It's what it usually is. The stuff on my disk is useless and outdated. Installing steam that way caused it to freeze every time. Had to download a new copy of the steam installer, uninstall my old copy, then go from there.
Been trying to read this thread for some insight on the controls, game-content, multiplayer impressions, etc... majority of the replies are: "Damn those reviewers!," "Game released with bugs!," "I got bat-wing!"
:P
It'd be nice to get something to supplement my Battlefield BC2 online gaming since KZ3 online life span is comparable to a cicada.
Cincitucky on
Imagine what "cheese' could exist if someone tried to copy Velveeta.
I've pre-ordered the special edition of Brink, and I was somewhat disappointed to see the mixed reviews of it today, particularly IGN (as that's my go-to source for most at-a-glance info). Still, however, when I pre-ordered it I thought it looked slick, stylish and genuinely fun, and I still think that as my copy sidles its way through the UK postal service.
Granted, there was a significant degree of frantic fumbling for a GOOD review to reassure myself I hadn't invested my good money in a game only I would want to play, but the review that calmed my nerves was Machinima's. In it, Justin Fassino calls Brink "[the result of] Killzone 3 and Team Fortress 2 making sweet love", and that's more or less the best way to describe it to someone.
In no way does IGN have the right to run a feature on Brink's map and sound designs, commenting on how much effort has gone into them, then dock points off the finished product for lacking in those areas. It gets worse when you notice the strategy videos they uploaded immediately after the very review that basically encourages people not to play it. It's all very well them being written by separate authors, but the sheer chasm of opinion is staggering.
I'll probably blog about this issue tomorrow, but it seems this is the niche title of the year so far in terms of review scores. I think it's good, some others think it's bad. It's just that in this one scenario my opinion might be the one that isn't misjudged.
Most reviews I've seen complaining about the game have only played solo.
Anyone have a link to a competent multiplayer review?
Seriously?
Or did you mean to say "a review that tells me what I want to hear"
"what I want to hear" is how the game plays when there are live humans playing the game.
I understand the bots are morons, it doesn't bother me if the game is fun when actual people are playing.
In fact, it's likely that the reason the AI sucks is because it is undoubtedly difficult to "teach" an AI to use SMART, a system obviously designed with human control in mind. It's all dependent, correct me if I'm wrong, on seeing an obstacle and navigating it dynamically through looking around it, not at it, and since a computer doesn't see the game in the same way it shows it to us, that's likely the reason multiplayer is going to be better than single player.
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
Also, if you talk about how it is a multiplayer focused game and so on, maybe you should review the friggin' multiplayer. Just say "The single player is the same, but with bots" and move the fuck on.
If the single player is bad, I guess it's a good thing I didn't impulse-buy a copy for PS3 right now.
Did they ever add female characters to the creator? Or is the entire island still filled to the brim with dudes?
I still kind of like the theory that the array of "scarce resources" being fought over includes, if it does not in fact consist primarily of, poontang.
Come to think of it, inbreeding would explain why everybody on the Ark kind of resembles at least 33% of the rest of the population, and the stretchyface, etc.
All this talk of reviews....in my opinion review sites are all garbage, the only thing they are good for is looking at trailer videos and release date info. Their arbitrary number scores are a dumb system and a lot of reviewers are really unprofessional in the industry. They put bad points because of personal opinion very, very often, many of them barely even touch the games they review (This is nothing new, it happens all the time, not just with Brink, though the JOYSTIQ review is a particularly obvious offender to anyone who's spend more than 4 hours with the game.) Imo its a game you either love or hate. If you are a CoD guy who likes kill streaks and a grind to get guns (which i hate.) than you might not like this game because it gives you all those customization options upfront, and this game doesn't even have a K/D Ratio score board. This game is not for the dude who likes to solo snipe people for kills and lulz, because in this game teamwork will get you higher on the score board than sitting in a corner camping spawns or whatever.
This game heavily rewards teamwork, you cant with games without it. I've already found when playing online in PUBS that the vast majority do not understand the concept of teamwork in an FPS, or the concept of multiple objectives. I was in a team of almost all medics last night and all they did was heal themselves and run and gun, if i fell, they'd just run right past me and not even drop a heal. They mostly ignored objectives and just camped out in high up areas with rifles trying to score kills. I felt like the only one in the game who had any idea what i was doing, I got 2 objectives solo by hot swapping between classes since everyone just wanted to heal themselves as medics. This was pretty frustrating when it became apparent the other team was very much into team work, and were absolutely steam rolling us because of it.
Hopefully these people figure out how to play soon, because that shit sucks and is oh soooo frustrating. I can definitely see the CoD gameplay ingrained in many of these FPS players. This is not a shortcomming of the game, which many reviewers seem to think it is, this is a shortcomming of the players who simply dont enjoy team oriented FPS. Thats cool, not everyone likes everything, but that doesn't make the gameplay bad.
Not that the game is perfect, but its damn fun as hell in a good team.
Okay, I've been playing it most of the afternoon. It took me about 2 hours to get 3 Stars on all the Challenge modes, which is what you play in order to unlock new weapons and attachments. So I have every weapon, and every attachment unlocked at this point. Completing all the Challenges got me up to about level 8, for whatever that's worth.
Some of the Challenges were pretty difficult, I'll admit. You only get a squad during the first Challenge (they're useless), so in all the others, it's you against an army of Bots. There's an escort Challenge where you have to play as an Engineer and keep this Bomb Defusal Robot on the move until the end, and in the 3rd Star challenge, mother fucking Bots just keep spawning. Half the time, I don't even have enough time to reload before the next wave of enemies break onto the field, let alone repair the robot, or setup mines. Once I gained enough experience to unlock the Light Sentry Gun for the Engi, I tossed that onto the field -- the enemies tear it down within seconds. I don't think it ever got me a single kill.
I noticed that there's an option to play the Challenges with your friends, so after I was all finished, I told Queen I'd help him get 3 Stars on everything. It didn't take us long to realize you can't complete the Challenges Co-Operatively. I mean, you can do them, and you get experience, but you can't actually complete the Challenges and unlock more gear. So you have to do that stuff solo.
Couple of things worth mentioning about the Co-Op we did, though: there's such an awkward invite system in place, it almost seems like they don't want you to play with your friends, lol. I don't know how the actual Multiplayer system works yet, but for Co-Op Challenges, it goes like this:
I start up a new Challenge, and select "Two Players" (or Three, or Four).
Once I'm in the game, I can invite the members of my Party.
The other guy accepts the invite, but nothing actually happens yet. All that does it make a little option appear on his menu that says something like, "Launch on Invite". He clicks that, then he gets put into the game with me. Why can't it just put him in when he accepts the invite? I have no idea.
Playing alongside him was a lot of fun, actually. We played the Tower Defense Challenge; I was an Engineer and he was a Medic. I did notice something strange, though: when I played it Solo, there are lights that spin around above the entrance where enemies are about to spawn. There are like six entrances to the room, so the lights tip you off as to which direction they're coming from. That helps a lot when they start coming from three doors at once in the third round. Anyway, in Co-Op? No lights. There's no indication of where they might be coming from, and it's a little frustrating, because you can't watch them all at once, and those guys roll out like gangbusters, and tear you down super fast (I was playing a Heavy, with the Battle Hardened ability, so I had an extra Pip of life, and we had a Health Command Center, so I had another Pip of Health, and Queen was a Medic who buffed me with another Pip of life ... I should have been able to tank a fucking truck, but no lol).
I do really like this game, though. I'll be hitting the Multiplayer proper pretty hard tonight. Hope to see some of you guys online.
Okay, I've been playing it most of the afternoon. It took me about 2 hours to get 3 Stars on all the Challenge modes, which is what you play in order to unlock new weapons and attachments. So I have every weapon, and every attachment unlocked at this point. Completing all the Challenges got me up to about level 8, for whatever that's worth.
Keep in mind you only have to 2-star the challenges to unlock everything. The 3-star is only for the leaderboards.
I had fun in the one match where lag wasn't a huge issue. The challenges are also a pretty neat way to get how the game works.
I don't like how the assault rifles feel. It's the first ID Tech 4 game I've played that's disappointed me in that regard. Shotguns and pistols are ok I guess.
Just like with MK9, I think the game will be worth it once the networking gets fixed.
Ok, just got all 3 of the "Be Objective" challenges. They deliberately make the AI useless so that you have to do all of the objectives, the AI just helps with ancillary stuff (healing, buffing) and even then only sometimes.
Still this game is HELLA fun and I can't wait to take it online. Moar challenges first!
How does the game play on consoles? Any glaring issues / bugs that should be known to all? Performance?
I know the game lacks a lobby system, but does have a party system of sorts. Any info would be great to help improve the OP for all Brink players :^:
Dunno if this got answered yet, but a few of us were lobbying for a bit today. There seems to be a complete lack of a matckmaking system from what we've played so far, the only way we could figure out to get online is by having one member of your party go into Freeplay -> Public games, and then everyone else joining his session in progress. This means some people can get left out of a game.
I had a little bit of lag issues, but nothing major. It's definitely not as bad as CODBLOPS was on launch, that's for sure. The way the game is designed to be less of a twitch shooter helps that enormously. You won't find yourself emptying half a clip into someone while he stares at you blankly, then find out you died, for instance. Overall, I have had a pleasant experience on the 360, matchmaking troubles aside.
Not to ruin anyone's buzz, but I'm genuinely not having fun playing Brink. At all. The gameplay in general feels extremely forced, trying to do too much in some areas, and failing to execute design goals in others. I don't know if a lot of this is a PC-balancing issue, but I suspect it might be.
Primary complaint is the overall pacing of the game. It's really fun waiting to spawn for 16 seconds, then running for 20-30s because the objective is far from the spawn, to get killed in about 2 seconds because the guy you're shooting RNG'd more headshots than you (thanks COF.) I was under the impression the entire point of Brink was to slow down FPS gameplay to allow for teamwork and what not, but it just feels like I'm playing CoD. Teamplay consists of mousing over people and pressing F as you spawn unless you're a medic.
The SMART system undermines the entire play style of Heavy body types and Engineers. Gap closing to slide-tackle around in CQC seems to be the most effective combat tactic currently and I genuinely question why the ability is even in the game. It's almost impossible to even fight back against people who get the drop on you.
The mission maps are all way overly complex, mostly to take advantage of SMART, I feel. This can be good, or bad, but when you only have 1-2 routes to an objective, and your opponent has about 5-6 to approach from, some situations feel completely unwinnable, to the point where it's not even a matter of strategy.
I'm still going to try and keep playing, but I've never thrown my hands up in a "well, what the fuck am I suppose to do?" motion more than while playing Brink.
There is a HUGE problems with the game imo, and it's that there is no freaking overview of the objectives. This is absolutely baffling, especially considering that there are some complex maps.
Even more baffling is that ET games had a nice map screen with objectives explained. TF2 has a briefing for each map.
I've played a bunch of hours already and I feel like I'm only starting to figure out some maps.
So... game froze/computer froze. Either my system overheated or CMOS decided, "you know what, fuck you."
Is the objective wheel that puts an unignorable yellow outline around whatever objective you pick not overview enough. There's only really 4 things you can do. You can blow something up, repair it, heal and escort it or hack it
I guess I'll have to wait for a fix because of this and the fact that I can't get more than 30 frames a second (mostly 20 on 1280x720 and low everything)
To be fair, any reviews out now won't mention multiplayer much, because they can't very well play multiplayer when "no one" has the game.
If you want a "fair" review based on multiplayer, you will have to wait until some time after launch, at which point word of mouth from early adopters is probably more useful.
All the current reviews can do is exactly what they have done - play with mostly bots, and try and get an idea of what the game is like. From what I have heard so far, the game looks great (style wise) but other than that, there isn't much to it that demands a recommendation. Hence the reviews we have seen.
That doesn't make it a bad game, or a game no one can enjoy. It just means that it's not a must play.
I got the game on 360 and am loving it so far. But the 2 games I tried playing online were lagfests.... So I've stuck to challenges and single player mode, which isn't that bad just to learn the basics with.
Hoping the online matches I try in a bit will be better.
sgt rob on
Alien imposter. Pretender. I'll keep you safe now. Close to my heart.
I guess I'll have to wait for a fix because of this and the fact that I can't get more than 30 frames a second (mostly 20 on 1280x720 and low everything)
Godfry daniels.
The 4850 is a fine card, but this is like the third game with a special issue only with the 4XXX cards that I've purchased. It's not actually performance-affecting, but it's annoying.
Up to level 9. Good times, finally unlocked that fucking hockey mask for resistance. Anwyay the art style is great but the customization isn't thaaaaaat special.
One thing i really want to mention though, the voice acting is absolutely stellar. I mean usually when you notice voice acting its because its terrible, but its just magnificent. especially on the audio logs.
Canada_jezus on
0
Options
CarbonFireSee youin the countryRegistered Userregular
There is a HUGE problems with the game imo, and it's that there is no freaking overview of the objectives. This is absolutely baffling, especially considering that there are some complex maps.
Even more baffling is that ET games had a nice map screen with objectives explained. TF2 has a briefing for each map.
I've played a bunch of hours already and I feel like I'm only starting to figure out some maps.
Yeah, a map would be nice. The objective wheel, while helpful, isn't a total replacement for having a nice, clear overview of the level and where you're supposed to go.
Posts
It's what it usually is. The stuff on my disk is useless and outdated. Installing steam that way caused it to freeze every time. Had to download a new copy of the steam installer, uninstall my old copy, then go from there.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I mean $10 credit is what I'd pick if it were between the two options, but for fuck's sake.
Hm. I could ask gamestop if they have extra but... eh. I think I'll bitch out Amazon because it's fun to yell at people.
it's as simple as this guys, if you are playing this game with bots you are doing it wrong.
:P
It'd be nice to get something to supplement my Battlefield BC2 online gaming since KZ3 online life span is comparable to a cicada.
Granted, there was a significant degree of frantic fumbling for a GOOD review to reassure myself I hadn't invested my good money in a game only I would want to play, but the review that calmed my nerves was Machinima's. In it, Justin Fassino calls Brink "[the result of] Killzone 3 and Team Fortress 2 making sweet love", and that's more or less the best way to describe it to someone.
In no way does IGN have the right to run a feature on Brink's map and sound designs, commenting on how much effort has gone into them, then dock points off the finished product for lacking in those areas. It gets worse when you notice the strategy videos they uploaded immediately after the very review that basically encourages people not to play it. It's all very well them being written by separate authors, but the sheer chasm of opinion is staggering.
I'll probably blog about this issue tomorrow, but it seems this is the niche title of the year so far in terms of review scores. I think it's good, some others think it's bad. It's just that in this one scenario my opinion might be the one that isn't misjudged.
"what I want to hear" is how the game plays when there are live humans playing the game.
I understand the bots are morons, it doesn't bother me if the game is fun when actual people are playing.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
In fact, it's likely that the reason the AI sucks is because it is undoubtedly difficult to "teach" an AI to use SMART, a system obviously designed with human control in mind. It's all dependent, correct me if I'm wrong, on seeing an obstacle and navigating it dynamically through looking around it, not at it, and since a computer doesn't see the game in the same way it shows it to us, that's likely the reason multiplayer is going to be better than single player.
It's weird. None of the graphics options seem to do anything.
He had basically 2 sentences about SMART as well.
:P
It is absolutely killer to rush a group of bad guys and jump over a crate or something and see them get confused trying to pick a target.
Did they ever add female characters to the creator? Or is the entire island still filled to the brim with dudes?
I still kind of like the theory that the array of "scarce resources" being fought over includes, if it does not in fact consist primarily of, poontang.
Come to think of it, inbreeding would explain why everybody on the Ark kind of resembles at least 33% of the rest of the population, and the stretchyface, etc.
This game heavily rewards teamwork, you cant with games without it. I've already found when playing online in PUBS that the vast majority do not understand the concept of teamwork in an FPS, or the concept of multiple objectives. I was in a team of almost all medics last night and all they did was heal themselves and run and gun, if i fell, they'd just run right past me and not even drop a heal. They mostly ignored objectives and just camped out in high up areas with rifles trying to score kills. I felt like the only one in the game who had any idea what i was doing, I got 2 objectives solo by hot swapping between classes since everyone just wanted to heal themselves as medics. This was pretty frustrating when it became apparent the other team was very much into team work, and were absolutely steam rolling us because of it.
Hopefully these people figure out how to play soon, because that shit sucks and is oh soooo frustrating. I can definitely see the CoD gameplay ingrained in many of these FPS players. This is not a shortcomming of the game, which many reviewers seem to think it is, this is a shortcomming of the players who simply dont enjoy team oriented FPS. Thats cool, not everyone likes everything, but that doesn't make the gameplay bad.
Not that the game is perfect, but its damn fun as hell in a good team.
Wait...what's sad? I think I missed something. What has Amazon done?!
Some of the Challenges were pretty difficult, I'll admit. You only get a squad during the first Challenge (they're useless), so in all the others, it's you against an army of Bots. There's an escort Challenge where you have to play as an Engineer and keep this Bomb Defusal Robot on the move until the end, and in the 3rd Star challenge, mother fucking Bots just keep spawning. Half the time, I don't even have enough time to reload before the next wave of enemies break onto the field, let alone repair the robot, or setup mines. Once I gained enough experience to unlock the Light Sentry Gun for the Engi, I tossed that onto the field -- the enemies tear it down within seconds. I don't think it ever got me a single kill.
I noticed that there's an option to play the Challenges with your friends, so after I was all finished, I told Queen I'd help him get 3 Stars on everything. It didn't take us long to realize you can't complete the Challenges Co-Operatively. I mean, you can do them, and you get experience, but you can't actually complete the Challenges and unlock more gear. So you have to do that stuff solo.
Couple of things worth mentioning about the Co-Op we did, though: there's such an awkward invite system in place, it almost seems like they don't want you to play with your friends, lol. I don't know how the actual Multiplayer system works yet, but for Co-Op Challenges, it goes like this:
I start up a new Challenge, and select "Two Players" (or Three, or Four).
Once I'm in the game, I can invite the members of my Party.
The other guy accepts the invite, but nothing actually happens yet. All that does it make a little option appear on his menu that says something like, "Launch on Invite". He clicks that, then he gets put into the game with me. Why can't it just put him in when he accepts the invite? I have no idea.
Playing alongside him was a lot of fun, actually. We played the Tower Defense Challenge; I was an Engineer and he was a Medic. I did notice something strange, though: when I played it Solo, there are lights that spin around above the entrance where enemies are about to spawn. There are like six entrances to the room, so the lights tip you off as to which direction they're coming from. That helps a lot when they start coming from three doors at once in the third round. Anyway, in Co-Op? No lights. There's no indication of where they might be coming from, and it's a little frustrating, because you can't watch them all at once, and those guys roll out like gangbusters, and tear you down super fast (I was playing a Heavy, with the Battle Hardened ability, so I had an extra Pip of life, and we had a Health Command Center, so I had another Pip of Health, and Queen was a Medic who buffed me with another Pip of life ... I should have been able to tank a fucking truck, but no lol).
I do really like this game, though. I'll be hitting the Multiplayer proper pretty hard tonight. Hope to see some of you guys online.
Why would they change that?
Keep in mind you only have to 2-star the challenges to unlock everything. The 3-star is only for the leaderboards.
I don't like how the assault rifles feel. It's the first ID Tech 4 game I've played that's disappointed me in that regard. Shotguns and pistols are ok I guess.
Just like with MK9, I think the game will be worth it once the networking gets fixed.
Twitter
Still this game is HELLA fun and I can't wait to take it online. Moar challenges first!
Dunno if this got answered yet, but a few of us were lobbying for a bit today. There seems to be a complete lack of a matckmaking system from what we've played so far, the only way we could figure out to get online is by having one member of your party go into Freeplay -> Public games, and then everyone else joining his session in progress. This means some people can get left out of a game.
I had a little bit of lag issues, but nothing major. It's definitely not as bad as CODBLOPS was on launch, that's for sure. The way the game is designed to be less of a twitch shooter helps that enormously. You won't find yourself emptying half a clip into someone while he stares at you blankly, then find out you died, for instance. Overall, I have had a pleasant experience on the 360, matchmaking troubles aside.
Primary complaint is the overall pacing of the game. It's really fun waiting to spawn for 16 seconds, then running for 20-30s because the objective is far from the spawn, to get killed in about 2 seconds because the guy you're shooting RNG'd more headshots than you (thanks COF.) I was under the impression the entire point of Brink was to slow down FPS gameplay to allow for teamwork and what not, but it just feels like I'm playing CoD. Teamplay consists of mousing over people and pressing F as you spawn unless you're a medic.
The SMART system undermines the entire play style of Heavy body types and Engineers. Gap closing to slide-tackle around in CQC seems to be the most effective combat tactic currently and I genuinely question why the ability is even in the game. It's almost impossible to even fight back against people who get the drop on you.
The mission maps are all way overly complex, mostly to take advantage of SMART, I feel. This can be good, or bad, but when you only have 1-2 routes to an objective, and your opponent has about 5-6 to approach from, some situations feel completely unwinnable, to the point where it's not even a matter of strategy.
I'm still going to try and keep playing, but I've never thrown my hands up in a "well, what the fuck am I suppose to do?" motion more than while playing Brink.
Wha? There are hitboxes in this game, I thought. So headshots are actually headshots, not some RNG decided bonus, right?
Even more baffling is that ET games had a nice map screen with objectives explained. TF2 has a briefing for each map.
I've played a bunch of hours already and I feel like I'm only starting to figure out some maps.
Is the objective wheel that puts an unignorable yellow outline around whatever objective you pick not overview enough. There's only really 4 things you can do. You can blow something up, repair it, heal and escort it or hack it
for anyone else that's having this, apparently all ATI 4xxx cards are getting it: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24811
I guess I'll have to wait for a fix because of this and the fact that I can't get more than 30 frames a second (mostly 20 on 1280x720 and low everything)
If you want a "fair" review based on multiplayer, you will have to wait until some time after launch, at which point word of mouth from early adopters is probably more useful.
All the current reviews can do is exactly what they have done - play with mostly bots, and try and get an idea of what the game is like. From what I have heard so far, the game looks great (style wise) but other than that, there isn't much to it that demands a recommendation. Hence the reviews we have seen.
That doesn't make it a bad game, or a game no one can enjoy. It just means that it's not a must play.
Hoping the online matches I try in a bit will be better.
If you win it actually tells you that it makes the bots on the other team better and those on yours worse.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Godfry daniels.
The 4850 is a fine card, but this is like the third game with a special issue only with the 4XXX cards that I've purchased. It's not actually performance-affecting, but it's annoying.
One thing i really want to mention though, the voice acting is absolutely stellar. I mean usually when you notice voice acting its because its terrible, but its just magnificent. especially on the audio logs.
Yeah, a map would be nice. The objective wheel, while helpful, isn't a total replacement for having a nice, clear overview of the level and where you're supposed to go.