If you are on my friends list, you probably have heard me talk about Brink; Bethesda and Splash Damage’s new class based, wall-climbing, objective-completing first person shooter. With all of the beautiful videos (look up the E3 trailer), awesome graphics, and gameplay that looked smooth as silk. I was so ready for this multiplayer epic to come out and shake up the genre as we know it.

Now: It’s iffy

Brink takes place on the Ark; a place that was supposed to be a haven where people do not have to worry about what happens on the land of where they once came from. Now, due to over-population, some of the people residing on this doomed island decided to rebel against their leaders, who are all but willing to fight back. Sadly, the story doesn’t really matter. You can play as both sides, the resistance and the police, but at the end, you’re playing the same missions…just on the other side. The policeman do seem to have harder missions than the resistance (escort-heal-repeat), though the resistance will eventually get those types as well, and theyre just as hard.

As a person who likes a story, it isn’t necessary for this game, but training to get into multiplayer. My first match was one of the laggiest rounds of any multiplayer game I’ve ever played. However, this was before the update. Afterwards, it’s been a smooth game overall, though multiplayer AI gets incredibly hard at times. The lag was still there in a couple of games, but nothing that can’t be played through. I wish that they would have a lobby to invite friends to, or some clan support, but alas, it doesn’t.

The environments on The Arc, which was supposed to be a beautiful haven turned dump, really sticks to that end tag: dump. With a lot of close quarters battles, or blatant camping (there is A LOT of that), it does not take pride in showing off the SMART movement that this game was supposed to be based around.

Speaking of the SMART movement, let me just say that this is probably one of the best things about the game. Although it’s basically unlimited sprint, the knowing of the obstacles around you and how you can get around them is a big improvement of running into invisible walls or really small chairs. However, like i stated earlier, the environments do not accommodate with this method of movement, making stairs the only real option of going to another level.

Another great point to Brink is it’s customization. I have not yet seen one character look like mine. From the face paint, to the facial hair, to the color of the plaid on my gangster shorts, nothing is ever the same. Even the guns (which can have up to five attachments depending on what you’re customizing) won’t be the same (though they all do feel the same).

However, two great things do not hide all of the flaws that are riddled throughout the game. Awful AI, bad grenade effects, bad maps, some lag issues, and a forgettable story plagued what I hoped Brink was going to be. Maybe with some patches, this game could grab some legs and truly become a force in an already overpopulated genre. Brink isn’t awful, just misguided.

Final Grade: C-