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[bluedeviltron]

What the hell. Giving it a shot. I'm liking what I'm seeing from that stream.

 

[Cyntec]

How are you a game journalist and not know when the embargo ends?

Because I'm not aware of the emargo that was given to the US Press; I only Know about the European one which ends by thursday

 

[Definity]

Hehe, true. Bashing was a little bit misplaced there. As I said the game isn't that bad. But my expectations were beyond what I actually got in the end.

That was the problem I had with game. I'm anxious to see what other folks think about it.

 

[Sanic]

I think everyone's impressions (including my own) are kind of invalid since no one has played with a full set of human players, AFAIK at least. In short, the bots suck balls big time, end of story. So judging how gun the game is just from solo play is really hard to do.

I think it definitely could have used more content - more maps, more guns, more modes. Since it sounds like DLC is a no-go that's a big bummer.

I was disappointed by the lack of variety in the weapons - to me they were all just generic looking automatic weapons with similar properties and definitely similar 'feel' despite what the stats screens say. Also I think it's strange that you can unlock every weapon in the game in pretty much an hour in Challenge Mode, and that Challenge Mode itself is so half-backed with only like a dozen scenarios.

The abilities are awesome. There's a bunch of different ones to get and some are very clever - especially the Operative ones. Killing people with guns is probably the least interesting part of the game - hacking and defusing and buffing is a lot more fun. Customizing your guy is pretty fun, too - Barbies for gamers, but still fun.

In short, it's a cool game. It does a lot of stuff right. It will take some time to learn the maps and use SMART to the max potential, and the feel of Wolf:ET was pretty much there with the objectives and such. I don't think it's very polished, and I don't think it will light any fires in the MP space, but I think the community will be concentrated and dedicated and you will get out of it what you put into it (in other words, be creative and have fun with the freedom of movement and abilities!) That's about the only way many people will get their $60 of fun out of it.

Of course, but I appreciate the thoughts regardless. The mention of ET has me excited. Only ten hours!

 

[Achamian]

Is there any way to apply the D2D preorder code in the EU? I tried sizzle, but it says the Code won't work with this game - I tried with the us site but it says Brink is region restricted.
Is there any way to get it with 25% promotion?

scorchio25 is the code i used for uk site?

 

[Teknoman]

Hopefully the embargo ends in a few hours, so I can finally start bashing...

Get equipped with Bash Cannon.

 

[SapientWolf]

If you need to invest 3 hours into any game SP or MP for it to feel fun and rewarding I would consider that a game design failure. I think that as a reviewer for games the thing you are looking for right off the bat is is this fun or not After an hour it isn't than why waste your time. My final point because this is derailing the thread is that everything wrong about Homefront will be there from the 1st hour of gameplay to the 30th. It has nothing todo with whatever items you unlock at your different levels.

"Fun" or "rewarding" weren't the points of contention in that example. It was a question of what separated the title from its closest competitors, which is in the details and the nuances, not the broad strokes. A lot of online FPSs appear to be roughly similar until you really start getting under the hood.

The other issue was that the MP in HF was treated as something tacked onto the SP campaign, when really the opposite was true.

I'm drawing the parallels to demonstrate why a poor critical showing might not be demonstrative of Brink's quality. MP focused titles rarely get a fair evaluation these days.

 

[walbertsmith]

I wasn't the one who said an hour first someone else said it would appear that reviewers only spent an hour in homefronts multiplayer I was just riffing on that tangent. But I see your point. What I'm saying is within that first 'hour' you already know how you feel about a game. in a multiplayer game I don't think you need all that much time to get a handle on what it's all about after a few matches.

Word, gotcha. I respectfully disagree on evaluating multiplayer after a few matches, but I think we're on the same page otherwise.

 

[zlatko]

So you're moving the goalposts from 1 hour to 3 hours now. Got it.

And I do agree with you 100% that reviewers need to decide for themselves if the game is fun or not; that's the most important metric. Thing is, you're here setting up an arbitrary "1 hour" or "3 hour" time limit as if anything needed past that to review a game is automatically invalid.

When I review a game I wait until I have covered all aspects. That means completing the single player, that means hopefully having done more than 50% of it on the hardest difficulty, that means at least 10 hours spent online if it has it, and trying my damn hardest to mix things up.

Once that is up I see what was fun and what wasn't. I check the quality of what was done and see if it succeeded in what it set out to do. I always keep in mind the idea of is this worth $50.00-$60.00, and who would be happy with paying that price. Not all games are made to win over everyone, and just because it doesn't have mass appeal doesn't mean it isn't an outstanding product for its core audience. Example being Demon's Souls of how its a great game for RPG fans, but might not be for Call of Duty Joe.

As far as Brink goes, when I put up my review I won't be worried about beating out everyone else which seems to be what everyone else is up to. They need to get their half assed word out first and not give the game the necessary time and love. I imagine Friday is when I'll have covered everything needed to be able to articulate why the game is a success or a bust.

I'm definitely not the best game journalist by any stretch, but I think I do a good enough job to give the games and their developers enough respect to dive in deep before marking it good or bad.

Edit: I should also mention one of my biggest sticklers for todays online shooters. Since most review places are out to beat each other, they actually don't review what the game plays like online when it is out in the wild to the masses. The biggest fucking failure online in recent years was Gears of War 2, and if reviewers had done their damn job then we would have been warned about how awful that net code was, but instead they just raced each other to praise what was basically a broken game online.

 

[Genesis Knight]

That was the problem I had with game. I'm anxious to see what other folks think about it.

Yeah, it probably didn't help that I hyped the game up to be the second coming of the FPS in my mind.

Also, if Cyntec wasn't trying to troll then I have no problem with his opinions or his English. He already knows more languages than I do, obviously.

EDIT: Amazon shipped mine, release date delivery ahoy. Here we go, chaps!

 

[desu]

More maps, modes and a campain with scripted events or any other kind of highlights would be a good point to start. BTW, I'm writing for some print mags, so I won't complain about the game without any reason

So what print magazin would that be?

 

[Phife Dawg]

Except Portal 2 is a Valve game.

The last game these guys put out: Quake Wars. :|

And it was awesome!

 

[HELLA_MONEYZ]

"Fun" or "rewarding" weren't the points of contention in that example. It was a question of what separated the title from its closest competitors, which is in the details and the nuances, not the broad strokes. A lot of online FPSs appear to be roughly similar until you really start getting under the hood.

The other issue was that the MP in HF was treated as something tacked onto the SP campaign, when really the opposite was true.

If the multiplayer was the focus in Homefront than man that sucks. I understand that a lot of people love it. But ifelt igot burned on Homefront the same way I got burned with Brutal Legend. That's going to be a scar I carry with me for the rest of my life.

When I review a game I wait until I have covered all aspects. That means completing the single player, that means hopefully having done more than 50% of it on the hardest difficulty, that means at least 10 hours spent online if it has it, and trying my damn hardest to mix things up.

Once that is up I see what was fun and what wasn't. I check the quality of what was done and see if it succeeded in what it set out to do. I always keep in mind the idea of is this worth $50.00-$60.00, and who would be happy with paying that price. Not all games are made to win over everyone, and just because it doesn't have mass appeal doesn't mean it isn't an outstanding product for its core audience. Example being Demon's Souls of how its a great game for RPG fans, but might not be for Call of Duty Joe.

As far as Brink goes, when I put up my review I won't be worried about beating out everyone else which seems to be what everyone else is up to. They need to get their half assed word out first and not give the game the necessary time and love. I imagine Friday is when I'll have covered everything needed to be able to articulate why the game is a success or a bust.

I'm definitely not the best game journalist by any stretch, but I think I do a good enough job to give the games and their developers enough respect to dive in deep before marking it good or bad.

Edit: I should also mention one of my biggest sticklers for todays online shooters. Since most review places are out to beat each other, they actually don't review what the game plays like online when it is out in the wild to the masses. The biggest fucking failure online in recent years was Gears of War 2, and if reviewers had done their damn job then we would have been warned about how awful that net code was, but instead they just raced each other to praise what was basically a broken game online.

Are you a freelancer because that's a lot of time on one game.

 

[taoofjord]

I have to say, I wish the game still looked like it did when they debuted it:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/container-city-brink/59705


Really, really nice looking there. Maybe the PC version will look similar?

 

[Tokubetsu]

Brutal Legend was the best game of 2009.

 

[Genesis Knight]

I have to say, I wish the game still looked like it did when they debuted it:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/container-city-brink/59705


Really, really nice looking there. Maybe the PC version will look similar?

Dude, check out the 2009 announcement thread here on GAF. Those screens! And one of the SD guys promised that those were exact screens if you had a beasty enough rig. It'll be interesting to see what type of caps PC-GAF can cook up and see if SD was speaking the truth.

For the 360 crowd, there's always the day one patch! (LOL, FML)

 

[DenogginizerOS]

I fully expect to run this with maxed out settings on PC. I will definitely be snapping some screens.

 

[mjc]

How many maps are on the disc? And DLC is not planned at all?

 

[TwIsTeD]

Just got a text message from Best Buy Gamer that said Brink is available today... glitch?

 

[derFeef]

Hey Genesis, are you getting two versions? You said yours shipped but you already posted impressions. Or did you play someplace else?

 

[Genesis Knight]

How many maps are on the disc? And DLC is not planned at all?

There's an interview where they stated that DLC isn't in the cards yet (which will probably mean it never will be if it doesn't sell well, I assume).

As far as maps...8. Yeah. What is it, 10 scenarios I think?

DerFeef - I played my buddy's early 360 copy; my 360 copy just shipped.

 

[Cyntec]

Dude, check out the 2009 announcement thread here on GAF. Those screens! And one of the SD guys promised that those were exact screens if you had a beasty enough rig. It'll be interesting to see what type of caps PC-GAF can cook up and see if SD was speaking the truth.

For the 360 crowd, there's always the day one patch! (LOL, FML)

You will laugh: there is a Day One Patch. At least the console version has got heavy problems with streaming textures, pop ups are all around... The patch shall fix it, so I was told at least.

 

[Sanic]

How many maps are on the disc? And DLC is not planned at all?

The main menu has an option for DLC, but they've said they have nothing planned yet.

 

[zlatko]

If the multiplayer was the focus in Homefront than man that sucks. I understand that a lot of people love it. But ifelt igot burned on Homefront the same way I got burned with Brutal Legend. That's going to be a scar I carry with me for the rest of my life.

Are you a freelancer because that's a lot of time on one game.

Yup freelancer, which is why I could afford to that. However, if I worked for IGN or something, I would pull long deep nights if need be to get that much time to back up my claims.

People these days are also bitching about journalism in general being shitty. Which it is, but I hope my contribution to it isn't just another "journalist" doing the same with harm to credibility on what people tell you is worth your money and time.

If I wasn't a freelancer then I think I'd only work for a place that would allow me to at least keep my reviews segmented to have an online portion come after the game releases. Everything else that is not related to net code being handled would be up and ready for when the game launches. I'd like to see more review places at least have a follow up to their reviews to games to talk about how the online for the game is once it is out there for everyone to play. That way if you are experiencing another Gears of War 2 you could do the right thing and warn people so they save their money until it's fixed.

 

[derFeef]

Heads up PC/AMD Gaf.

AMD Catalyst™ Driver 11.5a Hotfix Feature:
Includes performance optimizations and resolves various quality issues for the upcoming release of Brink™

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst115ahotfix.aspx

 

[mjc]

There's an interview where they stated that DLC isn't in the cards yet (which will probably mean it never will be if it doesn't sell well, I assume).

As far as maps...8. Yeah. What is it, 10 scenarios I think?

DerFeef - I played my buddy's early 360 copy; my 360 copy just shipped.

8 maps isn't that bad. I was expecting like 5 or so.

 

[Genesis Knight]

You will laugh: there is a Day One Patch. At least the console version has got heavy problems with streaming textures, pop ups are all around... The patch shall fix it, so I was told at least.

Yeah, that's the one I was referring to. The 360 did have some noticeable pop in; even when you switch weapons your gun has to load up from a really low-res muddle - then again Gears of War 3 still has the same thing when you spawn sometimes so I guess I can't criticize Brink.

Somebody downloaded a 4MB patch on Sunday I think for the 360 and said it didn't change anything, but there was some debate over whether or not that was 'the patch'.

 

[darkressurection]

Heads up PC/AMD Gaf.


http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst115ahotfix.aspx

Looks like it is time for some driver updating.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Aw man I hate updating drivers on my hd4870, never know what older games it will fuck up for my card.

 

[Makoto]

This says two completely different things to me. Sorry. Who gives a shit if they used "campaign". Everyone says that.

Reviewers do.

Weird, I don't recall anyone docking Left 4 Dead 2 for that. Anyone who did would be called a moron. Rightfully so.

That's because Valve made Left 4 Dead 2. As I said earlier in the thread, Splash Damage has lost its popularity and won't be given the same positive bias. That's one reason why Brink will get docked points for bots being the meat of the singleplayer.

You didn't answer my question. What if the story was actually pretty fun to go through, but it was just bots. Does it even out? Do you dock it? Leave it alone?

I answered your question. If it's not half-assed singleplayer (though all signs point to half-assed singleplayer) then the reviewers will judge it accordingly, logic dictates that it won't get docked points, that's typically how reviewers operate. You're trying to argue what should be, when that's not at all what the discussion is about. I'm arguing what is.

You're also judging from early ass streams at the game' s lowest level. In general, we don't know shit. If the AI continues to suck after more levels you gain, then yeah. Dock it.

I doubt the AI gets better as you get higher in rank. But if Brink's singleplayer is just bots and its not bothering you, then that's okay. I haven't been trying to impede on your enjoyment. You're just arguing for the sake arguing at this point.

 

[Tokubetsu]

Aw man I hate updating drivers on my hd4870, never know what older games it will fuck up for my card.

Yeah. =/ I'm gonna wait and see how this runs before I apply the hotfix.

 

[Makoto]

Is the hotfix relevant for those who are still on 11.4?

 

[derFeef]

Is the hotfix relevant for those who are still on 11.4?

Its a newly released hotfix (11.5a), sure. If you are uncertain just wait if you have problems. It may be some small glitches or some nasty stuff. I installed it right away

 

[darkressurection]

There, all hotfixed up. Only a while longer brothers.

 

[Shoogoo]

Nobody contested that idea of making an EU 360 GT, so, should I do that?

If the OP could say his opinion on this.

 

[Nocebo]

Hmm the lack of interesting weapons is a little concerning.

 

[Sanic]

Nobody contested that idea of making an EU 360 GT, so, should I do that?

If the OP could say his opinion on this.

I don't have a problem with it, but I don't have time to do it personally at the moment. Someone else can make one, and if not, I will in about six hours.

 

[SneakyStephan]

That's because Valve made Left 4 Dead 2. As I said earlier in the thread, Splash Damage has lost its popularity and won't be given the same positive bias. That's one reason why Brink will get docked points for bots being the meat of the singleplayer.


.

To be fair, l4d did get a lot of shit for having semi functional and often downright retarded bots.
Though maybe more in a mocking it way than being bitter about it way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OjcRBoCbSg
this is still my favorite parody on the bots.

 

[thezerofire]

if anyone wanted that Parkour video from the light bodytype it got rehosted on megavideo



quote to see

 

[Palmer_v1]

if anyone wanted that Parkour video from the light bodytype it got rehosted on megavideo

http://www.megavideo.com/?d=UYTRAMSV

I just uploaded it to youtube again as well, unlisted. Quote this to see the address, so asshole Bethesda employees can't get it yanked down so easily.

 

[Genesis Knight]

I just uploaded it to youtube again as well, unlisted. Quote this to see the address, so asshole Brink employees can't get it yanked down so easy.

Hey man it's Bethesda not Splash Damage. Don't be hatin.'

 

[Anilusion]

Preordered from D2D for 22,5£. Gonna be a good friday. Hype!

 

[Palmer_v1]

Hey man it's Bethesda not Splash Damage. Don't be hatin.'

Do you know that for sure? I just lump them all together, but if there's been evidence it's Bethesda and not Splash Damage being dicks, I'll gladly edit my post.

 

[vixlar]

I've seen that sometimes enemies got spoted, and the operatives class can reveal the position of all the enemies for 10 seconds.

The enemies spotted in the video are like spotting in Battlefield? Pressing Select/Back. For me, that's one of the greatest things about that game.

 

[derFeef]

Do you know that for sure? I just lump them all together, but if there's been evidence it's Bethesda and not Splash Damage being dicks, I'll gladly edit my post.

Youtube videos has been taken down by "Zeni Max"

 

[walbertsmith]

I've seen that sometimes enemies got spoted, and the operatives class can reveal the position of all the enemies for 10 seconds.

The enemies spotted in the video are like spotting in Battlefield? Pressing Select/Back. For me, that's one of the greatest things about that game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's actually a number of factors in play in ID'ing enemies.

Any class: If you visually see anyone, you call them out automatically to your teammates; both audio and on your radar. No need to push Select/Back for this to activate.

Operative: Can comm hack incapped enemies to reveal the enemy team for 10 seconds on the minimap, and also has Homing Beacon which actually gives the red outline you can see through walls.

 

[Teknoman]

I want to say it'll look as good as the video on the PC version, but some of those intro scenes are probably just normal cutscenes now.

 

[steadfast]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's actually a number of factors in play in ID'ing enemies.

Any class: If you visually see anyone, you call them out automatically to your teammates; both audio and on your radar. No need to push Select/Back for this to activate.

Operative: Can comm hack incapped enemies to reveal the enemy team for 10 seconds on the minimap, and also has Homing Beacon which actually gives the red outline you can see through walls.

Completely new to me. If true, awesome.

 

[vixlar]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's actually a number of factors in play in ID'ing enemies.

Any class: If you visually see anyone, you call them out automatically to your teammates; both audio and on your radar. No need to push Select/Back for this to activate.

Operative: Can comm hack incapped enemies to reveal the enemy team for 10 seconds on the minimap, and also has Homing Beacon which actually gives the red outline you can see through walls.

Ooooh, is some kind of autospot. Thanks

 

[Palmer_v1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's actually a number of factors in play in ID'ing enemies.

Any class: If you visually see anyone, you call them out automatically to your teammates; both audio and on your radar. No need to push Select/Back for this to activate.

Operative: Can comm hack incapped enemies to reveal the enemy team for 10 seconds on the minimap, and also has Homing Beacon which actually gives the red outline you can see through walls.

I think you have to be looking down the sights for it to spot people. Just running and seeing them doesn't.