EGX 09: Developer Session: Brink (Splash Damage)
Paul Wedgwood, the CEO of Splash Damage, gave us a run-through of Brink, and I have to say, I was blown away.Before going to this session, all I knew about Brink was that there were guns, and that is is a video game. I’m glad of that, because I along with a packed room of eager gamers waiting to see what Splash Damage had cooked up, were left very excited by what they’d accomplished.
Brink is set in the future, where the police and resistance fighters are waging warfare for a reason I’m unsure of yet. Paul would talk about the plot in small segments, as if it was natural and known to the audience. I still don’t know why you have to kill everything around you, but that didn’t particularly matter when the game began.
Graphically, the game is stunning. All of the environments are brilliant to look at, but it’s a shame that you don’t get to appreciate everything because you’re running around involved in hefty but brilliant firefights with anyone who doesn’t look like an enforcer of the law.
This may be pre-rendered, but the graphical quality is as good as this.
In-game, Splash Damage have created a very good piece of technology called the SMART button, which stands for Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain (they weren’t just stating that their technology was smart, even though it definitely is…). What the button does is allow you to manouver around environments with Mirror’s Edge style ease, jumping and clamboring on platforms and the like to change the course you are running. When running towards a security gate for instance, if you aim and press the button, you climb over it, instead of alerting people to your presence by triggering an alarm.
It seemed to work brilliantly, and it is something that I would have wanted to see in Mirror’s Edge, as it enhances the way you take on obstacles. The button acts as an alternative, a way of taking on a situation in a different style, whether it’s jumping up to a higher vantage point, or sliding over to cover to avoid gunfire. Its integration seems both vital but also intuitive, and that’s key to its success.
While the SMART button helps you to reach destinations, when you come up against a situation, Splash Damage once again introduce a new feature, in the form of objectives during battle. When you come into battle, you can select an objective from a separate screen, which allows you to take on a task, such as interrogating an enemy using electric persuasion, or repairing a robot to help you fight your enemy. These objectives give you both XP you can use to improve your character’s abilities in both single and multiplayer, but also an advantage over your enemy, helping you to progress through the levels and fights.
This integration, like the SMART button, is necessary, but also intuitive, updating objectives as you move to different areas. New objectives become available, and they coincide with level & character development progress.
This feature is just as effective and brilliant as the SMART button, but while these features are well used and very good, the little things are what makes the game that extra special.
To a cheer, Paul Wedgwood announced that the game will have dedicated servers for PC gamers, and along with this, the game will be exactly the same experience on the PS3, 360 and the PC. Also, the game supports 8 player co-op, with drop in and drop out functions, and the other players can help take on separate objectives you assign them, if they are in your game.
Along with this, you have character customisation options, but where Brink differs is the way the development of body structure affects gameplay. A larger player with more muscles will take more damage and will be stronger, but will be less agile and will not be able to fully implement the SMART technology. A skinnier character will be weaker, but can access areas not accessible by bigger players.
This accessibility is aided by the class system, which enables you to make custom classes for different situations, letting you change what guns and extras your characters have, and what classes are available during gameplay. A lighter character can be a medic, but have a shotgun, meaning that they have both power and agility to aid players in the battlefield, whilst a larger character can have a grenade launcher, meaning that they can blow things up better than anyone else can.
Brink's gun fights are intense, and as far as first person shooters go, this game is top dollar.
Brink seems to be a game where the possibilities are almost endless, and the gameplay style and graphical presentation seems to be what will sell this game. While the developer session will have shown us what Splash Damage wanted us to see, everything shown, of which there was a lot, makes me want to buy the game now. 2010 is too far away.
Brink looks fantastic, and if it isn’t on your radar, put it there, because it deserves your attention.
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