What are you playing?

[Captain Russ]

Fuck you Van Der Freak

[Abraham Smashington]

Anyone else getting Brink tomorrow?

Yep.

[Trejo]

Yupp. When I saw Alex playing I asked if it was worth picking up, he said YA IF YOU'RE GONNA PLAY ONLINE

Good enough for me

[gravedigger]

Still blasting through Borderlands. I should probably finish up the main game tonight then dabble with the DLC the rest of the week until LA Noire shows up next week to rock my world.

Also, new Foo Fighters DLC tomorrow!

[B_Metal]

Fuck you Van Der Freak

[BillyG]

Doesn't sound like Giant Bomb is entirely impressed with Brink. CONCERN.

[Abraham Smashington]

Explain.

[Abraham Smashington]

IGN (yeah yeah) wasn't impressed either.

[BillyG]

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-brink/17-4101/

Granted, this is all offline. The game is obviously multiplayer focused, but even then it would seem if you're not playing with a good group that it could be pretty frustrating as well. I saw on twitter that Gerstman said he wasn't posting his review until after he could spend time online playing with people.

Debating if I want to just ship my copy back to Amazon when it shows today or give it a shot. I want something different from COD, but it still needs to be fun. At worst I guess I can trade it into Amazon for $30 if it's complete shit.

[Abraham Smashington]

Joystiq wasn't a huge fan either. Dammit.

[Abraham Smashington]

Also, why is there no lobby system? Launching a game with your friends requires you to start the game without them, then wait for them to join you or accept your invites. After the game, players automatically move on to the next map, unless they vote to play a different mission. Or, you know, disband and reform with a new host. This inaccessibility was made all the more arduous by frequent standstill lag, which made most multiplayer matches almost unplayable. (For what it's worth, Bethesda promises to fix these "minor networking issues" with a day-one patch.)

wut wut wut How do you have a game like this without a lobby?

[Abraham Smashington]

Brink is chock-full of inexplicable missteps like this uneven rewards scheme. For instance, players are shown each mission's (thankfully skippable) opening cutscene every time they load up a match. Also, other than showing experience gains and who played which class the best, there's no post-game statistics page. If you're interested in how many kills you may have received in a given match, you should probably have a pen and paper handy. And possibly some sort of transcriptionist, since you'll be busy, you know, shooting.
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WUT WUT WUT? really?

[BillyG]

Wait...a fucking online (only for the most part) shooter with no goddamn lobby? uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh who wants to just buy the new COD map pack with me?

[Abraham Smashington]

NOOOOooooooo. Wait, are you talking about the ROOK and TREJO pack?

[BillyG]

Yes, but I hate the zombie modes so I won't be playing that.