Brink changed my life. And that's not hyperbole. In fact, the game means so much to me that I have a tattoo of the game's Founders Tower logo on my wrist. When it released, I was out of highschool and wondering what to do with my life - and the game's art style, atmosphere, and general visual identity had a profound effect, inspiring me like no other game ever had. I was originally interested in graphic/web design, but ended up studying game art... which is how I wound up where I am now professionally, a UI artist in the games industry.

And you know what? I still have an absolute blast playing the game all these years later. Sure, the PC port isn't great... it lacks a lot of core options, for which you'll need to run it via the official subreddit's Brinkkit config tool to access. And singleplayer content seems to be at a locked framerate (whether it's 30 FPS or half your display's refresh, I can't tell). The only way to play at an uncapped framerate is to play online, which may mean you need to run your own LAN server using the Brink Dedicated Server tool in Steam. But if you can get over those hurdles, I still feel like Brink is worth playing. It may not be everybody's idea of a great multiplayer-centric FPS, but it certainly was unique. You have to understand it was perhaps one of the first shooters to introduce mantling and climbing, after all - a feature that's almost stock standard in movement tech these days.

Still, playing empty servers with bots just doesn't quite hit the same as those initial days, weeks and months after release where lobbies were populated by players. For all its shortcomings, I hold some of the fondest gaming memories of my whole life playing this back in 2011 on my PS3. I would consider Brink to be a flawed masterpiece. No other game has ever played like it... and no other game has ever even come close to looking and feeling like it, either. And beyond just evaluating as a game, I also have it as an endeavour of artistry & creativity to thank for who I am today.