Title: Dark Sector
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3(review platform)
Publisher: D3 Publisher of America
Developer: Digital Extremes
ESRB Rating: M for Mature
It's hard to think of a good introduction for Digital Extremes' third-person shooter, Dark Sector. That doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the game or the overall impression it generates. Heavens no. But because of Dark Sector's overall focus, it has suddenly become difficult to really build up any kind of meaty introduction for you, the reader, to chew on. So in one, general summation, Dark Sector is one of those "gimmick" games we all know and love (or despise). It is a title that solely relies on a single unique feature to make it stand out above all others in a particular genre.
You know exactly what those "gimmick" games are. You've played plenty of them in the past, and you'll certainly get your hands on more in the not-too-distant future. It's one of those titles that -without the special, unique feature - sinks into the abyss of countless others saturating the market. Take TimeShift, for example: it offers the player the power to manipulate time by way of a special suit; but without that gimmick, TimeShift would be just another shooter. What would Portal be without... well...portals?
As for Dark Sector's "gimmick" factor, you have the oh-so-handy glaive that would surely cause a lot of headaches in Frisbee Golf not to mention really bad haircuts. The glaive is a three-pronged ring of death that returns to the hero like some sort of deadly boomerang. A four-pronged version can be found in the 1983 fantasy film "Krull." Would the game be as unique - as effective- without it? Probably not. Having that special gimmick isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it seems that some games are developed around that one special feature in mind and nothing else. Still, there's no question that Dark Sector is one of the better games to come from Digital Extremes. And surprisingly, you'll only find it on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For now, anyway.
Dark Sector's biggest selling point is its primary weapon, the glaive, which makes this third-person action title much more entertaining than most generic shooters.
They've certainly come a long way from making pinball games for the PC in the early 1990s. Die-hard FPS fans should instantly recognize their name, having parented the successful Unreal franchise along with Epic Games. But it seems that DE is having a hard time moving forward without its Epic crutch, hobbling around with recent lackluster titles like Pariah and (the now free-to-play) Warpath, as it tries to stand on its own two feet without plummeting to the ground. Its portfolio outside the Unreal franchise is slim and sketchy at best.It seems funny that DE overhauled Dark Sector back in 2006, shedding most of its outer space sci-fi theme for a more identifiable setting with a fictional former Soviet republic. It's probably safe to say that you can thank Epic Games for the shift in Dark Sector's focus.
Many will argue that it's just not one developer, but the industry on a whole that's shifting away from the tried-but-true shooter laced with space-faring aliens and bizarre, otherworldly environments. But you can't help but think of Gears of War when playing Dark Sector, and unfortunately, that comparison may hold true for many games to come, and not just DE's latest foray. It's what we like to refer as the "duck-n-cover dance," which is a new trend in gameplay that allows the character to duck behind a stone column or squat and take cover behind sacks of sand. Additionally, gamers watch the camera shrivel up into a warped, fish bowl view as the player character dashes across the field, visually emphasizing speed although the character isn't running quite as quickly as the screen portrays. Fortunately, U.S. special forces agent Hayden Tenno works alone in Dark Sector, and the game doesn't become another military-themed Gears of War clone.
No, Dark Sector stays true to the "gimmick" theory and focuses on one single character and his death-blade appendage. Whether its first-person or third person, it seems that shooters as of late rely heavily on the squad-based military theme, with AI-controlled company members fighting by your side and weaving the overall dialogue. Dark Sector strays away from that and gives players a more personal mission. Hayden is sent to the decaying, war-torn Lasria on a black ops mission where he encounters an unknown enemy and a mysterious Cold War-era experiment.
The trick is, the glaive is actually part of Hayden, an organic side effect of a man-made infection taking over his body. Called the Technocyte Virus, the infection hardened the standard victim's skin, rendering it metallic and driving the infected insane from the agonizing pain. Rather than creating a crazed zombie out of Hayden, the infection actually turns his right arm into a hardened weapon, thus producing the unique glaive. Naturally, the overall story consists of Hayden tracking down an antagonist planning to unleash the infection on the public. You know those crazy terrorists have nothing else better to do.
The drawback here is that the single-player story fizzles out somewhere along the way until the ending. There's a cool little twist to the plot, however; the story itself was so cliché that you never really get into the character. Supposedly, that was the emphasis of the overall story, which Hayden transforms from a killer to a hero. Supposedly, he was to be the reluctant hero. Neither really came across clearly, maybe more with the former than the latter, but you won't come away saying that Dark Sector was known for its intense dialogue and emotional pull.
In fact, you'll come away from Dark Sector thinking about nothing else except that cool glaive. This weapon was nothing short of awesome once you moved beyond the learning curve. Oh sure, players are given a handful of guns to tote around throughout the game (only two at a time). However, the glaive quickly became the weapon of choice, and all other pistols and shotguns became secondary.
Join our discussion on this topic
