Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Brink DLC is coming soon. It is called Agents Of Change. That’s it up there in the image. The news about it is this: it will be free on Steam for the first two weeks, say Bethesda, and will appear at some point in July. As previously mentioned, the DLC will include “two all-new environments, five new player abilities, two new outfits, and two new weapon attachments.” (We asked about why it’s not on Steam in the UK, incidentally, and got a “no comment”. It seems to still be missing, so that remains an oddity.)

Anyway, Splash Damage are reportedly still at work on new balancing changes for weapons, and other patch stuff to improve the game. I might knock up an RPS game of this at the weekend, if anyone fancies it. Join the Steam group for clever notifications!

UPDATE: This is out some time “this month” rather than “this week”. Sorry about that.

Ah, while we’re over at Besthesda blog, there are also some details on Brink’s forthcoming DLC which raises the level cap, adds new maps, and a bunch of other stuff including a “Sad Punk” outfit. I’ve posted the rest of the details below, just in case you are scared of going to other, lesser websites. You’re right to be scared. We’re not like the others.

Anyway, the DLC should be out this week. Relatedly: Brink is still not available on Steam in the UK, for some reason. Why is that? We just don’t know. I’ve asked Bethesda for an answer, and I’ll update this if/when we get one.
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Bethblog had the details on this late last week, and it looks promising for the PC version of Brink, with fixes to the server browser, the dedicated server, and some minor bugs. The weirdo sound bug on certain maps has been fixed, and also: “Graphical performance has been improved, especially when using Ambient Occlusion. We’ve worked closely with both AMD and NVIDIA, and you should see performance and stability improvements in future driver revisions from both parties.” No exact date yet, but it should be this week. I’ll make sure I schedule games on the servers when it’s all updated so we can take a look at the improvements.

Brink is here, and we’ve been playing it. We’ve even got some servers up. But what do Alec, Jim, and Quintin actually think about it? Let’s find out.

Jim: Brink then, the long-awaited multiplayer shooter from British devs Splash Damage. Everyone had a bit of a play?

Quintin: I have shot so many men.
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Brink is out now in the US and apparently out in the UK tomorrow. We’ve spent the last couple of days playing it, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for our full critical verdict. Nevertheless I thought I’d say a few things tonight, including venting my frustration with a critical bug, and providing you with our server details for US and UK-based Brink servers. Read on for a mixed bag of information!

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Bethesda’s sent VG247 some stats relating to Brink prior to the game’s release one week from now. There’s no actual story here, but these numbers are too mad to not post. I guess you could argue that they’re a statement of precisely how much work goes into the modern videogame, but instead I’m going to simply raise both my arms into the air, start spacking them every which way like a bugged ragdoll animation and scream the following:

Brink has 102,247,681,536,000,000 possible characters variations. And that’s just the start.
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Two more Brink videos have arisen from the crackling fronds of the interweb, detailing the classes and the HUD of this objective-based future-combat extravaganza. I’ve posted them below. Of the two, I would say the Classes one is worth watching, because it shows the most important mechanics, like how you can change classes in game (without dying) and how many of the objectives depends on the abilities of specific classes to be completed.

Anyway, that’s enough videos for now. Let’s get to the game, please. Thanks, Slow March Of Time!
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Just two weeks to go. And that means a last gasp newsburst. We’ve got two more feature-elucidating videos below, which talk more about objectives and general gamefoolery. We’ve also got some clarification about dedicated servers. Anyone will be able to run a dedicated server, in the tradition of multiplayer FPS games since year dot: “The Brink Standalone Dedicated Server will be available for download via Steam prior to release. Once the server is available, you can simply browse to the Tools tab in your Steam client and grab it from there.”
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Want to understand the fundamentals of how Brink’s objective-based game unfolds? Then you, sir, must have no fear, and must watch the video that lies beneath this introductory paragraph. I remain fascinated by this game, and can’t wait to see how it plays out. More interesting, perhaps, will be how the wider gaming community takes a slightly more complex multiplayer manshoot in this time of simplicity. Will the CoD-consuming masses be hungry for something with a little more substance? I’ll be interested to find out…
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I’ve had brief encounters with Splash Damage’s upcoming athletic shooter Brink a few times now, and by this point I’m simply very keen to be able to sit down and play it at my leisure, building my character under my own steam, tackling its challenges with an RPS collective. Fortunately it’s now just a handful of weeks away, but even so there’s a few things left to chat about.

On my most recent entanglement with it – while I was also seeing the likes of Skyrim, Prey 2 and Rage – I had a chance to poke my big, stupid nose into two aspects I’d not seen before. Number one! The training missions, which double up as tutorial for the more esoteric aspects of the game and a gear-unlocking, high score-chasing sub-game in their own right. Number two! Being a fat guy.
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Second Brink post of the day, eh? I bet this takes you to the brink of your patience, or something. Apologies, but ultimately this is all Bethesda’s fault for sending out another press release announcing the minimum and recommended specs of the game and that it’ll use Steamworks. Full thing thing after the jump.
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