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Bethesda is taking a bit of a leap from its normal forays into the Role Playing Game genres and publishing a new game, Brink, from developers Splash Damage. Splash themselves have previously been known for working on existing IP's, namely id Software based properties, having found their footing in the game world producing mods for games such as Quake 3 Fortress. Their success propelled them forward and they became known for their maps and first gained their proper attention in 2002 when they were asked to produce some extra maps for the Game of The Year Edition for Return to Castle Wolfenstein; they were also asked to partner up to develop Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory a game released free for first Windows and then for Linux and Mac. The following year they teamed once again with id Software to create the multiplayer maps for Doom 3 and also began work on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars which would ship in 2007 and won critics over many times, as well as many awards.
In 2008 Bethesda announced that they would be partnering up with Splash Damage on a new project, not just a new project but one that they believed would be a Killer-App; they kept the details safe in their hands but let it be known it would be a first person shooter with the same high production values as Fallout 3. That game is now known as Brink, little snippets of information about the new title are now starting to come out and it's certainly looking and sounding like it's going to be an interesting title, especially for those who liked the recently released Borderlands.
The title, Brink, refers to the world the game is set in, being on the brink of a civil war. The Earth has been flooded and a utopian city has been created, The Ark; actually a prototype city designed to be self sustaining with renewable resources and no pollution to speak of. The only problem being is that the city was originally designed for 5,000 and it currently holds 50,000; hence the world being on the verge of a civil war with people not getting along in the crowded city.
The game itself is a multiplayer story based affair (up to 8), there are two factions slugging it out on the outskirts of the city; The Resistance (descended from the Refugees of the city) and Security (the current faction in charge). Neither side can be classed as good or as bad, they are simply fighting for their right to exist they way they want to do. While details obviously are a little thin on the ground it's been hinted at that the elders of The Ark aren't being as forthcoming as they might with the state of the world. Its here where you must team up with your buddies to uncover what exactly is going on.
You can play online or offline with bots, either way you're going to have to work together to complete objectives, no wandering off and doing your own thing and not paying attention to orders given, that will get you nowhere in the world of Brink. Don't worry if you're used to this kind of game and also used to being thrown in with random players; the game will adjust and realise when people are gaining more ground over others and match people accordingly, of course it won't always get this right but for the most part you should find yourself playing against people with a similar skill level to your own.
You can choose one of several classes; solider, medic and engineer to play as in Brink, and once selected you'll be able to choose a specialist power unique to that class. As you might expect there are several things that you can do in one class that you can't in another and you'll need every skill in your team should you want to get through the game. Don't worry if you start a level and realise that you don't have an engineer for instance when it comes to the time of needing one; you can always go back to your base and use a terminal to change your abilities.
Your characters abilities aren't the only things that are unique either, different classes get offered different missions as you progress; these missions can often overlap. For example it's possible for you to be offered a mission of mercy as a medic, to find and rescue a fallen comrade, but it's also possible to work as a double agent where your mission would then be to find and kill the person the medic was trying to get too. Interesting prospects indeed then, and with the idea being floated that each person playing will be doing a slightly different mission than the others there could be some fun surprises along the way. Many of your actions will allow you to level up your character as you progress through the story, exactly how this effects your abilities isn't yet known but it's likely that you'll become more powerful and your abilities will increase the higher up the scale you go; however, what is known is that you'll gain more points if you're the one doing the primary mission.The main characters are all stylised, looking like a strange cross between the right amount of realism with right amount of cartoon like values; your character of course is fully customisable with claims that this extends out in such a way that you're unlikely to ever come across another player whose decked out their character in exactly the same way as you, again as your level increases you'll also get the chance to change some of the physical attributes and the clothes you wear; for example, a player joining the Resistance team will start off wearing more, or less, armour made from junk, but as that character progress's through the game it'll have access to much better made armour and therefore much shinier.
An interesting aspect to Brink is the way you move around the world. Splash Damage have created a rather clever little system that will allow you to traverse the game world in a parkour kind of manner, so now you've got the comparisons to Borderlands running round your head you can throw in a little of Mirrors Edge for that extra bouncy effect. The system is known as SMART (Smooth Movement Across Rough Terrain) and is said not to be too particularly hard to get to grips with, working along the same lines as the controls found in Assassins Creed, you just need to generally point your character in the right direction and the game engine will work out what you're trying to achieve; you can't expect the system to do all the work for you however, if you look at a ledge then the engine will know you want to jump for that ledge, or if you look down under a pipe the game will interpret that as you wanting to go under it. You of course don't have to use SMART, you can elect to turn it off from the options and just do the whole thing manually, you'll even gain a little advantage should you choose.
Brink is definitely a title that a lot of different people should be paying attention to, especially fans of First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games; again almost by default, fans of Borderlands. It's good that Bethesda are branching out with more and more genres to their name, they've become a company known for their good (if under-appreciated) titles and are developing a loyal following amongst gamers; lets hope that Splash Damage can deliver the goods for them and this game can live up to it's very promising premise.
