Titled "Endless Horizon", Brink video dev diary number four has just made its way onto the information superhighway and is all about Brink's unique art style. Art Director Olivier 'Nosebone' Leonardi, Lead Environment Artist Aaron 'Hoffa' Hoffman, and Lead Animator Fabrice 'faaab' Bouvet join our regulars for this one and all have plenty to say about the look of characters and environments you'll come across on the Ark.

You can watch the video via the embedded version below or in glorious HD over on the official Brink website.

Continue reading »

Just in time for Bank holiday weekend here in the UK, we've rounded up the very latest Brink coverage from gamescom 2010 and beyond, and this one's got a little bit of everything.

Before we get to the latest batch of previews, X360 Magazine here in the UK have compiled their Top 5 gamescom Surprises, with Brink topping the list. They even go as far as calling it their "game of the show by some distance", so we're pretty chuffed by that.

Elsewhere, GameZone has an editorial titled Brink and the Parkour Revolution, looking at Brink's SMART system and how we may see similar freedom of movement systems showing up in many more shooters in the future.

Speaking of Parkour, if you're not checking the Brink Parkour Tour's blog regularly, you definitely should. Daniel Ilabaca's latest exploits include mass jams with some 200 traceurs and even getting arrested by Austrian Police - seems like excitement is the order of the day over there.

Finally, the boys over at Polycount have taken a rather long look at the artistic side of Brink and produced a great piece about the game's unique art style.

And now, here's the latest batch of Brink hands-on previews from gamescom:

Previews & Impressions

• Digital Spy
• Hooked Gamers
• Xbox 360 Achievements
• Addict of Fiction
• 4Players
• InGame
• SpieleTester

Did you manage to spot anything else? Let us know in the comments!

Want more coverage from gamescom? Clickity click.

As announced in Bethesda's In The 'Works newsletter last night, Brink will be present and playable at PAX 2010 in Seattle next week. Brink t-shirts will also be on offer there, so you can frag/SMART/mission wheel in style. Formerly lovingly referred to as Penny Arcade Expo, PAX will take place at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle, Washing from 3 - 5 September. More information about the event can be found on the PAX website.

Following gamescom 2010, the Herren at German magazine PC Games want to know your pick(s) for game of the show. Brink is one of the titles nominated, though at the moment the poll is visibly dominated by MMOs. Registration is not required - all you have to do is head over to the polling page, pick your favorite game, and click on 'Abstimmen' below the list. Easy, right?

Update: Following a few instances of obvious manipulation, PC Games has now restarted the poll, discounting all previous votes. To vote in the new poll, you'll need to register a free account on their website.

The third Brink video dev diary is now online and explores how Brink goes about blurring the lines between single player and multplayer. Titled "The End of Genre As We Know It," the diary also goes into the inner workings of Brink's missions system and features the healthy mix of interviews and gameplay footage we've come to know and love.

You can catch the diary via the embedded version below or in HD over on the official Brink website.

The previously released video dev diaries are The Dawn of SMART and The Last Stand.

Brink coverage from QuakeCon and gamescom continues to hit the internet in every possible way, and we've got the very latest batch for you right here.

The Brink Parkour Tour's Daniel Ilabaca and his gang were in Cologne on Friday to visit Bethesda's gamescom booth and to hang out with the local Parkour community. It all culminated in an epic traceurs vs Splash Damage match in - you guessed it - Brink, which had the Parkour folks walking away victorious after a closely fought battle. You can read all about Daniel's day in Cologne on the Parkour Tour blog.

We've also had a whole bunch of new previews and interviews coming out of both events. Led by Maximum PC's Six Reasons Why Brink May Be Your Next Multiplayer Addiction, here they are deliciously bite-sized:

Previews & Impressions

• GamePro
• VG247
• Xboxic
• All About Games
• PC Games Hardware (Google Translate)
• Gaming XP (Google Translate)
• Jeux Video (Google Translate)

Interviews

• Paul Wedgwood on Eurogamer
• Paul Wedgwood on VG247

Spotted any other Brink coverage? Let us know in the comments!

Don't forget to check out the rest of our QuakeCon and gamescom coverage if you haven't already.

gamescom 2010 is underway over in Cologne and throughout this week, hundreds of gamers are getting to play Brink. Better yet, freerunner Daniel Ilabaca will be all over the Bethesda booth today to promote the game and even play the odd match.

We're delighted to see that GameStar / GamePro have nominated Brink for their Best of gamescom awards, in the Best Shooter category. The winners are chosen by their staff and will be announced later in the week.

Before we get to the rest of the Brink coverage we've had from the show so far, though, go check out Kotaku's great hands-on write-up. Here's a clip from that:

Brink is supposed to enable anyone, even bad gamers, to get that experience that normally only an elite Team Fortress 2 player might have, an experience of slick coordination in which everyone knows their role and slickly performs it. That bad player might as well have been me. And a year after Wedgwood told me Brink could deliver that opportunity, I tried the game - and - he was right.

Brink, ingeniously, works.

And now, without further ado, here's a round-up of Brink previews and interviews from gamescom:

Previews & Impressions

• Destructoid
• Xbox Dome (Google Translate)
• FactorNews (Google Translate)
• spaziogames (Google Translate)
• Multiplayer.it (Google Translate)

Interviews

• Paul Wedgwood on Destructoid

Spotted any other Brink coverage from gamescom? Let us know in the comments!

Despite rumors that this newfangled "gamescom" show is opening its doors to the public today, QuakeCon 2010 is hurling a few more interviews and previews our way.

First up is the interview side of things, where both Machinima.com's Inside Gaming and GameTrailers managed to quiz Brink's Game Director Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood in front of a camera for about five minutes a piece.

With Brink playable at the show, we've also got two new (albeit international) previews to share with you. German site GameStar has a detailed, multi-page write-up detailing their impressions of the show build (translated here), while French outlet JeuxVideo offers a hands-on feature (translated here), as well.

Spotted any other QuakeCon coverage? Post it up in the comments! Don't forget to explore our other QuakeCon coverage, if you've missed it previously.

Following a brief tease at QuakeCon last week, our friends at Bethesda have now officially announced the pre-order packs for the game along with the participating retailers in North America. There are four separate packs, each with a unique theme and to be had at a different store. Not in North America? Fear not, we'll have news for other territories soon. Full breakdown of the packs below. Continue reading »

Bethesda and Splash Damage have teamed up with world-famous Freerunner Daniel Ilabaca for a unique Parkour event headed to Europe this month. Titled Beyond The Brink, the tour will be stopping in eight European cities to meet local freerunners and train with them. Along the way, Daniel and his crew will putting together short films and interviews with the local freerunning community at each location.

The tour's first stop will be at Elephant & Castle in London tomorrow evening, with the remaining cities closely behind. Here are all of the tour's stops:

• London – 17th August
• Amsterdam – 19th August
• Cologne – 21st August
• Copenhagen – 24th August
• Vienna – 26th August
• Milan – 28th August
• Barcelona – 31st August
• Paris – 2nd September

For information on exact locations and times, check out the Parkour Tour website.

If you're interested in following the Parkour Tour and keeping up to date about its progress, you can do so on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

In addition to all this, Daniel will also on hand at gamescom 2010 on the 20th of August to answer questions and play lots of Brink.