Can’t Wait For Brink? Try These Games Instead

This month’s big shooter, Brink launches in just a few hours, but if you need something Brink-ish to tide you over until the midnight launch, here are a few games that have similar features.  Best of all, one of the games on our list is free, so if you broke the bank on your Brink pre-order you can still find something here to help you kill time. 

Mirror's Edge
One of the big features used in Brink is the "SMART System" that helps players run around in the cluttered floating city of Ark.  SMART let's plays hold down a button and makes the character do all of the hard work, like climbing, jumping and sliding in a manner that's similar to Parkour.  You know what game started the whole gaming Parkour craze?  Mirror's Edge.  While it had some shooting, Mirror's Edge was mostly about getting from Point A to Point B using fancy acrobatics; all from the First Person perspective.  It didn't use the easy SMART system, but rather forced players to time their jumps and slides perfectly.  An afternoon of it should sharpen your reflexes for Brink and get you accustomed to seeing levels as big playgrounds to climb around, rather than flat areas for circle-strafing.

If you want an engaging first person parkour experience, Mirror's Edge is worth the cheap $10 on Amazon for the PC.

 

Loose connection, I understand, but look at the comparisons. Both games feature strategy as key and and the player has mobility? Check. Both games blur the lines between multiplayer and singleplayer, with unlocks that span across the entire game, and the character is customizable in both appearance and statistics? Check. Brink and Splinter Cell Conviction may be two separate genres, but they definitely keep the same goal in mind; streamlining the existing formula while offering a complete experience. Conviction is also the most accessible of the Splinter Cell games, so if you have $7 to spare on the PC version, check it out.

Enemy Territory QUAKE Wars
Brink's Developer, Splash Damage has a long history of creating awesome multi-player maps.  They were behind DOOM 3's online mode, and then worked on Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.  This led them to create Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, which has quite a few features in common with Brink.  QUAKE Wars is a class-based multiplayer shooter with an emphasis on completing battlefield objectives, rather than just racking up a huge kill count.  Your character in Quake Wars leveled up and had unique traits, although the option for customization were no where near as expansive as Brink purports to be. 

Quake Wars will set you back twenty dollars at most Digital Distributors. However, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is also worth taking a look at, because it’s FREE!  You can grab this right off the developer’s website.

 
Team Fortress 2
The Good news is that you probably already own this.  Even if you never got into Team Fortress’ gameplay, you can still enjoy it for the cartoony design its characters share with Brink, along with the option of dressing your character up in silly hats.  Team Fortress 2 is the granddaddy of class-based shooters, and players are sure to notice more similarities than just the design aesthetics.  You’ll be able to customize your Brink character in a wide variety of ways, including mobility and firepower, so that they can mimic your favorite class in Team Fortress 2, or you can fire up TF2 now and use the scout class to practice your parkour skills a bit.

Team Fortress 2, is one of the few multiplayer first person shooters to require teamwork, something that Brink is aspiring to. You choose to be either on the Blue team or Red team, and can be one of nine different classes, each with their own unique abilities and mobilities. For instance, the Engineer can build sentry turrets and health dispensers to aid his teammates, but the Spy can turn invisible, disguise as the enemy team, and sap those buildings the Engineer has built. Each class has it's own role in the fight, as well as a class that can counter it effectively. The game modes in TF2 tend to focus on objectives, with CTF, Capture Point, and Payload being the most prominent game modes. In Payload, you either try to push a cart forward to the end of the level, or try to stop it from reaching the end of the level. Besides the core gameplay, there's also plenty of customization in Team Fortress 2, with several different weapons and items per class. You can even trade and craft these items with other players.  

TF2 only costs ten dollars on Steam if, for some crazy reason you don’t already own it.

Need more convincing?  Have a look at the old viral Team Fortress/ Brink mash-up video, then grab one of these games while you wait for your copy of Brink to unlock.  Of course, we’ll have our full review of Brink here at Player Affinity after launch.