Have you ever been in a situation where somebody asks you what a certain game is like, and you normally reply by saying something like:
“Well have you played [insert game]? Well it’s like that. But with zombies”.
Or something. So if someone were to ask me:
“Hey DC, what’s Dark Sector like?”
I’d say:
“Well it’s like a mix between Gears of War and Resident Evil 4. With a boomerang weapon from hell and a character and storyline that in all honesty I can’t remember a thing about. But if you like Gears or Resi, you’ll probably love this”.
And without wanting to disrespect anything that Digital Extremes have done, that pretty much sums up Dark Sector. They have looked at Gears of War and borrowed the cover system and running/rolling controls, and from Resident Evil they have nicked the over the shoulder shooting, bosses, weapons upgrading, and weapons shop.
You play as Hayden, a US Special Forces soldier, who has been instructed to infiltrate an army base in Russia and take out an agent that has been captured there. You kill him (he was a friend of sorts too!), and then your boss tells you to go and find Mezner, who is an evil bastard and has conjured up a virus, which is now airborne. After a few firefights with enemy soldiers and a helicopter, Hayden gets caught by Mezner and his sidekick (a huge 7ft metal armored tyrant), and they inject the virus directly into him.
Before this point, the game has a regular weapon system where you have a couple of equipped guns, and along the way you find new weapons, ammo etc. However, shortly after Hayden gets infected with this virus, his right arm spawns a weird boomerang-like weapon called a Glaive. This weapon really does work like a boomerang; you fire it out from his arm by targeting just you would a gun, and it shoots out, flies a certain distance, then returns to Hayden. It bounces off of walls, and cuts directly through enemies with its razor sharp blades. It’s upgradeable too, and later you can put the game into slow motion so you can carefully control the Glaive, and you can also add fire, ice, and electricity elements to it, which can be used in conjunction with puzzles later on.
You can still use guns in the game, and you always have – at the very least – a pistol, which you can use in conjunction with the Glaive. The many enemies around the game always drop their guns too, but unfortunately when you pick them up you can only use them for about 30 seconds before the “security feature” on them locks you out. I thought it was a neat idea at first, but it does get a little frustrating that by the time you’ve picked a weapon up and found another set of enemies to kill the gun has locked up. The problem doesn’t really go away either, because for the first couple of hours in the game you are getting used you the Glaive and generally being a bit um… crap with it, but also using your handgun, then later once you’re good with the boomerang there are loads more enemies about, and less ammo for your standard gun, so you are always searching for any dropped weapons. A weird idea for sure, that nearly works but doesn’t quite get it right, just a bit more time or more ammo would have solved the problem.
And that, for me, pretty much sums up Dark Sector as well. It doesn’t quite get it all right. It may copy and emulate features from Gears of War and Resident Evil 4, but they are two highly polished videogames, and unfortunately Dark Sector is not. The controls are not as refined or as smooth as other games, and the whole weapons upgrading system just doesn’t feel like you’re making much of a difference compared to what happened in Resident Evil 4. There are also quite a few bugs and glitches left in the game too, such as AI breaking completely, or dead enemies hanging mid air or flapping around on the floor. Dark Sector is a good game, it really is, but it’s not a very polished one.
What kept my interest up was the fact that it’s an enjoyable game to play. The levels are well designed, with some very interesting environment changes where in one chapter you’re battling through a war-torn city, and next you’re in the sewers, or ancient Devil May Cry-style cathedrals, and then fighting your way around a sinking ship. There is lots of variety here, and it all works really well at setting the tone for the story. It also plays well too, and although I said it may not be as polished as certain other games, it still controls well, and shows that the cover-shoot-run-cover mechanic works very well indeed.
Dark Sector looks great, with fantastic texturing and lighting effects throughout. It almost looks like it uses the Unreal 3 engine at times, which is very impressive considering the Digital Extremes used their own proprietary game engine. The game sounds sweet too, with some great cinematic music and environmental audio, although the Glaive and human enemy death sound samples really start to get on your nerves after a while – a bit of variation in there would have been appreciated. Load times are virtually zero, which great, and even better is the “retry level” load time of zero seconds – not many games manage to pull that off these days.
Overall I enjoyed the ten or so hours it took me to complete Dark Sector. I wasn’t so sure about it before I played it, and even after an hour or so I wasn’t completely sold, but once I had gotten used to the Glaive and made sure to ration bullets the game became a great experience. Forget the story, it’s ridiculous, just sit back and enjoy what the game for what it is; a dark, violent action shooter that plays almost as good as it looks.
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