Splash Damage is no newcomer to the first-person shooter genre having released two Wolfenstein games, Doom 3, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in the last decade. With a portfolio comprised of highly-acclaimed titles, we were very excited to hear about the studio's latest creation (see our list: Most Anticipated PC Games of 2011).

Released just a week ago, Brink is a class-based multiplayer first-person shooter built with a modified version of idTech 4, a game engine developed and licensed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks, the folks behind The Elder Scrolls franchise along with recent iterations of Fallout.

Although Brink features single-player and co-op components, Splash Damage's developmental efforts are largely focused on multiplayer. Representing one of two factions, up to 16 people can duke it out across eight maps set on "The Ark," a once-utopian city floating above the flooded remains of Earth.

The Ark is a man-made city developed as an experimental, self-sufficient habitat occupied by both the creators and their descendants as well as thousands of Earth's refugees who fled amid rapidly rising oceans. Tensions are mounting as both groups (billed as Resistance and Security) approach a civil war.

Players assume the role of a solider, medic, engineer or operative – similar to the classes in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Despite having a rehashed class system, Brink places a strong emphasis on character customization with supposedly 102 quadrillion combinations available (that's a lot of zeros).

The game has received mixed reviews since launching last week – many critics like the game, others say it's unpolished and even incomplete. Unfortunately, this has become a common trend for video games. If you look at the last half a dozen titles we've tested, none of them escaped the need of a zero-day patch.

Nonetheless, we're optimistic about Brink as it looks to be an exciting, fast-paced first-person shooter that should run well on a wide range of hardware – or so we suspect. Continue reading to see how the game performs on a dozen current and previous-generation GPUs priced from $100 to $700.