Brink, the game that was first revealed to the world on GameTrailers TV days before E3, was actually at the event. Sure, it wasn’t shown on the show floor, but it was being shown behind closed doors and we had the opportunity to sit in on a demo of the game with a couple of members from Splash Damage (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars), the developer whose helming the project.

The story of Brink revolves around “The Ark”, a floating city that serves as the staging ground for humanity to begin anew and not make the same mistakes that screwed the pooch on the planet’s surface below. The Ark is meant to be a peaceful, tranquil utopia that where man and woman can live in peace and work together to better their lives, their world and their species.

…but of course this is a video game and “Tranquil Utopia Simulator 2010” would be boring as shit, so naturally things begin to go terribly wrong. Some of the residents of The Ark feel that their new world is too rigid, too conformist, and they set out to wreak havoc. It’s just like a Sex Pistols song, in that respect.

The first thing we noticed when we got into the game was that the damn thing, even at this early stage in development, has a gorgeous art style. On one end, the train station where Splash Damage demonstrated the SMART system (more on that in just a second) was clean, crisp and vibrant in color. On the other hand, the docks where the demo took place looked run down, dirty and dank — like any refugee city. The visual style has many comic book-like elements, but still manages to maintain its own uniqueness. Of course, the final product is still far from complete and the end game could wind up looking like Super Realistic Post-Apocalyptic Shooter or something, so I really should refrain from gushing but… damn, it looked pretty.

Now, SMART — it stands for “Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain” and basically allows you to navigate anywhere in the world environment. You see, it’s designed to scan the terrain around you for ledges, cliffs, crates and anything else that can be climbed, descented, crawled under or shimmied across. In action, it looked a little like Mirror’s Edge (only fun), and it allows for the world to be explored and navigated in ways that lets players complete objectives through various different means.

The demo level we saw was called “Container City”. The “city” is actually an abandoned storage facility near the outer docks of The Ark that was used during it’s construction to store and transport construction equipment. After completion of the Ark, refugees and the aforementioned anarchists turned the storage facility into a refugee camp.

Still follow? Good!

The mission goal for the demo was, as the security force, escort a bomb defusal robot to a bomb and… well, defuse it. The mission began with six commandos arriving on the waterfront. In addition to our man, the other five commandos were all controlled by Bethesda/Splash Damage team members. Now the whole mission (and indeed the whole game) could be played entirely in single player, but you can also allow for other human players to drop in and out at any given time. What sets Brink apart from other games with said feature is the command menu that allows for on-the-fly character class and loadout changes. Case in Point: At the beginning of the demo, “our” character was a standard soldier with a standard soldier arsenal. The objective for said soldier was to blow up a bulkhead that prevented the security forces from advancing towards the mission goal. After watching a brief in-game cutscene where the Commandos jawed off to each other Predator-style, our guide changed the character’s class to an Operative (spy? Something stealthy). Not only did this change the character’s weapons layout and abilities with the SMART system, but it altered the immediate objective: Instead of engaging in the Soldier-specific task of “blow that shit up”, the new objective was “sneak around that shit and attack from behind”.

However, let’s say that you are an Operative and you would rather interrogate somebody instead of sneaking around behind bulkheads. Through another menu you can easily choose which objective you want to play. Adding further incentive to picking objectives is an experience system. More difficult or more time consuming missions will, of course, be worth more experience points which you can then use to upgrade your character throughout the game. Of course, co-op play allows for each player to work on different objectives and therefore giving a true sense of teamwork.

You know, teamwork — the thing that’s simulated in Halo 3 where the one guy screams at everyone else through the microphone? Yeah, it’s like that. Only structured.

Throughout the demo we saw gameplay from the perspectives of the Operative (duh?), Heavy Soldier and an Engineer. Each of the games character types play differently, but also share the same common aspects and armorments of whichever side you’re playing as.

The end of our demo had us cutting into a storage container which was housing some kind of… thing. To quote Lieutenant Commander Data “it’s… green”. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t what you were expecting to find. And then the scene faded out and the demo was over… cockteases.

As Intern Perry can attest to, I was in a foul ass mood when we arrived at the convention hall on Day 3. However, after walking out of the Bethesda booth I was practically skipping the rest fo the afternoon. Splash Damage is trying something new with the First-Person Shooter genre and seeing it in action, it’s certainly ambitious and, if done right, could rock 2010’s socks clean off. Let’s just hope that they can maintain the balance between single-player storytelling and team-based co-op. To me, this stands as the big hurdle since Splash Damage has already proven time and time again that they can make a damn fine shooter.

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