First Brink Gameplay Footage and New Release Date

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First Brink Gameplay Footage and New Release Date

Post by Dan @ 10:49am 01/12/09 | 16 Comments

Over on G4 today, Bethesda have revealed the first in-game footage from Brink - the id Tech 4 powered first person shooter currently in the works at Splash Damage (Enemy Territory Quake Wars).

The footage is actually just a small snippet of the full preview that press were shown back at the E3 Expo earlier this year, but it does offer a good demonstration of the game's S.M.A.R.T. movement system in action.

Unfortunately, the video closes with the bad news that the release target window is now U.S. Fall 2010 (Australian Spring), six months later than its previously pegged U.S. Spring 2010 release date.

A couple of other notes on the video come from a post by Creative Director Richard Ham on the game's official forums who confirms that the footage is indeed from the E3 demo of Brink and that (in-case you were worried) issues such as the "crazy pistol bob" and "ugly" shadows have since been addressed. He also cautions to not "judge that video as final movement speeds", since the E3 demo used a combination of different player classes in order to show off a wider range of features.

Brink is in the works for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

brink trailer

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trog
Posted 11:23am 01/12/09

That SMART footage looks pretty neat, at least if you never played Urban Terror, which has had a very similar system for years. I'll get excited about this when I have some confidence they're going to treat it like an old-school PC FPS.

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Twisted
Posted 11:29am 01/12/09

This game has jumping, it may be refused classification...

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Dan
Posted 11:32am 01/12/09

It does seem to be the best hope for upcoming old-school style PC FPS. They've confirmed dedicated servers and a staying very community active - it's always good to see the devs answering questions on the forum and blogging about stuff. I suppose it also helps that their roots are in the PC FPS modding scene.

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ravn0s
Posted 11:54am 01/12/09

im guessing that was console footage after seeing the A flashing on screen after loading.

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Dan
Posted 12:02pm 01/12/09

ravn0s: I can't speak specifically for that footage, but the demo they showed us at E3 was confirmed to be running on PC hardware. However, Locki was demo'ing using an X360 control pad - much easier than keyboard/mouse when you're standing in front of room full of people. Probably safe to assume this is the same deal since they said it's the E3 build.

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trog
Posted 02:20pm 01/12/09

I think demoing off PC with an Xbox controller is the new black; saw it heaps this year (it's how id Software demonstrated Rage at gamescom).

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ravn0s
Posted 02:24pm 01/12/09

why do they demo it with a 360 controller? i thought it would be easier to demo a pc game using an actual keyboard and mouse.

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Dan
Posted 02:29pm 01/12/09

As I said above. It's a lot easier to play with a controller than a kb/mouse when you're standing in front of a screen giving an oral presentation to a room full of people.

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trog
Posted 02:44pm 01/12/09

Plus you avoid the natural instinct of PC-based FPS gamers to whip around really quickly ; I've seen soo many demos of FPS games where it was like watching a q3duel instead of what it should be a - a presentation where you look around slowly and carefully at things. Fortunately console controllers are so gumby at FPS games that you have to do that by default :)

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weedy
Posted 12:05am 02/12/09

cool the smart movement system reminds me a lot of mirrors edge tho so i dont know just how new and exciting it really is... still the character customisation looks promising and we need a good new shooter for PC my gaming box doesnt get used much these days. :(

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Mitch
Posted 12:48am 02/12/09

Yeah i got a mirrors edge feel from that clip too. Not sure what to think

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The GuVna
Posted 02:48am 02/12/09

hopefully this time round they include different multiplayer game modes. That was the real lacking in Enemy territory : Quake Wars. That game would have had so much more life if it had say capture the flag & Capture & hold / Domination etc. As doing the same, yet cool section scenario game modes became procedural.

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trog
Posted 08:32am 02/12/09

hopefully this time round they include different multiplayer game modes. That was the real lacking in Enemy territory : Quake Wars. That game would have had so much more life if it had say capture the flag & Capture & hold / Domination etc. As doing the same, yet cool section scenario game modes became procedural.

IMO, too many modes are a bad thing, because they split the community. I think the best thing game developers can do now is to focus on one awesome game mode as the 'primary' and any other game modes should be given less weight.

My perspective on this is a little different though, having seen what it's like on the server side when a game like Unreal Tournament xxxx comes out - we're inundated with requests for game type X, and everyone complains if we don't create a server for that game mode - and then we do, and it sits there empty, because there's 4 other modes that are more popular.

Choice is good, and I had more fun playing Q3 than any other game because of it, but these days there's soooo much competition - if you make your game hard to play online people will just give up and go to where the people are. You HAVE to hit that critical mass to keep the online population self-sustaining, and splitting your player base across game types I would say is almost suicidal.

If your game takes off and kicks ass then adding new game modes afterwards is an awesome idea. Or even better, release a mod SDK and let other people do it for you!

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fpot
Posted 09:01am 02/12/09

My perspective on this is a little different though, having seen what it's like on the server side when a game like Unreal Tournament xxxx comes out - we're inundated with requests for game type X, and everyone complains if we don't create a server for that game mode - and then we do, and it sits there empty, because there's 4 other modes that are more popular.

Why is it impossible for a game to be unable to change game modes within the server? People could change the game mode with a vote or something.

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trog
Posted 09:05am 02/12/09

Why is it impossible for a game to be unable to change game modes within the server? People could change the game mode with a vote or something.

Well the problem as I see it is the availability of choice, which just leads to different people wanting to play different things... you end up in the situation where people join a server, and if it changes game mode to something that a bunch of people don't want, they'll simply leave the server and go look elsewhere.

Voting is really tricky as well; you have to get the ratio exactly right - if its too low, it'll change to easily and be too disruptive. If its too high (which I think is better to err on the side of), it will never pass and people will get annoyed and leave.

PLUS so many games don't include voting mechanisms by default because developers are lazy!

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