I knew I was going to have a hard time deciding whether Brink was any good. I still can't say it is.

I can't say it's bad yet, either.

I've played Brink for several days. It's a hard game for me to judge.

Others have judged it, of course. It's been given wildly divergent review scores. I've played the game through, completed both of its campaigns and felt confident about how the game works to create a 10-minute video to show you how it works.

But I still can't give you a straight answer if you ask me if the game is worth buying.

The first problem is only sort of a problem: I'm no expert about this kind of thing. Brink is a class-based first-person shooter, just like the wildly popular Team Fortress 2, which I last played on or close to the day Team Fortress 2 came out. I'm not at all the kind of player who's ready for an eight-on-eight battle, with each player utilizing their class role to the utmost. We've got the Security, who are the police of this floating city called The Ark, against the Resistance, a ragtag group who just might be terrorists.

I had expected my liability, my unfamiliarity with team shooters, to be a plus. One of Brink's innovations is its dynamic mission wheel that, on the fly and in the middle of a heated mission, can show you which things a character of your class can do and which of those are most worth doing. So far, in matches I've played of the game with computer-controlled allies and with real people, that wheel has worked. It's taken the place of having an expert player sitting next to me on my couch, suggesting what I can do next.

The mission wheel has helped me target key objectives, like a safe that needs to be cracked or a pillar that needs to be blown up. It's also helped me figure out what best to do when I'm playing a support role. It's shown me that there are machine gun nests that need building or other characters who need guarding.

The developers of Brink might as well call the mission wheel the Training Wheel, because I suspect that, as I get better at Brink, I'll use it less. I don't need it when I switch mid-mission to playing as a medic, since I'm pretty good at sticking with other characters on my team and healing them—the wheel's directions toward the next wounded players are irrelevant. It's been a good back-up though, and it proved most handy when I played the game with strangers. Instead of chatting with them to sort out their needs I could check the wheel, an advantage considering that they weren't stopping to strategize. It was best for me to use the wheel so I could figure out how to save them from their gung-ho selves.

The second problem is that Brink feels like the second day of college right now. The game is brand-new and not exactly the experience I imagined it would be. It's also not the experience I expect it will be remembered for. The game marries single-player and online, essentially allowing any of its 16 campaign missions to be played solo, with seven computer-controlled allies against eight enemies, or with up to 15 other human beings. You can, as I did, leave your campaign settings open, which means you may wind up starting a mission with real people in it, or have real people tumble into your match. The presence of human players transforms the game, for better and worse.

Played alone, Brink is ok. The teammate artificial intelligence is weak, but the enemies aren't much smarter. You can be a hero and win most of the game's adventures on your own, relying on most of the bots in the game to kill each other while you do the work of hacking, or setting charges or whatever. I, for example, was the only player on my team of otherwise computer-controlled heroes, who was smart enough to put a turret at a choke-point of one map, preventing the enemy force from advancing. Human enemies would have figured out how to flank me; the computer enemies did not. Sometimes its your computer-controlled buddies who let you down. Other times, the disappointment is the enemy.

But who is to say that relying on artificial intelligence will be the typical Brink experience? Over the weekend, I played about half of the game's campaign with another games reporter. Our two real brains were too much of a match for the computer-controlled enemies on the tougher missions. We played differently than I had with computer-controlled allies. He'd guard me when I was hacking a computer in an airport. I'd keep healing him as we sprinted, him in the lead, toward an escape route. When we played with a third person, the experience was even better, except when our connections were lagging. Occasionally the game did choke, stuttering its frames and turning into an unplayable slideshow, though this problem didn't seem to correspond to the number of people who played. (It's also an issue that's supposedly set to be addressed by a patch, though you never know how those things will go.)

One time, last Sunday, I was playing the game by myself. At least, I thought I was playing by myself. I was in a tough mission that I'd yet to complete without a real person helping out. I was struggling for a while, when suddenly things started going my team's way. It took me a little longer to realize that two strangers had joined my game. Real people. Helping out.

I still haven't experienced Brink will a full crew of human players. I imagine the game will feel even more alien to the thing I played via my Xbox 360 this past weekend. Brink has been better when I've had people playing with me, but who is to say that putting people in every role will improve everything? This experience my turn again. I'm not a highly skilled class-based team shooter player, and I fear that a week from now, any improvement of the Brink experience that may be gained thanks to the presence of other gamers might be off-set by the punishing skill exercised by human players. I do fine in Brink right now, maybe thanks only to the limited artificial intelligence. A week from now, will I be dying from well-thrown grenades and compromised by so many disguised operatives that I'll be shelving this game alongside my copy of Team Fortress 2? Or will that training wheel save me again?

Should you buy Brink now? I'd wait. It's just now touching the oxygen of being played by gamers online. Let the chemical reactions take. Brink today is not the game Brink will be in a week; the game today may be better, it may be worse, but it's temporary. For now, I'll give you a shrug and tell you: I'm just not sure.

In Splash Damage's Brink, rival factions do battle over the fate of a post-apocalyptic floating city called The Ark. Judging by the critical reaction of some video game critics, The Ark may have already sunk.

Brink's intriguing combination of class-based team shooting a free-running movement have kept it high on gamers' radar throughout its lengthy development cycle. It's distinctive visual style, unique setting, and countless character customization options only fueled the fires of anticipation.

Now the game is live in North America, and as gamers run rampant over The Ark for the first time, the assembled game critics have already been there, done that, and painted an often disparaging picture of the future of this floating utopia.

1UP

Brink is unfinished. And that doesn't mean it's full of technical problems. Well, it's got those too. But mostly, it's just an unpolished, poorly executed mess of ideas. Wait, let me temper that. There are times when Brink looks like it's going to break out of its shell. There are times where the fairly interesting and cool (honestly!) ideas seem to be just about to bubble up and make the game worth playing. And then, suddenly and without warning, they're pushed back into the murky depths under the boot of poor design choices and lack of polish. It's exceedingly disappointing. Of course, for a game to be truly disappointing, it has to have potential. And Brink has more potential than it knows what to do with. (Note: Metacritic converts 1UP's D letter grade to a score of 25)

Joystiq

Here's one of the first major problems with Brink's objective-based structure: Each level that a player earns lets them unlock a new ability. Though there are a few permanent boosts the player can spend their unlocks on, most of these abilities are class-specific, meaning eventually, you're going to find a class you like and spend most of your points on it. Naturally, you'll have a predilection to play as that class — but should you refuse to switch your class to suit the objective, you're going to feel like your services aren't really required three-quarters of the time.

IGN

Brink's one shining aspect is SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain). Using SMART, holding a single button lets you navigate up walls, over obstacles, and through the game world. Depending on your body size, you can do more or less with movement, but overall this finesse is fantastic. Nothing in Brink feels quite as good as sliding under gunfire into someone, taking them out with a shotgun. However, it's easy to forget which size your character is in first-person perspective, as movement abilities don't change dramatically. While the Large size allows miniguns and shotguns, they still move only slightly slower than the Medium size. Only Small characters can really burst through levels, leaping off of walls and finding clever passageways.

GamePro

My central beef here is that anemic feel to the action. I love complexity in games like this, and strategizing how to utilize the varying skills of the different player classes to achieve your goals. But when the core action doesn't feel good, it kind of weakens the entire venture. When I shoot an enemy, especially in the head, I want them dead. Not laying on the ground waiting for a medic to revive them, dead. Especially when I pop someone in the head. If there is a cardinal rule of shooters, it should be that no one survives headshots. No one.

Destructoid

While some of the levels have a more even chance of success for either side, I have a feeling there are certain stages that players are going to eventually refuse to play, rage-quitting should they find themselves on the wrong side. Had Brink employed something similar to Killzone 3 — where objectives constantly shift and are evenly split between teams — it might have worked. Instead, the game has a totally bizarre flow where even if a team is dominating an enemy and wins two objectives, they can still lose a hard-fought match because they failed the third imbalanced requirement.

Guardian

Brink deserves to be ranked among the finest co-op games available. As a multiplayer experience, it is exquisite. But as mentioned earlier, it falters if played solo. While all the modes can be played in single-player, the bots that act as stand-ins for other players are a poor replacement. It certainly isn't the case that gamers who buy Brink will feel ripped off if they don't have access to their console's (or PC's) online network. But until you've fought both with and against living opponents in Brink, you have yet to sample the best of what it has to offer.

Brink is a strange game. Is it the next must-play shooter? Is it a forgettable Team Fortress knock-off? Or is it something else? Is it really a decent single-player game? Actually, how does its multiplayer even work?

The best way to explain this odd game to you is to show it to you. I played through it this weekend, and now, if you can give me 10 brisk minutes of your time, I can zip you through one of the game's missions and provide enough commentary so that you can know all you need to know.

Fair? Press play, and let's get started.

(I'm playing on the Xbox 360. The game is also out for PC and PlayStation 3. Also, as some commenters have noted, the game is getting a patch that is supposed to address the issue of graphical texture pop-in—you'll know it when you see it. This video was captured prior to the release of patches, the day before the game was released.)

[NowGamer]

Brink will still hit the Playstation 3 as planned despite the ongoing Playstation Network outage, the developer tells Eurogamer. While the game mostly lives online, it does have the ability to be played with bots and in single-player mode. [Eurogamer]

The battle to save and/or escape The Ark kicks off tomorrow when Brink launches for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Which side of the struggle will you be on?

In the latest behind-the-scenes video for inXile's Hunted: The Demon's Forge, the development team explores how they tackled crafting the game world, and how players can create their own bits of it using the game's Crucible map editor.

With names already outed via a series of trademark applications, Bethesda Softworks finally pulls back the curtain on Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road, three new packs of downloadable content coming to Fallout: New Vegas starting on May 17.

Remember how New Vegas' first downloadable content showed up on the Xbox 360 first? That exclusive bird has flown, and the next three add-ons for game will release simultaneously for the 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, starting with May 17's Honest Hearts.

Honest Hearts takes players into the unspoiled wilderness of Utah's Zion National Park, where they'll find themselves embroiled in a war between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man, who we've mentioned previously.

In June, Old World Blues kidnaps players and casts them as lab rats in a series of experiments that might explain where the Mohave's mutated creatures originally came from.

The story comes full circle in July with Lonesome Road, in which the player is contacted by the original Courier Six, the man that refused to deliver the Platinum Chip that started this whole mess. He'll tell the player why he refused, but only after a treacherous mission into the earthquake-ravaged canyons of The Divide.

Players can expect to pay 800 Microsoft points or $9.99 for each pack of DLC. That's $30 worth of new Fallout: New Vegas beginning this month. Who's excited?

"Hunted is running through dungeons and killing monsters with really cool swords, really cool weapons, and amazing spells," says developer inXile's president Matt Findley. That's enough of a description for me. The rest of you should watch this behind-the-scenes trailer.

It may look like just another hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, but Hunted: The Demon Forge has a lot going on under the hood that you might not pick up on simply by seeing the game in action. The cooperative aspects of the game are what truly sets it apart, with innovative ways for two players to work together to take on otherwise deadly foes.

Of course the best part of a behind-the-scenes development documentary is seeing the excitement on the faces of the game creators as they talk about their baby. Here's hoping Hunted lives up to their expectations when it hits the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on May 31.

Finishing story mode is only the beginning of the adventure in inXile Entertainment's Hunted: The Demon's Forge. With the Crucible, players can spend their hard-earned gold pieces on creating and sharing endless custom dungeon romps.

The Crucible is a feature in Hunted that allows players to craft their own dungeon adventures for play alone with an AI teammate or with a friend in either online or split-screen multiplayer. Players can generate a completely random dungeon experience, or go deep with the Crucible's options, tweaking everything from player handicaps to gravity. Once completed, custom dungeons can be saved or uploaded online for the world to see.

The vast wealth acquired in the main game is used to purchase new creatures and features to add to their adventures, giving players a rewarding reason to explore every corner of the game world, squeezing out every ounce of gold they can find.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge is due out May 31 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.