I would have liked to have a shot at Brink, but the line was too long :(

Reminds me a lot of Team Fortress 2. Hopefully it plays a lot differently. I don't need two copies of the same game.

maaax: I played it at EGE and can assure you it's nothing like TF2.

I love the look of this game and the drop in coop looks fantastic. The more I see the larger my trouser get.

I am a huge fan of character and weapon customization. I also really like distinctive gameplay and artistic direction. Brink seems to be the game that has ALL of that wrapped up into a very interesting package.

I can't wait to push Reach and Black Ops aside and commit my multiplayer hours to this game.

Every time I see this game I get more excited for it'd release. Looks extremely promising and I can't wait to play it. Character designs are awesome.

It's just such a shame that with all the deep character customization options, they never bothered to offer a gender option. If this game had female avatars it would have been a definite "buy"... but right now it's sitting in the "maybe" pile. :(

I hope this game lives up to the anticipation I feel every time I read more news on it or watch a new gameplay video. I'm already thinking about my character's potential class, weapon loadout and characteristics.

With an all-star team of developers' at the helm, I have high hopes for Brink as a potential GOTY candidate.

*Fingers crossed*

I'm with Elsa here. As a married guy with a wife who likes to point out the lack of female representation in videogames, I always like to see a game with an option of playing female at least to see things changing a bit for the better.

I really really hope this game lives up to the hype. The character customization and artstyle are just so fresh and appealing, especially for an FPS.

The gender of the characters seems like an odd thing to base your game purchases on, although I can see why you might be disappointed.

Just curious, but MAG doesn't have female avatars either, right? I had to ask Elsa. :)

Corduroy Turtle... no MAG doesn't have female avatars (and nor did Killzone, COD and many other games). I'm just tired of scratching my non-existent balls and have a real urge to play as a female character again. When games go all out on character customization and sell that as an aspect of the game, I just find it really disappointing that gender isn't one of those customization options. It's not just myself... lots of men also prefer to play as a female character when given the chance, so it would just be nice to see this included in more shooter games. :(

The game looks great... and having female avatars would have tipped it into definite "buy"... but now it's more in the vein of "just another shooter game where I can customize my beard".

Oh... and Turtle.. spend a year or so playing every game as a female character... then tell me you don't have an urge to play as a male character again.
I guess it's just hard for guys to relate.

@Elsa

Mass Effect 1&2, Halo: Reach, Left 4 Dead 1&2, Borderlands and the upcoming Gears of War 3 all have female avatars.

At least they're not ignoring you gal gamers anymore. :)

@Kwikpwn... no.. apparently it's mostly the PS3 ignoring gal gamers! Almost all those games are 360 games except for Borderlands (and we're getting Mass Effect at some point as well, but not yet). :(

I really liked Brink; played it a PAX with a few friends of mine. I was MVP of the match we played ;).

I agree about the female characters, but apparently Splash Damage realized that to do it right (with all the animated parkour) it would be more than just adding padding in front and different accessory options. They cite time constraints as their reason for making it a sausage fest.

http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?p=209517#post209517

With the extended deadline, in hindsight, they may have been able to pull it off. Really, it would have been awesome, but in the meantime, I am all over it anyway.

As for the video, I love it when the geeky developers themselves pitch their games! LOL Thanks for the heads-up!

@Elsa: It's all just down to time and money, and isn't that fair enough? Nobody has infinite resources. Check out this thread from their forum where a few developers explain why there are no female characters - http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18886

Paul 'MoP' Greveson - Technical Artist:
I'd love to see female characters in Brink too. I think we all would! In fact, we did explore female characters in our early concept art. However, given the realities of development, we had a choice between having a wide range of options for male characters, or a much more limited set of clothing options that allow for both genders. We figured it would be the best use of our time to have a big set of quality customisation options for males instead of less and lower quality for females and males.

Aubrey 'CBezzy' Hesselgren - Technical Game Designer:
Also, you'd practically double up on animation (women move noticeably differently to men) doubling up on the production of animations, and the memory footprint for that. When asked whether it would be worth to reconsider female characters instead of extra map Bezzy explained. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.The people responsible for levels and gameplay are not the people responsible for the character customization assets. Not having female characters doesn't get us extra time for other things. If only!

MoP again:
One of the only things we really found challenging about fitting female characters into Brink's gameplay proper is that in order for gameplay to be balanced, the females would have to be roughly the same height and width as the male characters in order to prevent any issues with hit detection or visibility.Since women naturally tend to be smaller than men in reality, it meant we had to be pretty exaggerated in terms of their proportions when concepting the early designs. It actually worked fairly well in the end but it was a lot more work than getting the males to look right at the same size.So, even though we did those early concepts and model tests, we had to end up dropping it for all the reasons that myself and other SD crew have mentioned so far.

And, whether there will be female characters in a DLC, patch or such in the future would be more up to Bethesda Softworks. Only time will tell if we're ever to see playable females characters in Brink.

Elsa,

Q: Why is there a better selection of female jewellery in a store
than males?

Fact: Women tend to buy more jewellery than men.

Q: Why is there a better selection of female shoes in a store
than males?

Fact: Women tend to buy more shoes than men.

Q: Why is there a better selection of female hair products in a store
than males?

Fact: Woman tend to care more about their hair then men.

Q: Why is there a better selection of male characters in a violent video game than woman?

Fact: MEN PLAY MORE FUCKING GAMES!

Quit bitching!

Wow, what an arsehole ^

Already pre-order, i'm not gonna miss this one.

Looking better and better every time they show more vids. I don't think it will dethrone CoD but I do think its a good contender to Gears of War.

@JACK of No Trades

very rude of you dude, not cool. :|

@Brandon Himmelreich

I don't think Brink's into dethroning anything. It can't, it won't...what I can see (based on their hell-of-alot of preview, review, videos) Their idea is that they're, instead, going to try and stand out. Then see what happens if it'll work.

Okay, to make myself clear; saying "dethroning CoD" is the same of saying Left4Dead's going to beat Resident Evil...it just can't happen right? Although both are zombie games, both are shooters, the two are actually still just too different to be pitted against.

@everyone

yes, I love this game so much for it is being develop by my third most favorite game developers...and that it's just...it's just...dang it! look at it, it's different! :D

Jack, you were doing good until the end.