Even if Splash Damage’s Brink wasn’t so great to most, it still gathered some kind of following and fandom between select gamers. The game had a sort of charm to it, and as Kotaku pointed out, the art direction was suburb. 

Laurens Corijn, an artist for Splash Damage, recently took the task of using a real-life Nerf gun and modding it to look identical to an assault rifle used in Brink. He also posted a very in-depth guide to the process. Check it out at their official blog and perhaps even attempt it yourself.

It’s not hard to find a decent online multiplayer shooter, whatever you style is. There’s Bad Company 2 for the realistic FPS, Call of Duty for those wanting a faster pace, Team Fortress 2 for those who want a cartoony styled fun, and of course, classics like Counter-Strike are always popular. Brink manages to incorporate elements from all of those games, while adding a few of its new ideas. In theory, this should work very well. But theory is different from practice, and Brink is a solid proof of that.

Brink is developed by Splash Damage, which recently did Quake Wars, so they’re certainly competent when it comes to multiplayer shooters. Brink is set in the future, where the remaining humans are stuffed in a city block called “The Ark”, and you fight as either The Security Forces or the Rebels. There isn’t much of a story here, but there really isn’t a need, since it’s a multiplayer shooter. The campaign can be completed with humans or bots, but don’t expect much help from the AI. Multiplayer wise, there are 8 maps, and each map has a different objective. The maps are very varied and stylized, and we loved the new “parkour” style gameplay where you can climb and slide all over the map. The only thing we found limiting is the player count: only 16 players online are supported, which doesn’t feel like enough in these days when 32 or 24 players are the norm.

You can customize your character quite a lot by unlocking new items, completing certain challenges etc. The customization part is great, and it’s something a lot of shooters are gravitating towards these days (even failed ones like APB). You not only unlock looks, but skills and weapons as well. There are 4 classes, Soldier, Medic, Operative and Engineer, each with their job to do in a particular mission. One of the exciting new aspects is that you can chose a specific body type, large, medium or skinny, each with their own advantages and disadvantages — the large body isn’t as fast as nimble as the skinny one, but can take more damage, while the medium is just… medium — and kinda boring.

Visually, Brink separates itself from other FPS shooters by having a somewhat comic style, somewhere in between the “realistic look” and the “Team Fortress 2 look”, and the game’s cell shaded looks add to the overall style and aesthetics, which add a lot of originality to the game. However, the quality of the graphics isn’t that high, textures are somewhat low res, effects are uninspiring etc. Overall, the graphics, including the sounds effects, kinda feel dated. Worse, we’ve experience a lot of connection and networking issues with the game, something the developer promised to patch soon.

Overall, Brink promised to deliver lots of new features to the multiplayer FPS scene, but overall, those new features don’t make a big impact. Worse, the nuts and bolts of the gameplay feel saggy and behind most contemporary shooters. We’d wait about buying Brink until it’s gotten a few patches. And a few price slashes.

The Good:
Great character customization
“Parkour”-style movements add an interesting level to the gameplay
Interesting visual style/aesthetics

The Bad:
Lots of lag
Gameplay still feels dated
Graphics look dated
Limited amount of players online
Only 8 maps
Bad AI

Overall score: 4/10

With so many different FPS titles on the market it’s quite hard for developers to differentiate their offerings in a market largely dominated by the likes of Call of Duty. Splash Damage chose to take a somewhat unique approach with Brink which essentially combines Call of Duty and Mirror’s Edge allowing players to gun down baddies while transversing the environment in a parkour-esque fashion.

Seeing how the critic community is a tough one it’s not really a surprise that Brink has received some mixed reviews. However, Splash Damage is doing what they can to keep gamers happy and make Brink a more pleasant experience. In fact, just today they announced that they have updated the Xbox 360 version of the game to limit its online matchmaking to 8-on-8 matches in an attempt to curb and hopefully eliminate lag.

Not only that, but the developer has also let us know that they are hard at working polishing some DLC to be made available at some point next month. Unfortunately, we don’t know the specifics of what’s going to be included in said DLC pack other than maps it has been said that there will be additional content. What we do know for sure is that Splash Damage will be cutting us all a break offering the DLC pack free of charge. Now all we need is an official release date for this DLC pack and some more details as to what it includes and we’ll be golden.

Stay tuned!

One of the interesting FPS games to be released this year is the multiplayer shooter Brink, developed by Splash Damage and published by Bethesda. It’s not common for publishers to announced that games will be out earlier than they were originally scheduled, usually any announcement of shipping dates includes the word “delayed”, but not with Brink. Bethesda has announced that the game will be arriving one week earlier, and will be released on May 10 in North America and May 13 in Europe.

Of course, it could also have something to do with Rockstar’s heavyweight LA Noire, which is scheduled for release on May 17. If we were Bethesda, we wouldn’t wanna launch on the same day as any Rockstar game, let along a highly anticipated one like LA Noire.

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Hollywood usually takes most of the slack when it comes to criticism for lack of originality, but in fact, the video game industry is even worse at creating original content, it’s a world dominated by franchises of every kind, from sports to action games, publishers and developers are usually taking the easy and safe way: sequels. And spin offs. And remakes. Etc.

We’ve compiled a list of top 10 original games that are scheduled for release for 2010 — and it was quite a challenge: out of the 130 games confirmed for 2010 by major publishers and developers, we found 19 that were original. Just 19.

10: Brink (Spring 2010)

Brink, an FPS developed by Splash Damage and published by Bethesda, centers around a two sides: Resistance and Security, and is a team based multiplayer shooter much like Quake Wars, which was also developed by Splash Damage. It looks promising as a multiplayer game, as it’s story based, much like Quake Wars, where one battle takes place over several maps, with a story connecting everything together.

9: Alpha Protocol (Spring 2010)

Alpha Protocol, developed by Obsidian Entertainment — developers of Star Wars: KOTOR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 — is a third person action RPG where the player assumes the role of Michael Thorton, a CIA agent who’s been betrayed and must not only fight his way through enemies, but also uncover the conspiracy that set him up.

8: Singularity (Q2 2010)

While time travel is a known concept in games, albeit underused, it’s still something that is difficult to fit in wiht the overall storyline, and the time feature never seems to be used properly. In Singularity, the player will have control over a TMD (Time Manipulation Device), a “weapon” which will be used to solve puzzles, for instance, if a door is locked, instead of looking for the key, you use the TMD and speed up time for the lock only, which will rust, and voila, door opened! Or use it on an enemy and watch him turn into a skeleton. The concept certainly seems intriguing, and offers some truly original puzzles.

7: Dante’s Inferno (February 9, 2010)

Dante’s Inferno has already caused a lot of controversy, from the fake E3 2009 protest, to gameplay elements where players can slay children. The gritty, hell based game is loosely based on the actual Inferno by Dante in The Divine Comedy, and the player assumes the role of Dante, who has to fight his way though monsters and demons in the 9 circles of hell, and decide whether he’ll be good and spare some (like children) or go reckless. It definitely looks as one of the darkest games of 2010.

6: MAG (January 26, 2010)

MAG (Massive Action Game) is a PS3 online FPS multiplayer who’s main feature is a massive 256 player online matches, with 128 players per team, divided into 8-player squads, 4 squads into a platoon, and 4 platoons into a company. With 256 players on the map, MAG is set to deliver some of the most intense and frantic combat yet, and will offer detailed stats and rankings, where higher ranked players will be able to command the battle and give orders to individual squads and platoons.

5: LA Noire (Q3 2010)

LA Noire, an open ended adventure game set in a recreated 1940s Los Angeles, which players can freely roam around, and chose to solve a number of murders around the city. The game has a great feeling of classic noir films based in LA, like LA Confidential, The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown, and draws inspiration from such works as well.

4: Rage (Q4 2010)

It’s been a while since Id Software has made an original game — actually, the last original game Id Software made was Quake, back in 1996. Id finally shows something new with Rage, a fusion between a first person shooter and a racing game set in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max styled world. It’s built with the all new Id Tech 5 engine, and shows very promising visuals, to say the least.

3: Heavy Rain (Q2 2010)

Heavy Rain has been on the radar since it was originally showcased at E3 2006, and will be released almost four years later, in Q2 2010. The gorgeous looking game centers around a serial killer known as “The Origami Killer”, and players assume roles of different characters who try and solve the murders. It’s one of the most stylish and atmospheric games to come out in 2010.

2: Alan Wake (Q2 2010)

What Heavy Rain is for the PS3, Alan Wake is for the Xbox 360. Developed by Remedy, Alan Wake is a psychological thriller inspired by the likes of Twin Peaks and Stephen King novels, where players assume the role of Alan Wake, a writer who seeks refuge at a quiet place where he can write his next novel (much like Stephen Kings “Misery“). However, when his wife vanishes, it’s up to him to get her back.

1: APB (March 2010)

APB is not only the most original MMO game to his the stores in 2010, it’s also the most original game overall. It’s the classic cops vs. robbers gameplay, but on a massive scale, with endless customizations and options, tons of missions and weapons. Created by David Jones, the original creator for GTA, APB is hailed as everything he wanted to do wince he made GTA, and while originally trying to pitch and sell APB to Rockstar as GTA Online, it’s good that APB is on its own now, we need a great, original game. And an MMO that’s not fantasy based.

The first thing I thought when I heard ZeniMax Media (parent company to Bethesda) applied for a trademark for Brink was the 1998 Disney Channel movie. A game based on the movie? Count me in.

Unfortunately, Joystiq thinks otherwise pondering that the trademark might be for a Wii title, a title from Splash Damage, or perhaps an MMO rumored to be in the works.

Whatever the case, it’s probably not a game based on the movie so I’m thoroughly disappointed.