Early Launch, the One Mission That Almost Single-Handedly Screws Brink Beyond Recognition

Notice that your ally is using a pistol against an assault rifle? Also, do you notice that he's not firing his pistol?

I started playing Brink again -- after a long break from this game -- from scratch. And now I have to face my old forgotten enemy: this one particular mission called Early Launch. For those of you who didn't bother to play this game but are probably intrigued to know why is this mission so frustrating, spend one minute reading this mission summary here from IGN. I will try to make this post less ugly with pictures, so yahoo! But seriously though, brace yourself for my harsh language in 3, 2, 1...

First of all, let me just say that I love Brink. It has many great, great beautiful ideas, but due to poor execution, now it's a fucked up mess. Like a bright yellow sunflower, it's beautiful and all, until you, who happen to love the colour brown, try recolouring the flower with cowshit because it (the cowshit) is brown, and therefore, will make the yellow sunflower brown. To put it simply, Early-Launch is half of the picture that demonstrates what an incredible technical mess Brink is. And fucked up design, too! In this Security mission, your objective is to prevent the Resistance (the opposite team) from launching a missile.

It has two phases. First, repair the crane control to give your team a route to the main objective. The second phase is, of course, the main objective itself: hack the missile control. The first objective is simple, not hard at all. As long as you've cleared the main area, all you need to do is secure the perimeter and wait until more teammates arrive, because they're too busy trying to capture command posts (a stupid habit which will be the demise of your team later on). Once your team has concentrated on the area, repair the crane. Easy. The cutscene goes in, and the first phase is done.

Here, let me help you take your precious little command posts which buffs are completely used at this point because we have a missile that's about to launch any time at your stupid Founders Tower, but you know, who gives a shit.

Now prepare yourself for your worst fucking nightmare. This is it, the main objective: hack the missile control, which is located at an open space on the other side of the map. There are several paths to take to the missile control, but in order to use the shortest and best route, you need to complete a side objective first, which is to repair the crane control (not the same crane control as the previous one) in order to raise a bridge that makes the shortcut available. This side objective is easy, too. But the problem is the AI. Here is where they shine.

Your allies are as dumb as rocks. They won't escort or protect you. Most of the time they ignore the main objective in favor of their precious little command posts. On the other hand, the enemy team becomes incredibly tough, almost indestructible. For some reason your allies are incapable of anything. The enemy team easily sneaks in and destroy the crane controls which gives you shortcut to the main objective. They are able to strategically place mines and turrets, while your ally place everything at the wrong places. The enemies shower you with grenades and become incredibly good shooters too (fucking headshots with shotgun from 100 metres away!).

Holy fuck, where is everybody? Look at me, I'm trying to turn off a fucking missile here, but you know, just take your time and leave me vulnerable because we have all day here.

So what's the fucking solution? Either make a new fucking character and complete this final level first before anything else (fuck the imbalanced level scaling), or use cheats, which is OK. I highly encourage you to do so. But fuck, no cheats available. Wanna use trainer? Fuck that, none of the trainers I tried worked. Console commands? Fuck off, you can't do that in game.

For your information, I have completed this mission several times in the past. I've been playing Brink since 2012, heck I spent hundred of hours on this game. I am completely aware of the negative receptions it had, but I still enjoy this game despite the unstable frame rate and mediocre level design. But what made this mission possible in the past was that I completed it while playing as a low level character. You see, Brink has another major problem which is the imbalance level scaling with the AI.

I regret not cherishing this moment back when I actually nailed this mission a few times, but not without frustration because that's just the way life is. It's fucked up.

Fuck Early-Launch. Brink deserves all the disgusts thrown at it. I, however, love Brink, it has great concept, great two-sided story, interesting visual style and what-not. I think it deserves a second chance, but fuuck this mission.

P/S: Please excuse my colourful language and awful grammar. I'm too frustrated to do a grammar-check.

Edit: Bonus!

Oh and I forgot. If the enemy team blows the crane control, the bridge will be lowered and whoever is at the bridge at that moment will be stuck there unless somebody raises the bridge again. So if you have 3 allies walking on the bridge when it's being lowered, that means you have 3 less manpower at that moment. Fuck yeah!