Brink Complete Pack

Laurel D. Austin does some great work. Employed for years at Splash Damage, the team behind Brink, she's recently joined Blizzard, where she's working as a concept artist. Living the dream.

In this gallery you will find: some of her amazing work for Brink (say what you will about the game, its art was awesome) as well as World of Warcraft stuff, specifically images for the trading card game based on the blockbuster MMO.

You can see more of Laurel's work at her personal site.

Every year the Writers Guild of America awards a special Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing award to the team responsible for the most memorable interactive entertainment script. Which of these five titles will walk away a winner on February 19?

You know what I love about the Writers Guild of America Video Game Writing Award? It's a chance for games that weren't nominated for any other category to shine. Just look at poor Brink. Not only wasn't it nominated for any other major awards, just about everyone I know forgot it even existed. Now it stands proudly among the likes of Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3, and...Mortal Kombat?

There was writing in Mortal Kombat?

And if your favorite game didn't make the cut, rest easy; to be eligible members of the writing staff must be or have applied to be members of the guild's Videogame Writers Caucus at the time their game was released, and who wants to deal with that hassle, other than the Mortal Kombat guys?

Check out the full list of nominees and appreciate a group of people that doesn't get the recognition they so richly deserve.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN VIDEO GAME WRITING

Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Story by Alexandre Amancio, Jean Guesdon, Corey May, Darby McDevitt; Multiplayer Story by Stéphane Blais, Richard Farrese, Jeffrey Yohalem; Lead Script Writer Darby McDevitt; Script Writers Richard Farrese, Nicholas Grimwood, Corey May, Jeffrey Yohalem; Greek and Turkish Ambient Dialogue Writer Vincenzo Beretta; Ubisoft

Batman: Arkham City, Lead Narrative Designer Paul Crocker; Story Written by Paul Dini, Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill; Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Brink, Lead Writer Edward "Bongoboy" Stern; Bethesda Softworks

Mortal Kombat, Story by John Vogel, Brian Chard, Dominic Cianciolo, Alexander Barrentine, Jon Greenberg; Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Written by Amy Hennig; Sony Computer Entertainment

The game may've met with a lukewarm reception when it hit last year, but the one thing that Splash Damage's Brink had going for it was an amazing art style. Laurens Corijn, an artist at the British dev studio, brought that look into the real world by modding a standard Nerf Stampede into an amazing replica of the FPS's Gerund assault rifle.

Corijn went really in-depth with this re-creation, cracking the Stampede open and attaching sights to the once-harmless kids' toy. The step-by-step guide's hosted over on the official Splash Damage site. If Brink ever gets a sequel, let's hope something like this is in the collector's edition.

Photo Blog: Creating a Brink Nerf Gun [Splash Damage]

A major report on British developers from IndustryGamers has thown up a surprising piece of information: that Brink developers Splash Damage are probably working on a new Marvel game.

The report says that the studio is working on an "unannounced project for a major entertainment brand", which is "based on one of the biggest American pop culture brands of the last 50 years".

When it then says this major entertainment brand is "a company widely believed to have given up on the console publishing business", it becomes pretty clear it's talking about Disney, which recently purchased Marvel comics.

The game in question has "online multiplayer technology" and is running on "an even more polished Brink engine".

So, yeah, sounds a lot like Brink with Marvel characters. Maybe for the upcoming Avengers movie.

Anyone interested? Guess it depends on how much you like Marvel!

United Front: 7 UK Studios To Keep An Eye On [IndustryGamers]

Based in the UK, Georgi "Calader" Simeonov works at Splash Damage, meaning he had a hand in the lovely "nothing but blue skies" art design of multiplayer shooter Brink.

So we'll be showing you some of that, but also some of his other stuff on titles like Sony's MMO Star Wars Galaxies, along with something we'll be covering a lot more in the weeks to come: Dungeons & Dragons art.

You'll find many video game artists have also done work at some stage in their careers for a company like Wizards of the Coast, or if not that kind of fantasy slant, then for stuff like Magic: The Gathering.

If you like the Brink stuff, we've run a gallery of some other concept art from the game earlier in the year, which may have fallen flat with players, but at least it looked great!

And if you like Georgi's stuff, you should check out his personal site.

To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on the "expand" icon on the main image above and select "open in new tab".

Starting today, Steam is celebrating id and Bethesda's Quakecon with deals on their games. Sales will change daily from now until August 8th. Today's deals include discounted games, free-to-play Brink, and in-game specials for TF2.

Quakecon 2011 Steam Sale [Steam]

The battle for The Ark spills over into the underwater Labs facility and Founders' Tower on August 3, when the free Agents of Change downloadable content is released for Bethesda's Brink.

Consisting of a pair of fresh maps, a bunch new clothing and weapon attachments, and a level cap boost to 24, Agents of Change is Bethesda and developer Splash Damage's way of saying sorry about Brink thank you to the players that have flocked to the game on Steam, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3. Mind you the thank you only lasts for two weeks, after which a price tag shall be affixed, so download it early if you wish to bask in the gratitude.

Snag Brink for $20 as the Deal of the Day or sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the lightning deals to pop up in today's all video game Amazon Gold Box deals day. Thanks, Alfred!

The developers at Splash Damage and Bethesda have confirmed that the first DLC for Brink will be free, as promised. Well, free for two weeks. Titled "Agents of Change," the add-on is set to release in early July. [Bethesda Blog]

Bethesda announced this morning that a group of hackers have grabbed data from some of their users, including "e-mail addresses and/or passwords." If you frequent Bethesda's sites, like their forums or the Brink statistics site, change your password. [BethBlog]