Almost a year ago to the day, Brink was shown to the British public at one of the developer sessions of the Eurogamer Expo 2009 and it blew our minds. Now, a year on, we go hands on with Splash Damages upcoming first-person shooter.

Seated, controller in hand, headphones on, server booted, game on. Immediately it’s evident that Brink is fantastic. Thrown into a sixteen-man game – eight on either side – everything was hurling along at lightning speed. Players were selecting classes, then missions and then using those classes to complete those missions, and before you know it five minutes have passed any you’ve inflicted more damage than a nail bomb in a bubble wrap factory. With all four classes on show, the Soldier, Engineer, Operative and Medic, players were treated to a good long taste of what to expect come the start of 2011.

Playing on the only map available, Container City, default missions are initially assigned to each player. However, by holding ‘up’ on the d-pad, players are able to choose their own objectives, for example, on one occasion, the need to be a little more destructive was needed and blowing up some scaffolding with a large amount of explosives seemed like a good way to fulfil that. Having eliminated the enemies that had obviously chosen the task to protect said scaffolding and placing the explosive, it was time to get out of there. A period of time had then passed, a period longer than that for the explosive to detonate. So, in fear that the enemy had disarmed the explosive without my knowledge, I re-entered the relevant building, and to my relieve, saw the explosive still there. As I closed in, the countdown timer became clearer and clearer until a glaring 00:04 was screaming at me to get out. Using the SMART (“Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain”) system, I leapt out of a nearby window to an explosive sound and landed with dust and smoke clouding above me.

The SMART system, whereby players can use a single context sensitive button to journey previously inaccessible terrain works as fluidly as you could hope. Ledges that are clearly too high are obviously out of reach and those that are at your characters limit have to be tackled head on, but otherwise whether you intend to slide, run or jump, it’s all fair game. The verticality of the level design is obvious and in tandem with SMART, made the single level that was playable a blast.

As previously mentioned, four classes wear available to play, each with their own abilities: Soldiers give out ammo, Engineers buff damage, Operatives can disguise as enemies and Medics can give out health boosts and revive fallen comrades, all of which can also be used on yourself. The Medics, revive ability has a timeout if used on ones self to stop medics becoming immortal. Each are driven towards more suitable default goals, and also have varying custom objectives.

With a score pop-up similar to Call of Duty, players earn points by killing or even just injuring enemies, completing tasks and using abilities, which presumably contribute to an overall levelling system.

Brink was as exciting to play as the demos and trailers indicated. With a huge customization system, fantastic level design, an effective and brilliant new running system combined with some incredible solid shooting, Brink is set to be one of hell of a game.