Dark Sector

What It's All About

Created by acclaimed developer Digital Extremes, Dark Sector is a new and original third-person action-shooter designed exclusively for next-generation gaming. Dark Sector thrusts players into the role of Hayden Tenno, a covert operative sent on a dangerous mission into Lasria, an Eastern European city on the brink of ruin that hides a deadly Cold War secret. In the midst of this mission, Hayden is attacked by an unknown enemy and infected by the Technocyte Virus, a brutal bio-weapon that twists its victims into mindless killing machines. Surviving this attack, Hayden finds that the Technocyte virus has granted him powerful, inhuman abilities unlike anything he has ever seen. Now, he must evolve with his powers, survive and become a hero.

Single Player

The single player campaign comes packed with 10 chapters, which start as pretty small easy to completely levels and expand into quite involved levels full of puzzles and an occasional mini boss. At times the puzzles are a bit confusing or you find yourself lost - but maybe thats because I am just starting to get used to the games which not only tell you where to go but light a big bright path on a GPS or a map, or something of that nature. As the story progresses, so does your infection and your abilities. You have a pretty good assortment of guns at your disposal as well as my personal favorite the glaive. If there were statistics on your total kills etc, it would be safe to say this would be my weapon of choice. After completion of the story there is a harder difficulty available for those of you looking for your full gamerscore gain from the title.


Slice heads of with ease

Multiplayer

Multiplayer only has two game modes: Epidemic, and Infection. Epidemic is like the VIP (from Halo) of Dark Sector. You have two teams each with a Hayden character (the VIP) to defend. To score you kill the other team's VIP. Infection is similar but there are no teams, it's simply one VIP with all the powers against everyone else, whoever takes that person out takes the previous players place or has been infected. Both modes are interesting but not ground breaking, at least there was some thought put into coming up with something more than just an all out war death match.

Graphics and Gameplay

The graphics are well done, starting with the initial pre-infection stage with its black and white artsy look to the various blood spewing finisher moves. The controls are somewhat similar to Gears of War, with a few differences. There is even something based on timing (like the active reload in GOW) which does a more powerful throw of the glaive. As you progress in levels, so does your characters abilities and your creativity with your blade - keeping it fresh and enjoyable. The game has absolutely no HUD, you gauge how close you are to death based on the throbbing of your controller, and the more red your screen becomes. That takes at least a little bit to get used to, but gives you a more clean and crisp view of the game.

Achievements

Completing the story will guarantee you about 390 points in gamerscore, all though you are very likely to get more than that with the amount of killing you have ahead of you. 200 of the points are dedicated to the multiplayer game and the rest are mostly killing people in a specific way - many of which you will get just by enjoying the game. I like when a game doesn't put a ton of focus on the multiplayer achievements so you can just enjoy the multiplayer experience without people throwing the match in a certain direction to raise some gamerscore.


Someone is going to end up getting hurt

Value

When you boil it down the game is another shooter with nice graphics and a twist. I think it is unique enough to give it a chance, and the story should take you a pretty good amount of time, giving you more bang if you will. Anyone who knows me, knows that I play games for the single player or co-op experience for the most part, so versus mode doesn't add a ton of value for ME, but it does increase the amount of things available for you to be able to enjoy.

In short...

This game was high on my anticipation list, and personally it did not let me down. Graphically it was as beautiful as the screen shots I was keeping tabs on before the game was released, and the glaive has proven to be an interesting weapon to control. I was surprised and pleased at the size of the campaign mode. I think this game is flying low on the radar and might not see its full potential with people passing it up - but I say give it a chance, if nothing else a rental - you just might get hooked.

 

Review by Dave [Squidpunch] Larrabee