Bethesda: Brink was "polarising"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 6 July, 2011

"Better than being in the middle."

Splash Damage first-person shooter Brink was "polarising," publisher Bethesda has said.

"It was interesting to see the variety of comments from both fans and critics," Bethesda's vice president of marketing and PR Pete Hines told MCV.

"There were folks who thought it was brilliant, with the team play aspects and originality. Then there were those who were saying, 'It's too complicated with boring levels.'

"It was surprising but I guess it is better than being in the middle where nobody cares."

The Xbox 360 version of Brink is currently sitting on a 68 out of 100 Metascore on Metacritic.

Eurogamer's Brink review fired an 8/10. "Brink is an exceptional team shooter, smart, supremely well balanced and with a unique, exciting art style," wrote reviewer Simon Parkin.

Upon release many fans criticised the game's online functionality, reporting crippling lag.

"We obviously had some lag issues coming out of the box, so it is disappointing to have that variable introduced into the equation," Hines admitted.

"But I am glad to see there were people who managed to understand what the game was trying to do."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (47) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • Architect_z #1 11 months ago

    Anyone know what 'Polarising' means?

    Didn't a bad guy on a cartoon have a polarising ray?
    Edited by Architect_z at 06/07/11 @ 14:10

  • crimsoneer #2 11 months ago

    pushes people to polar opposites

  • mackingtosh #3 11 months ago

    meh i liked brink but ultimately let me down in the end, with its highly repetative nature

  • mackingtosh #4 11 months ago

    meh i liked brink but ultimately let me down in the end, with its highly repetative nature

  • hulahoops #5 11 months ago

    Makes things cold.

  • hulahoops #6 11 months ago

    Anyone know what repetative means?

  • Tyronne #7 11 months ago

    So, people either like it or hate it TO THE EXTREME...woah so 90`s.

  • jumpdeveraux #8 11 months ago

    Is there still much of a community still playing this on PC?

    (not seen it reach the cheap corner of the bargain bin quite yet but I'd give it a shot for a tenner if there were other people to play online against)

  • jablonski #9 11 months ago

    "There were folks who thought it was brilliant..."
    Eurogamer

    "...then there were those who were saying, It's too complicated with boring levels."
    Everyone else

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #10 11 months ago

    @jablonski

    There were really people saying it was too complicated, its just the assault mode From Unreal Tournament games, nothing complicated about it.

    Its only real let down is graphics, Lag at launch, BOT AI and NOT using the same servers for all game modes, you cant really play the campaign online with humans because everyones just on free play servers, there is no reason these couldn't of overlapped, bringing people together more so there were less bots.

  • Haloboy #11 11 months ago

    Brink. It did sink.

  • G-Lord #12 11 months ago

    It is surely far from perfect, but I still love playing the game thanks to the teamplay aspects.

  • Meh #13 11 months ago

    so who won the tournament???

  • George-Roper #14 11 months ago

    It was derivative shit. End of.

  • Progguitarist #15 11 months ago

    Rubbish game that got 2 or 3 extra points from Eurogamer because it was
    developed in the UK.

  • HyperTails #16 11 months ago

    Its a buggy, laggy, overhyped piece of crap. Can't believe that its sold so well. You can't polish a turd, Splash Damage, no matter how hard you try.

  • schnide #17 11 months ago

    @Architect_z

    Please, please tell me that this was some kind of ironic comment I missed, and not a genuine question, when we live in the age of Google. Please.

  • kangarootoo #18 11 months ago

    This is just what people say when a lot of people didn't like a game. When only a handful of people don't like a game, people never say it is polarising, even though its surely the same thing.

    And as far as your sales go, and the chances of a sequel, the "boring" middle is a far better place to be.

  • linksdad #19 11 months ago

    Enjoyable gameplay. Strung together, rubbish and pointless story.

    I hated every moment of the cut scenes, your 'hero' not being or doing anything but stood in the background silently.

    I enjoyed the character customisation options, despite it being more of a Pete Postlewaite customisation.

  • RoaringPanda #20 11 months ago

    I enjoyed it. So nuuuh!

    Only 12.99 on game.co.uk, too!

  • agparrot #21 11 months ago

    I found myself really liking it when it worked, but it worked so infrequently that I found myself hating it.

    Some really odd design decisions, too, for example the breadth of seemingly identical weapons - some of which you could alter drastically with mods, but there was no real explanation of the weapon system at all. Experimentation is all well and good, but it was a bit dry. Having the great character customisation tools was also a great idea, let down by the fact that within the game you couldn't really see any level of detail, especially with the glowing outlines and colour-shading of teams.

    Then there are eight maps played two ways. Even compared to L4D/2, which have 'only' five campaigns featuring four or five stages each, the size of map you had to play on was not to be lauded, given that it was a full price release, and Section 8: Prejudice was doing the whole squad / team thing better overall. The narrow nature of the maps led to some interesting cross-class tactics, with varied classes in organised squads making it interesting at times, but there was no escaping the fact that the scope of the game was a little narrow, it didn't really feel like the narrative was interwoven with the action, as was promised, and the ambition of the vision was removed from the realisation of the levels.

    In the end, despite the enjoyment I initially got out of it, my feelings were of disappointment and frustration up until the point HMV gave me £35 for it.

  • Fab4 #22 11 months ago

    polarising...shorthand for 'shit that even a large marketing campaign couldnt shift'.

  • Ziggy_badMonkey #23 11 months ago

    'shit that even a large marketing campaign couldnt shift'
    New IP that has sold over 1.3 million copies after 7 weeks is good marketing then
    I found it to be a fresh new take on the genre, with some lag issues on launch which have been sorted now.
    If you want COD drop in kill drop out you'll hate it, If you want a team experience pick it up on Steam for like 20 quid its well worth it
    People who dismiss it as a laggy piece of shit either don't have the update or are just trolls with nothing better to do

  • lockload #24 11 months ago

    Probably didnt help it beain a great team shooter and psn being down

  • Sir_TimAlot #25 11 months ago

    no excuse to go from something as good as Quake Wars to Brink, if you didn't like Brink get Quake Wars basically, can probably pick it up for less than a tenner now.

  • Haloboy #26 11 months ago

    If you want a team experience pick up S8: Prejudice in the steam summer sale for less than £7:

    [link url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/
    ]http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/
    [/link]

    Pretty sure there's still people playing it and even if not the bots still piss all over those found in Brink.

  • neilka #27 11 months ago

    People don't buy polarising, they buy winning.

  • kinky_mong #28 11 months ago

    ""There were folks who thought it was brilliant, with the team play aspects and originality. Then there were those who were saying, 'It's too complicated with boring levels.'"

    And then there were even more people saying "What the hell is this fugly piece of shit I've bought?! Why does it not deliver on any of the reasons I bought it?! Why the friendly bots so piss poor?! Why do all the characters all look alike despite the supposedly huge amount of customization?! And why won't those voices with horrendously bad accents shut the fuck up about command posts?!!!!"

  • Progguitarist #29 11 months ago

    The amazing thing is, it still charts in the UK top ten every week.
    Edited by Progguitarist at 06/07/11 @ 14:05

  • Vortex808 #30 11 months ago

    I liked it a lot, and could appreciate what it was trying to do. I didn't even mind the graphics and lack of variety in characters out of the cut scenes, as it was really fun to play when it worked.

    Unfortunately, the fact that after a month or more I'd still occasionally go into a complete slideshow style game, the lack of weapon variety, and more worringly, the lack of human players leading to unfortunate Bot AI related frustrations meant I had to get rid of it.

    Which was a shame, I hoped this was going to be my team-based MP game until BF3/Gears 3 etc. Now I'll be playing Section 8:prejudice instead where the Bot presence is barely noticable.

  • TheEarlOfZinger #31 11 months ago

    All I heard was that it was really fucking laggy with repetitive gameplay, not 'it's complicated'.

  • Snufkin #32 11 months ago

    I got it from lovefilm, played literally 5 mins of one match before shoving it back in the envelope and back in the post. It had such potential, but the controls were horrible, graphics were fuzzy, there was too much going on on the screen, and you never had a clue what you were sposed to be doing. Maybe I should have given it more time, but then they should have made more effort to make the beginning of the game engaging and lead people in gently, rather than chuck them in the deep end and expect them to swim.

  • Architect_z #33 11 months ago

    @schnide

    I'm at work, so I don't get access to google or any other site. Plus my english isnt so great i'm part Egyptian, part Mexican, part Italian with a hint of Bulgarian.

    Sorry if people didn't like my original question, neg me for being not as educated. lol

  • geeza2020 #34 11 months ago

    Haha! This is EG architect_z, genuine honest questions, and opinions that differ to the status quo don't wash here! :-P

  • overcorpse #35 11 months ago

    Splash Damage made one of the greatest multiplayer maps ever,Marketgarden for RCTW then fucked it up by making RCTW Enemy Territory.

    Never forgave them for that.

  • mcreddie #36 11 months ago

    This was a truly terrible game.

    Graphics - Abysmal
    Lag - Unbelievable
    Gameplay - Dire
    Audio - Roughly 2 machine gun sounds

    Plus, it was about as 'complicated' as a Danny Wallace novel.
    Edited by mcreddie at 06/07/11 @ 15:15

  • ColdCoffee #37 11 months ago

    these guys have no clue.... saying that we just didn't get it is the most stupid thing... Arrgh why did I trust the people who brought such gems as Quake Wars to pull this off... the art direction is all that this game had going for it. The classes sucked, The lag sucked, The Weapons sucked, They lied and tried to boast about features with just smalls twist that didn't make them any different than any other fps out there. There was no SINGLE PLAYER it was just MP maps with bots.... they blurred no lines or did anything unique or different these guys are failures. Only creative thing they managed was to sucker in people to believe they were making a awesome game and pay off reviews like Eurogamer.

  • KDR_11k #38 11 months ago

    It's not that it's too complex, it's that the core part of it feels stupid. You have one objective that every player on the server is after. It's like football on a livingroom-sized field. Too many people on too few objectives resulting in a total clusterfuck. It may have more complicated options but the thought I give the game when playing it is not nearly as deep as e.g. in Section 8 Prejudice where players have to coordinate their moves across multiple objectives and quickly adapt to the situations that arise. Also I've never enjoyed working with or against a timer and that's the only kind of mission Brink offers.

    I do enjoy the combat and stuff but the game structure just doesn't gel with the playercount.

  • coolbritannia #39 11 months ago

    Yes, polarising like the News of the World are polarising.

  • jonfon #40 11 months ago

    @Architect_z : "I'm at work, so I don't get access to google or any other site. "
    Wait, isn't Eurogamer technically a site?

    @HyperTails : "You can't polish a turd, Splash Damage, no matter how hard you try."
    How about if we froze it first using liquid nitrogen and then used a floor buffer on it in a walk-in fridge? To the laboratory!!

  • azazel76 #41 11 months ago

    had potential but sadly it was guff. Seems the way of things these days that unless its triple A release then you are paying 30/40 quid to test the game that should have been tested months before release. Brink adds to the list of games such as op flashpoint: DR and homefront that looked like it had been tested by 3 fuckwits locked in a room with a dominos pizza and a can of lilt to share

  • Architect_z #42 11 months ago

    @jonfon

    Eurogamers not a site, its a puppet in a sick play. And its our puppet master!!!

    Actually for some unknown reason I get this site and not any others. God knows why?

  • MrChuckles #43 11 months ago

    I bought this recently at a boot fair for £10. I am now selling it for £10... Played it once, won the level, barely understood what the hell was going on, and the guns felt very wooly.

    The character generation screen looked gorgeous though.

  • Phishfood #44 11 months ago

    Splash Damage: We are the marmite of game developers

  • The-Jack-Burton #45 11 months ago

    By polarizing you mean 95% of people thought it was shit

    Fuck you Bethesda!
    Edited by The-Jack-Burton at 06/07/11 @ 21:46

  • mukki #46 11 months ago

    Oh come on... Stupid statement...
    While I loved (and still do) the art style the game was quite disappointing, for me anyways. Which sucked even more because I was expect quite a bit from it... Bah

  • adz #47 11 months ago

    @jonfon & @HyperTails - you can polish a turd. MythBusters proved it.