According to a recent article by Scott Widdowson over at thejoypads.co.uk, the much-anticipated ‘Agents of Change’ DLC will be arriving on the PlayStation Network, Steam and Xbox Live on August 3rd. The latest title update not only fixes a large amount of issues that players were still experiencing with the game; it also contains a number of optimizations and improvements.

For example, the Xbox 360 update has changed stopwatch rules to keep track of the number of objectives during calculation of a winning team, as well as optimized snapshot sizes in order to reduce bandwidth usage. The latest update has also fixed an issue where player nametags would disappear after flash bang even when they were not affected.

The issue with the Bot AI continually dropping has also been resolved with the new title update, as is the issue where players were able to see through walls when peeking. Xbox 360 owners will also notice that the update has now changed default matchmaking from ‘My Rank’ to ‘My Rank or Higher,’ and added a stopwatch review screen.

Players should mo longer experience the unable to recover from auto save error, or the debug text that appeared at the end of the credits. Another issue that has now been resolved is the problem where incorrect command posts were being displayed after cutscenes. The Xbox 360 update has also added support for dummy sound files in order to improve loading times in FIGS.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3 title update has improved network syncing when placing HE charges and hack devices, optimized snapshot sizes to decrease bandwidth usage, and removed the ‘Advanced’ config from the list to reduce the number of matchmaking buckets. It’s also removed the delay when team switching in match warm-up.

The PS3 update has not only fixed the issue in which players were able to see through walls when peeking, it’s also resolved the issue where players were able to place mines on certain walls. Another problem that has now been fixed is the one where the default save data icon was not being displayed. You can read more about the changes via thejoypads.co.uk website.

Do you still play the Brink game?

As Rain Anderson over on the thatvideogameblog.com website recently reported, the forthcoming DLC, which is due to be released sometime next month, will provide players with two brand new maps, new weapon attachments, player abilities and brand new outfits.

Gamers will also find that the level cap has now been raised to 24 as well. The two new maps include Labs, which by the sounds of it takes place in the Ark’s original research and development laboratories and Founders’ Tower, which takes the battle to dizzying heights at the island’s iconic spire.

Meanwhile, the new player abilities include Tactical Scanner, UAV, Napalm Grenade, Pyro Mine and Field Regen Unit, which medics can deploy in order to increase the health regeneration of nearby teammates. The DLC provides 2 new weapon attachments including Bayonets and Weapon Shields.

The new character outfits include The Limey and The Sad Punk. Do you think you will download the upcoming ‘Agents of Change’ DLC?

Developer Splash took a bold step with this game, and we should reward their effort by sticking with the game. However, Bitmob believes that there are certain areas that need to be reworked. The first fault is how Splash has blending single-player mode with multiplayer; now this idea does sound good but needed a little more homework.

Brink took what Mirror’s Edge does with free-running/parkour and tried something different. For the most part it works, but there are still a number of opportunities that were missed. One way they could do this is by adding maps that do not have too many flat areas; those of you who have played Mirror’s Edge will know what we mean.

One other area that could benefit from an update is the customization and RPG elements. The player does not seem to have enough to keep them occupied, and that will not sit well with them. You need to keep them transfixed on the game, so that it will last them much longer and want them to grab the next DLC.

What other areas do you think that Brink could improve on?

Bethseda Softworks has confirmed this news and say that the update should resolve some of the lag-related issues which people have been experiencing, the fix has cut the amount of human players allowed in a game in half, therefore campaign and most freeplay modes allow for up to eight total human players rather than sixteen.

Splash Damage has also confirmed that the game’s first lot of downloadable-content will be free and will arrive in June, this will consist of new maps and “new content”, the vague description suggests that the DLC is still under development.

You should automatically receive the title update at some point tonight, if you are not sure if you have received the update look for “Big Teams” in the public match settings, you can check out the Bethesda Blog for additional information.

Once you have received the update let us know whether the lag-related issues are resolved in the comments section, also let us know if there are any other problems which you would like to see fixed.

According to Martin Gaston over at videogamer.com, the developer has temporarily halved Brink’s player count in order to fight the current lag situation. The recent server-side configuration tweak has adjusted the default settings of both Free Play and Campaign games.

This means that the games are now a maximum of 8 human players. If gamers are playing in the Versus mode, the other half of each team will be filled by computer-controlled bots. Regular 8 vs. 8 play will still be available through private match settings or the new Big Teams Mode in Free Play.

The change has already been implemented for the Xbox 360, and will be implemented for the PlayStation 3 once the PSN is back up online. Meanwhile, the PC version of Brink has also been given an incremental update, which is said to address GPU, server and AI issues.

Splash Damage has also announced that some free DLC is on its way. The developer has promised that the upcoming DLC will contain brand new maps and modes for the recently released game. Although we don’t have a specific release date, we do know that the DLC should arrive in June.

Have you been experiencing any problems with lag in the Brink game?

If you have used the MetaCritic website before you will now that they take review scores from hundreds of sources then average them out to give a release a metascore, well at the time of this post the Xbox 360 version had a metascore of 69/100 (based on 40 reviews), the PS3 version had a metascore of 77/100 (based on 6 reviews) and the PC version had not received enough reviews to calculate its metascore.

Because the Xbox 360 version had received the most reviews it is deemed the most accurate, it seems to be pretty much spot on as 94 users have also scored the game out of 10 and at the time of this post it had a MetaCritic user score of just 6.9/10.

Over the next few days more reviews may come in and change things, however we think that 40 reviews is enough to say that the game is a disappointment, you can see summary from all of the critics here, we feel that Xbox360Achievements sum things up with this statement:

“Billed as a game that will blur the line between single-player, co-op and multiplayer, Brink actually does the opposite and reaffirms the general consensus on Xbox Live that multiplayer is king. Frankly put, unless you’re playing Brink with and against human players, the game is mediocre at best. Get into a game with players that want to co-ordinate as a team against a group of like-minded foes, and Brink will almost certainly satisfy on every level”.

Do you think that a 69/100 score is fair? Let us know whether this is generous / stingy in the comments section below.

Although there are quite a few reviews available online now, we thought we would take a brief look at just a few of them. Judging by the early review round up, there appear to be a few mixed opinions. For example, Edward V over on thekoalition.com gave the Brink game an overall rating of 5/10.

Edward said that after spending 10 hours with the Brink game, he felt quite comfortable to say that he didn’t like it. Edward said that although the game was made well, its flaws were just too much to cope with. In terms of graphics, this reviewer said they unfortunately take a down turn during gameplay.

Next up is a review from Griffin McElroy over at joystiq.com, who gave the game an overall score of 2/5. Not only does this reviewer say that the classes are oddly imbalanced, but he also describes the single player mission as abysmal. Jared Presler at gamrreview.vgchartz.com on the other hand gave it 8.2/10.

Jared noted that although Brink looks and sounds amazing, the in-game voices can get a little repetitive. He also notes that the menus are straightforward and easy to navigate and the maps are very detailed. The final review we looked at comes from Peter Eykemans over on the IGN website.

This reviewer gave the Brink title an overall score of 6/10, describing it as OK. Some of the downsides noted by Peter include a lack of depth, repetitive objectives and graphical problems. You can read more of each review via the links provided above. What are your first impressions?

We have embedded the launch trailer at the end of this post, it lasts roughly two and a half minutes and we manage to see some sleek looking cartoony graphics and some heavy duty weaponry. Also the trailer explains that the game takes place on a floating city call the Ark, in the game you have to decide whether to save the city or escape it.

According to the Bethesda blog if you are playing the game on PC it will arrive on both Steam and Direct2Drive at midnight tonight (EST), as for Xbox 360 and PC gamers you will have to wait until stores open (we have heard no reports of stores opening at midnight for this release).

Looking back at some of our previous Brink posts we must admit that we can’t make our minds up about the game, the fast-paced action looks great and the campaign’s story is quite interesting, however we do not know whether if it will have good enough multiplayer modes to give it lasting appeal.

We would love you to share your thoughts on Brink in the comments section below. Will you buy it on its release date? Or will you wait until you hear feedback from friends etc?

Some of the more interesting stats tell you that there will be many paths to follow in this game and very different ways to play through the story. There will be 42 different ways to die in the game, Bethesda also boasts that there will be 26,000 lines of dialogue which makes for a lot of conversation.

In terms of weaponry there should be something for everyone, even if you don’t count the pre-order content or resistance variations there are almost 5000 weapon/attachment combinations to choose from.

One other interesting thing is that there are said to be 102,247,681,536,000,000 total unique characters (including minor tint variations and body types) which we found astonishing. Obviously there is no real need for this, however it should mean that there will be no chance of passing cloned characters in the game.

So has this information made your anticipation levels for Brink creep up? We like the sound of all of the weapon / attachment combinations, do you?

The news comes from Twitter where Major Nelson tweeted this; “Bethesda just send me an email saying that Brink will release one-week earlier than planned. New dates: North America: May 10, Europe May 13″

We are not too sure as to why the game has been pushed forward, however we are not going to complain about it, this just means that the game should be arriving in our consoles a lot sooner than we first thought. The news has also been confirmed on Brink’s official Twitter page.

The game is now set for May 10 release in America and May 13 release in Europe, so be sure to pick up your copy then, for now though we can sit back and wait for more from the developers. Want to find out more about Brink? If so, check out the official website for news, video, screenshots and much more.

Will you buy Brink on its release date.