Brink is a new favourite here at TheSixthAxis. It’s been one of the few games to actually try and innovate, instead of emulating the success of other popular first person shooters. However, though we gave it a glowing recommendation, Brink isn’t without its fair share of problem, the most prominent being consistent network stability issues.
Next week Splash Damage are hoping launch patches for each version of the game. Here is a comprehensive list of what to expect:
Xbox 360
We’ve been hard at work investigating the lag issues some players of the Xbox 360 version of Brink have reported. We’ve now completed modifications to improve network performance and will be rolling these out in a title update for the game.
This update has been submitted to Microsoft, and we expect it to be available next week.
This title update is also going to fix an isolated freezing issue reported by some German players who should no longer experience that problem once the update has been installed.
PC
A game update for the PC version of Brink is in final testing and we’re planning to release it early next week. This update contains a host of fixes and improvements including the following:
We’ve identified the cause of sound dropping out on certain maps when playing networked games for a prolonged amount of time. This will no longer occur.
Graphical performance has been improved, especially when using Ambient Occlusion. We’ve worked closely with both AMD and NVIDIA, and you should see performance and stability improvements in future driver revisions from both parties.
The server browser is tweaked in this update, as well; among other things, a new filter allows you to display only servers with a certain number of players on them, and full servers will no longer be filtered out completely.
There are some smaller fixes for minor issues including your character’s voice occasionally resetting when deleting another character, and a memory leak when alt-tabbing out of the game.
Finally, the dedicated server is set to get an update at the same time as the main game, which will result in improved CPU performance. We’ve protected certain cvars that previously allowed server admins to accidentally break objectives involving NPCs.
The full changelog will be released alongside the update, so keep an eye out for that.
PlayStation 3
With PSN back online, we’re able to resume multiplayer testing on the PlayStation 3. We’re preparing to bring the changes in the upcoming Xbox 360 title update to the PlayStation 3 version of Brink quickly and we expect to have it out next week. Stay tuned!
If you’re still sitting on the fence about Brink, go ahead and check out our full-written review.
Source: Bethesda Blog
MadJunkBoy
Anyone played brink online with others yet?
how is it? all i have done is played it offline…
gaffers101
I’ve played it the last few nights online and it’s been fine.
Jim H [Teabags]
For me it’s mostly been fine, though I hate the inclusion of AI allies/opponents. They’re incredibly dense with no sense of awareness and bog down the experience somewhat. Apart from that, I’m really enjoying the game.
teflon
The lag we see is so often ridiculously crippling, and it’s totally baffling as to how it can be so bad when there’s games out there with much bigger areas of battle, higher player counts etc. etc. etc.
Dyu know what the main problem is? It’s Dedicated Servers vs. P2P hosting. On PC it’s dedicated, and you’ve got the best of both worlds with choosing servers or just matchmaking etc. etc. On Consoles we’ve just got P2P, and for this particular game that’s messed it over.
E8_BALL_
So… no patch will be ( completely /if at all) fixing the console lag, add to this the dumb a.i., which was advertised by dev vids, as being very intelligent. I find hard to trust devs hype & can you blame me. I myself was so hyped about this game, gutted is all i can say.
teflon
They can “fix” the lag by having the lobby pick a better host based on each payers’ connections. Always getting the best console for the job. It also seems like one person with a bad connection joining can create a game-wide ping spike… So there’s stuff they can do to alleviate things.
The AI’s not that great. It’s difficult to tell really, but they’re tending to stay in the background and letting you and other humans take the lead. They do have a tendency to stand around and get distracted by combat too much, though…
E8_BALL_
In that case, i’ll read up if patch stops, not reduces lag. If so, I will definitely purchase.
Foxhound_Solid
Reminds me of timesplitters, is this really any good?
R4U Eldave0
To put my views in perspective:
Timesplitters2 = Favourite FPS of all time
Brink = One of the worse I’ve played this generation
Lol. Was very disappointed with the game as a whole. In terms of similarities to Timesplitters, the visual style is the only real consistency to be honest.
I know some people really like the game, but I found it to be awful
Hope that helps :)
gazzagb
I’m actually loving it playing on my own, the AI are a bit annoying as they don’t help you much, but it’s still a great game.
Jambo
Loving this game, had a few bad laggy games but much more great ones.
minerwilly
Rented and played online for only an hour or so . Not seen any lag and enjoying it , but the graphics are terrible. Not sure I’ll buy it but I may rent it for another week (unless) I can rent a copy of LA Noire !
E8_BALL_
Really?:( Graphics look sweet in all the dev trailers.
minerwilly
Maybe terrible was a little harsh ,its certainly not as pretty as Portal 2 which i rented last week . That gane is so pretty that perhaps it affected my judgement !
Anyway ED i have spent some serious time on it this afternoon and im starting to understand it more and more and im liking it more and more .
I could actually see myself buying this in the future like when it drops to £25 in a month or so .
E8_BALL_
Getting l.a. noire next week, also want portal2. These two will take priority over brink, by which time a price drop would be welcome, if not a pre-owned copy.
p.s. It’ e8 not ed lol, but 8 does me fine:)
Kreisash
I’ve been playing it with mates this past week and having a blast.
We were all on a good net connection though so no lag. (PS3)
PoisonedAce
Im confused, will this patch address the lag issues?