http://www.1up.com/reviews/brink-review

A quite devastating article, quite the lower end of the variety of reviews. But two points really bother me, the bottlenecks resulting in stalemates and the insufficient usage of level design to give SMART users a REAL advantage.

For the first one, wouldn't it be much more useful and logical to be able to spawn at the nearest or even manually chosen strategic point the team owns? The article suggests, that the slight buffs you receive by the captured points don't make up for the potential lack of manpower caused by the absence of players trying to capture strategic points instead of helping with the main objective. Opposed to the XBOX, this should be quite easy to implement in the PC version, shouldn't it? Furthermore, according to the article, the current spawn system leads to either stalemates or complete domination of one team.

And the other point I can't fully understand yet. Probably someone could give me a heads up about the advantage through the SMART system?

EDIT: In general, a demo would have been nice...

Not the type of review I was hoping to see 2 and a half hours before i pick up my copy. Im ok waiting a week or two while all the networking, lagg, and other issues are ironed out... but I know many others wont want to. Hopefully it gets patched up nice and quick before everyone decides its a big flop.

After reading the review, I guess we will only have to wait until the First Day Patch is released.

If things still don't go as well as they should, the game should have been delayed, or kept at its original May 17th release date. I am going to be picking up Brink in about 2 hours when my local gamestop opens, and I would like to see the implements involved in the negative reviews I've been seeing.

Another week of work wouldn't be enough to completely alter the spawning system or redesign all of the maps.

Frankly though, aren't stalemates a good thing? Both teams evenly matched, both trying to find ways to tip the balance in their favor, all that good stuff? Dominations are inevitable though, when one team is simply better and more organized than the other. That can easily be patched though. Hooray for netvars.

And the SMART system was never meant to give players an advantage over other players. It's just a way to get around the map quickly and efficiently without bumping into everything. That's enough of an advantage already if you ask me. I don't think these reviewers know what they're talking about. There are a bunch of shortcuts and side paths that people can SMART through. :facepalm:

Worse review I've read lol.

Hopefully this little patch will change it for the better,

I love how people think they are forced into these stalemates. I casually jog down the alternate Paths to the enemy side and mow them down from the sides, and it works everytime.

Heavy = no SMART but lotsa health to take bullets as you run down the most used corridors

Light = Best SMART but low health so you can avoid bullets by avoiding the most commonly used corridors

Medium = Balance of both

Pretty simple actually.

Isn't that what all battles are? Either a stalemate as both sides are equally matched and attempt to find ways to tip the scales. Or one team is just better organized than the other and so they dominate them. What other possibilities are there?

I think the reviewers of BRINK are all COD junkies. Apparently none of them understand the meaning of TEAMWORK. The SMART system is awesome. If you get with a good team, well then yes you will dominate a map. Remember when the US stormed into Iraq in the early ninties? Complete domination.

Im still getting it Friday because the best opinion is your own opinion!
All these so called top reviewers have said some of the games i like svck to hell yet i love them,
So yeah dont follow the sheep over the cliff, because your be the last one laughing! :thumbsup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiRSH6qhoyM

Best review I've seen from a group that I trust not to be biased and I trust to know how to play the game and assess it. Still I think that a game's rating is entirely opinionated.

stalemates are usually good yes. i have noticed that alot of the primary objectives are extremely difficult to crack as an attacker. the biggest two for me are the objective to prep the plane... i can never win that one as resistance. and the worst one in my opinion is the one on resort i think where as resistance you need to hack the gates open to get the bot on a boat. small room next to their main spawn and you need to hack it... ive only managed to do it once. those are the only 2 really bad ones ive seen.

If you've played some of the unbalanced maps you would know exactly what they are talking about. The first push at Container City is absolutely absurd and made me pretty frustrated with the game. I played with a group of 4 friends who also play TF2 regularly so we experienced with the concept of teamplay. You spawn at a lower elevation so the enemies just roll grenades into your spawn all day. If you make a coordinated push out of spawn you end up in the center of a large area filled with crows nests and objects where the defending team is just waiting for you. At times you can successfully kill the enemy team, repair the cart, and plant the bomb, only to have the enemies flood in seconds later to obliterate you, the cart, and your charges. The issue was the fact the enemies could get to the 1st objective in the same time you could except they immediately have cover and merely need to shoot at things to complete their objective while you need 1-2 minutes to repair and blow crap up. Playing on the other side of the map proved to me that we weren't playing an amazing team as I was able to completely dominate the first area.

This game needs some help.

Frankly, crying about how 1 objective on 1 map is imbalanced for the ATTACKING team (objectives should be harder for offense), doesn't mean the game as a whole needs help. Some tweaking in some areas, sure, but they're not a deal breaker.

The 1up review wasn't very well done, tbh. There are some bottlenecks, sure, but by "some" I mean maybe 1 a map. There are consistently alternate and flanking paths you can take as either team.

Also, the level design doesn't necessarily make the parkour worthless. People are still learning which areas are accessible and when, and I've seen my buddy do amazing things with the SMART button.

Edit: Good review to post, iSh3k. I felt it to be very objective, and quite representative of my feelings about the game.