In decades past, when the first-person shooter genre -- hell, when the whole of three-dimensional gaming -- was still very much in its infancy, shooters could scrape by on nothing more than their inclusion of amusing, oftentimes absurd innovations. Combat didn't have to be perfectly tight, weapons didn't have to be balanced to a T, and developers didn't need to worry about character progression to retain their audience. Some might argue that the genre's formative years produced some of the greatest shooters of all time. What they cannot argue, however, is this: Those days are over.

Brink is built on the back of some very unique ideas, the most notable of which being its fluid, parkour-inspired movement and its procedurally generated player objectives. They have promise, to be sure, and even manage to realize some of their potential -- but unfortunately, any innovation Brink brings to the table is mired in its habitually imbalanced nature, as well as its sometimes stupefyingly flawed gameplay design.