The main issue with the FPS genre tends to be with the online aspect. Go online a a relative newbie and you can expect to have a horrid time. You may be decent at the game, but a lack of knowledge with the maps and being at such a low level when starting can put you on the back foot. Or you may struggle to compete with the better players and find yourself constantly needing to re-spawn.
Lets face it, that just isn't fun. In fact, it is downright demoralising at times. Well Brink developers Splash Damage are hoping they have found the answer and can create an online multiplayer experience that is just pure fun for all types of players at all types of level.
How do they plan on doing this though? Well the first thing that will stand out is how player classes will work. Instead of just having the usual, engineer, medic and the like, classes will be done based on size. This means that if you are a really big guy, you will have access to the bigger arsenal of weapons, Gatling guns, Grenade launchers, etc. However if you are a smaller class, you may only have access to pistols and machine guns.
What makes this work is how they have thought about the trade off. If you are bigger and have these bigger weapons, then you will move slower and won't be able to traverse the map, perhaps even failing to get to some higher ground. You have the weaponry and can do all kinds of damage, yet you may find yourself an easy target.
As a smaller class you lack the massive damage arsenal of the larger classes, however you will be much more nimble and a harder target to hit. There are also other benefits of having smaller weapons is being able to dual wield a pistol with a knife and use that to your advantage.
Added to that is the brave move of removing one shot kills. This essentially means that when you are hit, whether it be from a pistol or a sniper rifle you have a change of retaliation or being able to save yourself. Now it may not be realistic, but despite years of striving for realism, it may be coming more obvious that realism doesn't always mean fun.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell, Splash Damage want to make the online FPS fun. Not just fun for the campers, not just fun for the experts, but fun for all. Getting the balance right of making it work for the less skilled as well as the expert veterans is always going to be a risky move, but should they get it right, then a treat awaits.
Brink has been a long time coming and it will have some huge competition to overcome with titles such as Crysis 2, Killzone 3 and Homefront all coming out before this hits the market, it may struggle for numbers. However if it delivers on its promises then you can be sure numbers it will have very little to worry about from the competition.
A few at Gamestyle have become a little jaded by the same old routine with FPS games online, so we personally cannot wait to see what Splash Damage can offer.
