Every editor at IGN wishes he or she had the time to personally respond to every semi-sane comment from the message boards, but we don't. However, in an effort to raise the level of discourse, we've decided to pick out some of the most interesting comments on Peter Eykemans's recent Brink review and respond to them. The reviewer did not pick these comments out himself. This task fell to his colleague, Anthony Gallegos. The following are the original comments as they appeared on IGN.com, with the reviewer's response thereafter. Some comments may have been edited for space, but not for content.

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I don't as a rule criticise reviews - I understand that it's a matter of opinion but I couldn't leave this alone. My basic problem is that Peter doesn't seem to understand what type of game he is reviewing. Criticising a multiplayer shooter for poor storyline and repetitive objectives is like panning an RPG for forcing the player to take on quests.It's in effect not a criticism of Brink – but the genre of games as a whole. Multiplayer shooters are predicated on competitive team based missions not storytelling and to ignore that completely in the review is misleading. The same applies to the criticism of the ability to switch between classes rather than crafting one character. In an RPG this would indeed be a grave failing but in a shooter where you want to switch roles in a team regularly I fail to see the problem.Secondly you can not criticise a game because 'I was often confused when I couldn't drop a turret only to remember I was a Soldier'. Being bad at the game is not the game's fault. I don't sit through Hamlet and blame Shakespeare because I can't follow the plot – that's my own inadequacy.I'm not a multiplayer shooter fan. I can accept that this won't be my kind of game – but really I would expect a reviewer to start out with a better grasp of the type of game under consideration. All I get from Peter's review is I don't understand or enjoy multiplayer shooters, which is not a review in my book.Contrast this with Eurogamer's excellent review, which is written by someone who gets what Brink is about.Posted by: BenH79 You bring up a solid argument, but I believe the core of your concern is incorrect. There seems to be a common misconception throughout the comments that because I use the term repetitive, or didn't simply gush about Brink, that I don't understand shooters. I love shooters and team-based gameplay.To speak to your introduction, the influence of Brink's story is a minute detail in the greater span of the review. But regardless of whether or not story is important to the shooter genre, Brink wraps every single match, campaign and open multiplayer, in story cut-scenes. To not mention that it's bland, or exists at all, would be irresponsible. I reviewed Brink on what it brings to the table, not what a game in the genre is supposed to be about.On the note of repetition, it's not just a single feature of the game, but the combination of many factors. Of course shooters and objective-based gameplay are repetitive by nature and definition. The reason I bring it up as a negative was actually verbalized best by another commenter on IGN. Ice-Hot suggested that: "Repetition is repetition only when it's boring. Otherwise it's called fun." This is where I'm coming from. If Brink's maps, objectives, weapons, classes, and gameplay didn't constantly feel repetitive, I wouldn't have mentioned them. If I were to complain about quests in an RPG, it would be because the quests were boring, bland and uninspired. That doesn't mean I don't understand RPGs.Referring to the confusion over placing a turret isn't an example of being terrible at the game, but a single anecdote to represent the lack of distinction between size and classes and how the experience blends together.Finally, I like your analogies. But complaining about Shakespeare is a discussion for another day.Sometimes I agree with IGN's reviews, sometimes I don't. But really this score is a shock for me. Not because I think this game is awesome (I have not played) but because of the way IGN's previews, interviews and sneak peeks were building it up I thought it would get at least an 8-8.5. I am now astounded by the score. I think IGN sometimes pokes the bear and asks for flaming comments with their pre-review articles. I would love if one of the editors actually addresses this for me in their new "reviewer answers comments" section. Much love IGN!Posted by: nne05 Previews are an extremely difficult task. We're invited to preview games under very specific circumstances in which the developer can control the experience and only show us one or two elements that they feel are great. Thus, we may only get a short time to demo a game rather than a full week (or more) to understand the complete package. And when we interview developers, their exciting answers are often based on best-intentions rather than final execution.It's for this reason that previews can't be taken as a final word. They're a great way to get information about a game you're excited about, but at the same time they aren't always indicative of the final game.If I didn't take an honest look at Brink for the product on the store shelf, then I wouldn't be doing my job. Previews and reviews are completely separate beasts.