When a utopian city named Ark becomes less than ideal as a place to call home, gamers get the option of defending the city or helping overrun it. It's an intriguing choice to be made within the world of "Brink," but unlike other morality-based games, whichever path is chosen has little impact on how the game plays out.
Gamers are a member of Ark's security force or the resistance, and little beyond choosing their character's outfits and look is different from the other side. Too often, both sides feel and act the same, only with different clothing.
The game's two strengths are its class system and the free-ranging movement. Balancing a squad of soldiers, medics, engineers and others is vital to a team's success. The class options available during and before missions allow for deep customization, which is not found in many other online shooters and is the greatest aspect of "Brink."
Many first-person shooters can be described as "run-and-gun," but "Brink" takes an even more active approach. It's something more akin to "run/climb/jump/skip/slide/hurdle/freefall/bounce-and-gun" since the game infuses a parkour-style sense of movement in each level.
The open design with multiple attack points gives the game a flow similar to 2008's underrated "Mirror's Edge." Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. When it fails, it fails badly, and you can get stuck in a choke point awaiting certain death.
The skeleton of a solid game exists in "Brink." For the few moments when everything comes together perfectly, you happily lose yourself in the blur of gunfire and chaos. These moments are fleeting, however, leaving the game something to be enjoyed as a weekend rental, but probably not as a purchase.
