FTG's new writer Drazial previews Splash Damage's Brink

Drazial here! It’s my first article of hopefully many. Let’s go!

Splash Damage, developer of Enemy Territory for Quake Wars & Wolfenstein have been busy little bees in hyping up their latest project: Brink. First seen last year, they’ve been spoon feeding us tasty morsels of information about the game and from what I’ve seen it’s shaping up to be one of those great multiplayer titles along the same thread as Monday Night Combat & Team Fortress. If you’ve had your head stuck up somewhere unsanitary and not heard of Brink then allow me to bring you up to speed as we keep the Hype Train a-rolling. Choo-Choo.

What we know:
Brink is an first person shooter that combines elements of traditional single-player and multiplayer games into one game mode and throws in a few cool gameplay features that will distinguish it from the rest. Focused around a class system a la Team Fortress or Battlefield Bad Company 2, we’ll see Engineers erecting sentries and Medics running amok with some variant of the shock pads, not to mention your Heavy classes and “ze’spy” variants. To set it apart from the obvious we’ll be seeing the addition of a Mirror’s Edge style running system aptly named “S.M.A.R.T” (Smooth Movement Around Terrain) fuelled by objective based gameplay that is dynamically facilitated by an AI squad commander akin to Left 4 Dead’s Director System (praise be he who deliver thine health packs). Customization is rampant and there’s no shortage of cool options to pick for your character, aside from hair-styles and clothing you’ll be able to pick character weight-classes and body builds that will actually effect gameplay, more on all that later. It will be available for PC as well as have console ports to both 360 and PS3.

Story:
‘The Ark’ is the setting for the game and it’s an experimental, self-sufficient 100% green habitat that is on the “brink” (ha, ha, see what they did there?) of outright civil war. It seems that the futuristic hippies that built the ivory tower of the Ark didn’t account for the ice-caps melting and swallowing up the earth, leaving the Ark to become a refuge for humanity, sitting atop the waves. Existing in total isolation from the rest of the world over the period of 25 years, the Ark’s inhabitants find themselves under repressive reign of a security force assembled to oversee the island. In retaliation, the inhabitants have decided to brew up a revolution and have a good long drink of rebellion. However, this isn’t your boilerplate tale of “valiant freedom fighters” versus “the faceless evil corporation”, nor is it a tale of a hero police force squelching terrorists. Things aren’t as black and white as this, which will allow players to choose the side they feel they should fight for based on their own observations.

Gameplay:
Standard FPS stuff. Upon release, we’ll all be running gaily and free with our fingers held firmly over the left and right triggers whilst we run around trying to complete various objectives such as shooting the hell out of the other guys, shooting the hell out of our guys if you’re the on staff medic, shooting the hell out of pieces of machinery if you’re the engineer, oh, and shooting the hell out of the floor if you’re playing as my parents. Inclusion of ‘S.M.A.R.T’ and the A.I squad commander will make for some interesting gameplay experiences and choices to be had when it comes to the trade-up of cooperative teamplay versus kill whoring.

From what I’ve seen, the game offers a huge amount of variety on how you’ll be playing the game. Aside from the S.M.A.R.T system’s offerings of agility versus power trade-ups (which I’ll get onto in a minute) there are a plethora of objectives that are available to the player at any one time.

The A.I squad commander will populate a ring of objectives that will appear on your heads up display at the touch of a button, each objective is assigned an experience point allowance dependant on how vital it is to team success. For example, your team is short on medic classes, the top objective might be for you to switch to a medic and help heal your mates. Alternatively, if you’re playing engineer, the top objective might at the same time be to repair a sentry bot or demolish a bridge to prevent enemy reinforcements, etc. I’m sure there will be set-pieces for each of the levels throughout the campaign that will appear on the mission wheel, but it’s also a tool for team coordination that could aid those newer to the genre by providing the decision making powers of a pro at the touch of a button. Speaking of buttons…

The ‘S.M.A.R.T’ button is essentially the sprint key, yet when your character reaches an obstacle that he could navigate over or under, then your character will indeed hop or slide depending on where you’re looking at. For example, there’s a rail, we could hop over it if we stayed the course and sprinted towards it, or we could slide under the rail if we looked down as we hit the rail. Sounds like it could be a pretty nifty feature that will add some much needed flow to the FPS genre. Here’s hoping they implement it correctly! Whether or not your character will navigate an obstacle depends on whether or not you have selected a light enough body type in the character customization screen…which brings me to our next section:

Customization:
In my opinion, this is where Brink shines the brightest. In combination with the S.M.A.R.T system, your customization decisions will affect how the game feels and plays for you. Depending on what character body type and class you choose, it can be a different experience every time for a long while before you exhaust those combinations and find the one you love to play. There are archetypes which will change the general look of your character, such as scars on the flesh or facial structure, which can each be further customized with the addition of hair types, colours, facial markings, face paint, hats as well as a butt load of clothing options to sate your desire to be a fashion designer.

Not only can you customize how your character looks and performs, but you can tailor the game experience. Either you can do things the traditional way and play against A.I in the campaign…or you can do what I’ll be doing and fight against players who have decided to pick the opposite faction to you in the actual campaign levels. Pretty damn cool if you ask me. I’m going to enjoy kicking people’s arses who are just trying to finish the game, oh yes. Of course, this feature is completely optional and Splash Damage have even touted that their A.I bots are almost indistinguishable from real players (I call shenanigans) and you can play by your lonesome and level up your character ready to take into the multiplayer arena (the real game).

Summary
I hope this brief run-through of what you can expect from Brink has enlightened and refreshed your hunger for another brilliant squad based shooter. If like you’re anything like me and you’re a sucker for games like Team Fortress and Monday Night Combat then this’ll be right up your alley. It’s set to drop in the first Quarter of 2011.