In classic Bethesda fashion, Brink had a lot of promise, a lot of potential, and a lot of interesting ideas that wound up being marred by terrible and often-buggy execution. Brink really was unique, though. It had a gritty, rebellious style whose weird islandic touches helped separate it from the military-centric shooters of the time (intriguingly, the bad guys aren't even soldiers, they're cops being forced to fight like soldiers), The Ark is a cool-looking solarpunk-ish location with these stark, alabaster whites that dominate the spires and towers spread across the island in a way that makes the richer parts of the setting look almost clinical, the customization looked genuinely dope regardless of whether you were a bad boy or a boy-in-blue, the lore and worldbuilding seemed genuinely interesting, and the gameplay looked like it would be a fun take on Team Fortress 2's class-centric multiplayer. It had so much going for it.
And then it fucked it all up by feeling buggy & limp and looking ugly even by 2011 standards. The levels are conceptually pretty cool (big fan of the aquarium level), but running through them feels awful. The game's supposedly unique parkour system feels clunky and unsatisfying, the shooting is thin-feeling and saddled with some of the worst gun SFX in the business, the grenades are hilariously weak to the point where you might as well not even use them, and there's no point in swapping between classes unless the game forces you to because the Engineer is by far and away the best class in the game. Not only is the Engineer as good at shooting as everyone else, he can plant mines, disarm explosives, set up turrets, and basically carries the team harder than the medics do (and no one wants to be a medic because you get murdered so quickly). The only reason this game's even worth playing in 2022 is the campaign, and yet the campaign is really short on both sides and the difficulty scaling gets ridiculous the more you play it, with CPUs that just decide to fucking win almost at random, constantly forcing you to replay these long, long missions. The story isn't even all that interesting, the initially-solid setup and worldbuilding ruined by a lack of cutscenes, context, and interesting characters worth caring about.
Only reason I'm giving this a 2/5 instead of a big ol' 1 is because Brink actually tried to be something. It was more than just a TF2 clone - stylistically, it actually had something going for it, and you can see hints of that passion scattered throughout this janky, subpar shooter with a devastating lack of content. Uniqueness deserves to be treasured, so I'm willing to give Brink an honorary 'you sure tried, I guess' participation trophy.
And then it fucked it all up by feeling buggy & limp and looking ugly even by 2011 standards. The levels are conceptually pretty cool (big fan of the aquarium level), but running through them feels awful. The game's supposedly unique parkour system feels clunky and unsatisfying, the shooting is thin-feeling and saddled with some of the worst gun SFX in the business, the grenades are hilariously weak to the point where you might as well not even use them, and there's no point in swapping between classes unless the game forces you to because the Engineer is by far and away the best class in the game. Not only is the Engineer as good at shooting as everyone else, he can plant mines, disarm explosives, set up turrets, and basically carries the team harder than the medics do (and no one wants to be a medic because you get murdered so quickly). The only reason this game's even worth playing in 2022 is the campaign, and yet the campaign is really short on both sides and the difficulty scaling gets ridiculous the more you play it, with CPUs that just decide to fucking win almost at random, constantly forcing you to replay these long, long missions. The story isn't even all that interesting, the initially-solid setup and worldbuilding ruined by a lack of cutscenes, context, and interesting characters worth caring about.
Only reason I'm giving this a 2/5 instead of a big ol' 1 is because Brink actually tried to be something. It was more than just a TF2 clone - stylistically, it actually had something going for it, and you can see hints of that passion scattered throughout this janky, subpar shooter with a devastating lack of content. Uniqueness deserves to be treasured, so I'm willing to give Brink an honorary 'you sure tried, I guess' participation trophy.