Some good info from some previews:
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Originally Posted by kotaku
You choose you choose one of four classes, Soldier, Medic, Engineer and Operative and work as a team to complete objectives. Each faction has its own Campaign and there is no ‘Single Player’ or ‘Multiplayer’ option. It’s all integrated into a single mode – you just choose how you wish to play it. Brink also features RPG elements, such as character customization, xp, gaining levels, and purchasing both gameplay mechanics, like skills and upgrades and cosmetic things, like new outfits and tattoos for your character.
In every Brink mission, you’re a member of an eight-man team, tasked with doing a wide variety of military objectives (rescue, search and destroy, infiltration, you name it, the list goes on and on). If you play by yourself, you’ve got seven AI buddies who are all capable of making their own decisions and doing every single action you can do. If your friends come online and want to join you mid-mission, they can jump in and replace one of those AI squaddies with their own custom character - and bang you’re playing co-op. And yes, this means you can have a full eight man co-op session. You’re all tied together through a dynamic mission system that automates communication and keeps everyone working towards the same goal.
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Originally Posted by gamehounds.net
"Brink was not what I was expecting it to be. Watching it from the sidelines made it seem just like another shooter with some unique changes, but after playing it myself, it was black versus white. The teamwork it offers is awesome. Nothing — and I mean nothing — can be achieved unless there is a massive amount of team effort. There’s no wandering off to get kills for yourself. Either you stand together or you die alone.
This level of critical co-op makes Battlefield Bad Company 2 look like Call of Duty.
Building a game that is based off that concept from the start — all I gotta say is CoD players beware: You won’t be winners here. This is where men come out to play and the boys return to their abandoned buildings in look-alike Afghanistan. Yeah, take that to the bank and bite me."
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- The 2 factions are completely symmetrical, gameplay wise.
- Brink is using a highly modified version of the idTech4 engine.
The game features a campaign mode where you can play through missions and progress through the story or you can just play ifreeplay matches the way you want, without worrying about a campaign.
If you think of it purely as a solo game and you’re not going to replay any of it and you only play through both of the storylines, you’re looking at about ten hours plus of gameplay.
- If you're playing solo, you'll see the same guys in the opening and closing cutscenes. If you're online, the guys in the cutscenes will actually be the characters of the people you'll be playing with.
- If you’re playing Brink in Free Play mode, you can change your faction freely at any point and effectively become part of the “enemy” team, as well as change other settings (FF on/off, voip on/off, etc.)
- Each mode can be played entirely online 8v8, meaning that your campaign can be played against real people who are playing their version of the campaign against you.
- Global voice chat/VOIP is turned off by default, meaning the only voices you hear in-game are from NPC’s and your friends. You can toggle it on if you wish.
- Levels will feature various interactive objects such as terminals and computers, all of which work faster when multiple people work together to activate them.
- Splitscreen is NOT supported.
- On the 360 controller, tapping the Left Bumper makes you sprint. If you hold the button down instead, the SMART system comes into play.
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"If you’re trying to play through a storyline in “proper order” in Brink’s Campaign mode, the game will just work the way you’d expect it. If you fail your mission, you’ll try it again, no matter if you’re playing single player, co-op, or competitive multiplayer. We’re not going to force anyone to play all the missions in order, though. Brink is like a book… when you buy it, we’re not going to try to stop you from turning to the last page and seeing how the story ends. We’ll present it to you in the proper order, but if you want to skip a chapter, or play in any order you like, go right ahead. Our story is written such that you can jump in at any point and understand what you need to know. Lastly, if you’re playing Brink multiplayer in Free Play mode and happen to lose the match, you’ll just move on to the next map in the rotation – much like you’d expect from any other multiplayer game."
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Info on leaderboards : “I'm really sensitive to the dangers of introducing things in the game that people can obsess over, to the point of ruining the game for others, and we're very careful to identify and avoid them. For instance, global leaderboards for stuff like k/d ratios and what not: bad idea, since they disccourage players from taking chances and actually doing what's necessary to help. So bam! Not having them. I know other games do, and they're kind of standard, but screw it, not the right thing for Brink.
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Same is true for XP. In any case where it introduces whoring behavior, it needs to change. I'll give you an example. One of our many types of objectives (ET fans will recognize this) is the classic "take the (thing) from X to Y". So we did have it set up such that while you're carrying it from X to Y, you're earning XP, because you're doing a good job and helping your team. And it's a nice feeling, seeing the XP accure as your rush along towards your goal. But obviously, that lead to "hmm, I think I'll hide in a corner for awhile and let the XP rack up for awhile, and then deliver it", which was bad. And so we changed it to the much more reasonable "you get your XP when you've successfully delivered it, and the faster you did so, the more you'll earn". So people who really want the XP are encouraged to deliver the thing as quickly as possible
"Some of you might have caught it in some of the reviews from the latest round of shows, but the final scoreboard at the end of the match does list Kills and Deaths, but it is ranked by XP. In the build we had at the shows, Medics and Engineers were always the high scorers, and by no coincidence the most important to the teams in Container City. Further info on stats in general is one of the last things we're holding back on releasing."
- Neil Alphonso, Lead Designer
And from a hands-on preview (not Neil): "Then the leaderboard popped up. I had 41 kills and 12 deaths, which as I said was the best on the game. And yet, by score, I was right in the middle of the pack. Why? Because, Rahdo Ham told me, leaderboard score is determined by a variety of factors, including team support. As an engineer, I could buff my teammates weapons, but I didn’t do it enough as I should have. Ham pointed out how a medic was above me on the board because he basically spent the entire game running around healing folks who had been taken down."
