Dark Sector Review

Written by: Alec Hilton Posted: 11th June 2008

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We head into the dark with this Dark Sector review.

Dark Sector Details:

	Action
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	Digital Extremes
	D3Publisher

18+

Out Now

N/A

There is much to be said about Dark Sector but not all of it good. At the out set it looks like an interesting experiment, as it takes the good points from some of the best Third Person Shooters on last-gen and current-gen consoles and adds them all together in one big mixing pot. But it really isn’t that much of a success and here’s why.

One of the most important things to remember about the game is that it really is just a mix of different games added together in the hopes it might make one big uber game. The result, though not terrible by any means, isn’t quite as amazing as you might have hoped, as Dark Sector just doesn’t have the right feeling to it, as a next/current gen game should do.

You take on the role of Hayden Tenno, a CIA agent whose main job entails cleaning-up the Agency’s messes. Hayden is sent to a fictional nation in the Eastern Bloc, Lasria, to kill a fellow agent that has been captured and is believed to be leaking information. Hayden completes this mission and requests to be airlifted out, but his Commanding Officer back in America orders him to continue on to a Military Complex and kill a Scientist called Mezner.

A biological agent that has changed the population into some kind of mutated creatures has infected the nation of Lasria. The transformation that is caused by the virus is a very painful process, which drives the victim to madness. This virus is why Hayden is sent out after Mezner, as he is the scientist that is behind its creation and the CIA want him put down so he cannot make this virus again.

Sounds rather plain, but there is a twist not, long after killing the CIA agent Hayden is captured and infected with the virus. This virus has a different affect on Hayden as he is actually plagued by another disease, which stops him feeling all pain thus Hayden manages to retain his sanity. This isn’t the only affect that the virus has on Hayden it transforms his arm into an organic metal, which in turn produces a three-bladed weapon, called a glaive, that Hayden is able to throw. Hayden is once again ordered to kill Mezner by any means possible, before he can be evacuated out.

When playing the game you can see that Resident Evil 4 was a heavy influence for the game, as a lot of ideas that were used in there have been used in Dark Sector. One of the most noticeable of that is the over the shoulder viewpoint, which was also used in Gears, all of your targeting is handled in the same prospective. This does work well in Dark Sector as the second person camera point allows you to see the action but still feels like you’re the character your playing, it also adds to more of a cinematic affect the proceedings.

Much like the major of action shooter, Hayden picks up weaponry as he continues in the story. Starting out with just his handgun and gradually moving up to Semi and Automatic machine guns. All of these can be updated with different upgrades that improve accuracy, clip size and fire rate. Like in the upcoming Metal Gear all the weapons that your enemies use are ID tagged so you can only use them for a short time before they burnout. This means that you have to buy your weapons from a Black Market seller, much like the one featured in Resident Evil 4. This seller allows you to buy and upgrade your weapons at his shop, but the thing is that weapons are quite expensive and the money that has to be picked up is placed quite sparingly over the levels, which means that you tend to have to wait a far amount of time before you can actually buy your alternative first weapon. It took me four levels until I had enough to get the Uzi, which in my opinion is too long to be given just a pistol.

As well as the weapons that you gain over the course of the game your Glaive is upgraded with new abilities at certain points in the story. This increase is designed to link in with the progression of the disease, but soon just feels like a crowbar attempt to add something new to the weapon. The Glaive’s upgrades aren’t like a normal upgrade system you see for the guns in the game. It instead gives you access to new ways in which to use your Glaive.

When you first get it, the Glaive is pretty plain only being able to throw it in a general direction of an enemy and it will hopefully hit them then ultimately boomeranging back to you. But very quickly the disc of death is upgraded to allow you to do a super throw, which is done by a timely tap of throw button when the crosshairs go yellow, this throw will split enemy soldiers in two, cut through chains and smash locks. There are a few other upgrades that allow you to collect ammo and money that are in unreachable places and some environmental upgrades which you can set your Glaive light, charge it with electricity or freeze it each one doing more damage to enemies or having to be uses to solve puzzles. But the daddy of all of the upgrades is the Aftertouch feature. This feature basically makes the game! It allows Hayden to control the course and direction of the Glaive, thus allowing for some beautiful multi-kills.

Digital Extremes stated that Dark Sector was completely built on next-gen base code to get the most out of the systems that the game was to be launching on. For the most part this does show through with the graphics looking lovely. But as much as they look nice they look horrible at the same time… oxymoron? Let me explain, the buildings do look wonderful and very detailed, but at the same time the game’s environments are in need for some colour as most of the game is set at the darker end of the palette.

The character models are very much a same story, with only Hayden and the main characters looking like they have had any real care taken over their look. The normal grunts and infected creatures each look the same, with only different coloured uniforms being the difference between the grunts. This is a great shame as there is same very nice attention to detail on the grunts at times, like at one point I had zoomed in on a particular guy and as he popped out of cover to take a pot shot at me his orange jumpsuit creased as his arms moved upwards.

One thing that is very much lacking is the multiplayer mode, you do have online and LAN options, but only having two modes makes it very boring quickly. The boredom factor isn’t helped by that fact that the two modes that you are given, Infection and Epidemic, are so very similar that it is almost a joke to call them separate modes. Infection works in a similar way to the old school king of the hill matches seen in some of the older FPS’, one player is randomly chosen to be the super-powered Hayden and the other players must kill him as well as each other, whoever kills the Hayden character becomes him themselves. The other of the two splits the players into two teams given each one a randomly chosen Hayden character and the other players taking on soldier characters. The aim then becomes that each team must kill the other’s Hayden, while the other players for each team must protect him. This mode can be great fun if you get some skilled players who can avoid the Glaive.

It’s sad to say that Dark Sector really doesn’t live up to what it could have been. There is no doubting that the game really is fun to play and has some very nice parts but it isn’t anything that hasn’t been seen before and after a few hours does feel like a Resident Evil 4 remake with a different setting.