On the Brink of a good game

Brink is not a good game. It is not a bad game - a few minutes of time wasting fun can be had with it. It is mediocre.

Game: Brink

System: Xbox 360

Price: R599

Rating: 16

The first problem with it is that the characters are ugly.

They look like they're the product of splicing human and elephant genes. I don't know. What I do know is that the result is not pretty.

The story is stupid - okay, so you have the Arc, which is getting a tad overcrowded.

One bunch wants to leave, another wants to have social order - and they are trying to kill each other because, why exactly?

The two factions do not appear to have naturally conflicting goals so I am left wondering what the point of the conflict actually is.

The back story is interesting, but the plot falls apart due to a lack of good motivation.

Plot and graphics are not terribly serious if the basic game is good - which this one is not.

It tries to marry too many elements together to generate a fast-paced, adrenaline-packed, first-person shooter.

It is a jack of all trades approach that leaves it a master of none.

You play through a series of four tutorials that you replay to release more weapons.

Most games do not do this because you don't want to be essentially doing the same thing repeatedly to get your big gun and great weapons mods.

You want to become more powerful as the story progresses, not as you basically do busy-work.

This busy-work makes the game feel more generic than it really is.

The single player campaign is essentially the multiplayer campaign with bots - and the enemy bots are more competent than your ones.

Achieving secondary objectives does not really do much for you - you get a bit of a power-up, but the best approach is generally to attack the main mission.

Finally, the class system does not really change how the game plays - it changes what buffs you can apply to your teammates, but running and gunning is still what you are going to be doing most of the time.

The good:

The enemy AI is reasonably competent and the game is trying for something great. It gets points for effort at least.

The bad:

It does not succeed in being something great. The level design is bad, there is not enough content and some design choices are strange.

Score: 4/10