One of the most wide-reaching examples of social engineering today comes from neither the left or the right. It’s not even of a government program, but a popular pastime: video games. In a way, game developers and bureaucratic busybodies have the same job: create societies in which a million little incentives and disincentives nudge people to respond in the desired ways.
“Brink,” a new first-person shooter from Bethesda Softworks, doesn’t nudge. It shoves.
In its attempts to re-educate fans of this genre that moving is more important than shooting, “Brink” should be lauded for calling out the absurd style of playing fostered by the echo chamber of the big-name franchises. “Imagine,” “Brink” seems to say, “if real-life wars were fought by soldiers who ran sideways at full speed, aiming at each other’s heads and hoping they other guy’s health will run out before theirs does.”
| ‘Brink’ |
| » Systems: PS3, Xbox 360, PC |
| » Price: $59.99, $49.99 (PC) |
| » Rating: 2 out of 5 stars |
“Brink” declares a revolution — that avoiding damage is as important as doing damage — but, like so many revolutionaries, doesn’t deliver on the promises it made to the disgruntled masses.
The key to the “Brink” revolution is a system called Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. In military parlance, “smart” means “automatic” — as in a smart bomb automatically seeking its target — so it’s fitting that SMART makes “Brink” yet another game in which your character performs all sorts of cool-looking moves automatically when you’re holding down a button. Adapting the parkour fad to the world of first-person shooters, “Brink” lets you vault guardrails, slide under pipes and (sort of) climb the walls. There’s a novelty factor here, for sure, but, despite constant indoctrination from loading screens instructing you to “NEVER stop moving,” the ability to kick off of walls doesn’t change the basic arithmetic. The ultimate effect of this extra-kinetic military action is not to add enjoyment to your time with “Brink,” but to make you sigh when you have to climb staircases in other, better shooters.
If implemented in a better game, the parkour stuff wouldn’t be so disappointing. The kicker is that “Brink,” as a regular old shooter, isn’t very interesting. The game offers a cool premise — something having to do with a coral-based concrete replacement that absorbs greenhouse gases as it hardens — but its missions have little if any connection to the story. The first level tasks you and seven other guys (computer- or human-controlled, depending on your online settings) with guarding a door, but the door’s in the middle of the level, and the enemies can attack it from both sides. I’m wondering, if a bad guy can shoot one side of the door, walk around a wall and shoot the other side of the door, why are we risking our lives?
“Brink” redeems itself somewhat with multiplayer gaming modes that combine “Team Fortress’ ” focus on character classes — soldier, spy, medic or engineer — with “Borderlands’ ” focus on unlockable skills, like better healing or a turret you can plant to guard key areas. But, again, the detailed engineering of this society isn’t enough to convince people to abandon their beloved “let’s shoot each other in the head and see who dies first.”
