's time to pop this game in and learn the new meaning of tactics. Expand
  3. Brink is so far my biggest disappointment of the year. I love FPS but really don't have the time or skills to kick it hardcore on multiplayer, so a decent solo campaign is crucial to my purchase decision. Unfortunately the solo AI in Brink is so broken that there is no point in playing. Your virtual teammates are completely useless so unless you do all the mission specific tasks yourself (switching roles mid map as needed) you will never finish some of the missions, as your teammates will run off to guard command posts rather than assist with escort duty. In addition the really limited number of maps means solo play gets pretty boring pretty fast. It is not that hard to make an FPS with a solid solo campaign. Cyrsis II being just one recent example. Brink had a number of things going for it , a quirky art style, good customization of weapons and play style, a potentially good story line. But it fails to deliver where it really counts in the game play. Solo is a nonstarter and unless you are playing with a group of friends the online "team play" that should be the selling point is non existent. The two days I played everyone just went their own way. This is one more game i am glad I rented first. Expand
  4. Brink is an "intresting" mix between awesome artstyle, bad design choices and countless technical issues. I liked the locations, background story, music, amount of various skills and character creation, but thats all about it. Lets get to the lacking aspects, which are plenty by the way. First of all, the whole reasons for the conflict seems to be forced, just for the sake of having two hostile factions fighting each other, that are reason for this game to exist. In reality they could get along very easily, but i dont want to put spoilers here so lets skip that. The leveling system is unfair, it would be ok if all it gave you was cosmetic stuff like new costumes (which it does), but it also makes your character have more abilities or stronger abilities, which gives you an advantage over players with lower level. There are f***loads of bugs, ranging from the harmless ones, like text errors or wrong messages (says you have to defend, when you really have to attack etc) to those annoying and gamebreaking, like game suddenly losing sound, crashing or you cannot see other players. The netcode is really terrible too. You will lagg even with a decent internet connection, even if you wont, the game will still run so clunky that you will feel as you did. With slow internet, forget about multiplayer, the game will be unplayable, stick to playing with bots. But dont worry, you wont loose much, because even in the multi you will meet more AI bots than real players. And the AI in this game stand for Artifical Idiocy. Its as if they was purposedly coded to be so dumb, so that you can easily tell its a bot, and not a person with a brain. Talking about stupid, lets talk about the whole S.M.A.R.T. thing, which is basically climbing and jumping over fences. Sure thats cool, because it gives you more movement freedom than most games, but you wont use it that often anyway, except to gett from spawn point to the battlefield. First of all, you almost cant do any of this stuff with heavy body (which is the most efficient in combat), second, you cant shoot when doing all those tricks, making you an easy target, and thrid, the maps are not really designed for this, as you mostly fight indoors, but even on streetfights you wont be able to climp on a building and jump over roofs (like in the trailer). Also the weapons in the game are really boring, all you have are machineguns with diffirent skin and slightly diffirent stats. There are also few otherweapon types but they seem to be significantly weaker than the machineguns, so everyone just uses machineguns (which i personally hate). Overall, Brink is a game that looks good and promising, but has so many flaws that i just can't give it anything close to a positive rating, even if i wanted to. Expand

See all 186 User Reviews

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