Dark Sector - Review

Added April 6th, 2008 by Justin McBride

In 2004, one of the first games in development for next generation consoles was announced. This title was Dark Sector, originally slated to be a science fiction game, possibly based in space, in which the hero donned a powered suit of armor affording him special abilities. In the nearly four years since then, Dark Sector has undergone a number of changes in both setting and design.  The end result is what we have before us today. Okay, history lesson over. I hope you’ve learned something.

Dark Sector begins in the present day in the fictional Russian city of Lasria. It is here that the lead character of the game and American Special Forces agent, Hayden Tenno, is revealed and you first take control of him. Your initial mission, featuring a black and white color palette, plays as sort of a tutorial for things to come allowing you to adjust to Dark Sector’s relatively simple control scheme in preparation for much bigger things to come. Hayden infiltrates a military compound and soon discovers he has a new mission, to find Mezner, the man responsible for the outbreak of the infection.  This serves as one of the focal points for the game. To say much more would spoil events to come, but let’s just say things kick off rather explosively.

It’s unfortunate that the storyline, which looked to have so much potential in the beginning, falters for a number of reasons including a paper-thin plot and weak cast of characters. Throughout the game, you’ll encounter a number of people that the game does little to elevate their importance. Besides the insignificant role they play in the storyline, there’s little else to make you care. To make things worse, the plot just doesn’t come together as well as it could have.

Dark Sector gleans much from recent tiles such as Resident Evil 4, which will become immediately apparent the second anyone who’s played the game picks up the controller and starts the game. This title uses a familiar third person, over-the-shoulder perspective, zooming in a bit for more precise shots when the L-trigger is pulled. Hayden’s more mundane actions such as sprinting and taking cover behind an object, which have become so common in shooters these days, appear to be ripped straight from Gears of War’s playbook (even the camera that bobs back and forth as Hayden sprints looks similar).

The glaive, introduced very early on, is a very powerful weapon whether thrown or used during melee.  When thrown, it returns to Hayden every time like a boomerang and perhaps because of this, the glaive is a highly entertaining and effective weapon to utilize in combat with a squad of unsuspecting, gun-toting bad guys. As you progress you’ll soon discover the glaive has many uses beyond its role as an effective combat tool. It can be used to unlock doors, retrieve faraway items for you and even be imbued with any of three elements commonly encountered in the environment ranging from fire to electricity and ice. These elements will often be needed to accomplish certain environmental puzzles ranging from opening a mechanically locked door with an electrically charged glaive to throwing an icy glaive through flames blocking your path to extinguish them.

Dark Sector is undoubtedly a very visceral game, primarily because of the glaive. The glaive effortlessly shears off limbs and slices through your opponents like a hot knife through butter and can literally saw foes in half. For dealing with foes at close range, Dark Sector features a competent (if only just) melee system. To offset the system being rather clunky due to the limited power of your strikes as well as some spotty hit detection, the option to finish your opponent becomes available. By going in close and pressing the melee button once more when the prompt appears, Hayden will deliver a killing blow (or series of blows) to finish off the opposition in a most spectacularly gory and, above all, painful-looking fashion.

As you advance through the game and the infection takes a greater hold on Hayden, he develops new abilities referred to as Evolutionary Powers. Very early in the game, you gain the ability to “power throw” the glaive at quadruple the strength with proper timing, which has to be very precise. To further complement this; perhaps one of the cooler talents you obtain relatively early on is the “aftertouch” ability, which shifts the camera angle behind the glaive and allows you to alter its course mid flight. Flying the glaive around corners, over obstacles and into your enemies, all in slow motion, is twisted fun. In addition, Hayden eventually acquires the skill to create a momentary shield which reflects projectiles, sending them right back at the person who fired them and the ability to cloak. With all these different powers at your disposal, you’ll probably feel like an unstoppable force, which is an awesome feeling.

With all these abilities and considering how entertaining the glaive is to use, the gunplay feels a bit underwhelming. That’s not to say using any of the many weapons is unsatisfactory, because it isn’t, especially when using the many shotguns and assault rifles. Throughout the game, you’ll encounter manhole covers emblazoned with a lotus design, which lead you into the game’s “Black Market” where you can purchase weaponry and apply the upgrades you’ll find peppered throughout the environment to the weapons you already possess. As you progress through the game, you’re going to have to buy an assault rifle or shotgun of your own, due to the fact that weapons procured from fallen soldiers have governors installed which render them useless within a matter of seconds after Hayden picks them up.

To break up the constant back and forth shooting and glaive throwing, there are a number of times you’ll have to actually explore the environment around you. In many instances, exploration is not only essential to further progression in the game by completing some simplistic puzzles but also beneficial to you by finding not only additional ammunition and weapon upgrades but also money you’ll use in the Black Market.

Throughout the game, Hayden takes on a number of boss characters in battles which are a decent challenge…most of the time. These bosses are often multiple times Hayden’s size and range from heavily armed helicopters to mutated beasts so they certainly look the part. It’s strange but that eerie sense of impending doom bosses are known to incite within players rarely struck me. During many of these battles, there was rarely a single blow strong enough to kill me and my health usually regenerated in the following lull. Despite this, many of the boss battles are still very entertaining because they make you think. Most of the fun moments in these battles come about as you figure out how to defeat your opponent, more so than actually performing the action. It’s that satisfying “eureka” moment that makes boss conflicts so worthwhile.

Dark Sector, like many shooters these days, features a multiplayer component. Before you jump for joy, it must be said that it feels sort of like an afterthought. It’s almost as if the developers were sitting around the table and decided, as the game was nearing completion, “Hey, let’s throw some multiplayer in there” only to gain the approval of the online-addicted subset of gamers that foam at the mouth at anything which grants them the opportunity to play online.

Moving on, Dark Sector features two (yes, two…) multiplayer modes: Infection and Epidemic that take place on any of five maps for up to ten players. The Infection mode begins with one player as Hayden, with all of his many abilities and skills intact, and the other nine players assuming the roles of the same run of the mill grunts you encounter during the single player story. These grunts are armed with only one randomly selected weapon (an assault rifle or shotgun) and a couple grenades.  You would think the other nine players would have an advantage. Unfortunately, due to Hayden being the nigh unstoppable killing machine he is; this is not the case. Should you triumph over Hayden and deliver the finishing blow, you are infected and begin the next round as Hayden. The Epidemic mode is comparable to the standard team deathmatch we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years but features a few interesting tweaks. Both teams, of up to five, feature one player who assumes the role of Hayden. The objective for both teams is simply to kill the other team’s Hayden, but of course this is harder than it sounds.

Multiplayer battles in each of the two modes can play out nearly identical to those in the single player campaign, in which the Hayden character can easily dominate the others, especially given his shield and cloak abilities. Suddenly cloaking, reappearing behind an opponent and snapping their necks is pretty fun to pull off but not so much when it happens to you. Needless to say, it’s by far more fun to play as the Hayden character with all of his latent abilities in tow. Overall, the multiplayer can be good fun, and it is pretty balanced in most respects, provided you have enough decent players in the room.  Sadly the paltry two modes and five maps don’t feel as if they will have a lasting effect.

It’s hard not to be impressed with Dark Sector’s visuals, which feature some amazing character models, highly detailed environments and good-looking special effects. Sure, there’s the errant low-res texture here and there and occasional framerate drops when the on screen action becomes a little too hectic but thankfully, there’s not enough of them to really spoil the visual experience. The dark and moody atmosphere is helped a great deal by the exceptional ambient sound effects. Michael Rosenbaum does an admirable job voicing Hayden and the rest of the voice work is solid throughout.

All said; Dark Sector is a pretty good game with a number of interesting elements such as the glaive, which is incredibly fun to wield and never becomes old. The single player story mode is great to play through, despite a few shortcomings in terms of its storyline.  It features enough thrills and combat to keep you thoroughly entertained for the 10 – 12 hour duration. Those expecting the epic sort of storyline the game hints at early on should look elsewhere. While the multiplayer may be a bit lacking in terms of content and modes, it’s good for a few kicks every now and then. Dark Sector may not be the best third person shooter/action game out there but what it does, for the most part, it does well. If you’re in the market for a third person shooter that involves a little more than just shooting, this will make a worthy acquisition for your Xbox 360 library.