Brutal Gamer

Dark Sector (PS3) Review

By Zeth - September 29, 2008 - 21:37 UTC

The little game that could… Or could it?  Yes Digital Extremes has been teasing us with the title since 2001, but does it hold up?  Hit the jump to see the Brutal Gamer review…

Announced on the 11th of February 2000 via the Digital Extremes website this 3rd person shooter title has gone through radical changes and gargantuan delays to reach us.  In fact, it’s a miracle it did at all really with the amount of games that get canned for less.  Everything was quiet after the original announcement and Digital Extremes continued to churn out other products, but no news of Dark Sector.  Then in 2006 – around the times of the Xbox 360 release – it re-surfaced looking radically different to the early art work and story boards.  The game finally went gold on March 7th 2008. Part of the problem with the delays was reported to be the shift from the Sector engine to the Evolution Engine – both proprietary engines coded in house at Digital Extreme.

Set in a lightly futuristic, pseudo soviet block country, the back drop to Dark Sector is fairly desolate.  You take control of the main character Hayden Tenno (voiced by the actor Michael Rosenbaum of such programmes as Smallville) a CIA operative who gets sent in to do the dirty work and clean up sensitive situations.  He is a ruthless killer who has congenital analgia, a real affliction that does not allow him to feel pain.  During the course of the game you become infected with the virus that has plagued the locals.  This causes your character too slowly mutate throughout the game, the immediate effect being his right arms and shoulder.  This makes a large throwing star like object appear from his right hand called the “Glaive”.  Your objective is to get through the infected sectors chasing Robert Mezner, a crazed individual who hopes to spread the mutation throughout the word in a bid to create a new Utopia – yeah that old chestnut

The graphics in the game are nice and fluid with an Unreal-type edge to them (not surprising as Digital Extremes developed Unreal!).  The textures are reasonably high res and animations are fluid enough.  The run mechanic has been lifted from Gears of War and to be honest, slightly broken on the way.  The camera locks in to position as it does in GoW but it seems just a little off and does not allow a good view of the playing field whilst running.  The light and texture effects again are of a good quality and for the most part the camera does as it it told.  There are plenty of bells and whistles and effects are thrown around with gay abandon but for some reason it just doesn’t quite gel together.  Sure it looks good at times but in other places it looks patchy and a little ugly.  Frame rate stays pretty solid and no real glitches reared their heads so a general thumbs up in the direction of the Evolution Engine on it’s first outing.

The game play takes place from the 3rd person perspective in a style borrowed liberally from titles like GoW.  The Glaive acts as a ranged / projectile weapon and can be used to pick off enemies at a distance or, as an up close and personal knife attack.  The Glaive adds to the game and is welcomed as ammo is fairly scarce, not to mention that you can’t pick up weapons and use them.  Well actually you can but they only last about ten seconds before they explode so you can get a clip off and then you have to drop them fast.  Weapons can be purchased from the Black Market in exchange for the dollars you find located around the levels and although the weapons feel meaty enough they never reach spectacular or totally satisfying.  The same can be said of the combat with the Glaive itself.

A great idea on paper and very close to being great in application, the Glaive just feels a little underpowered.  Interviews with the devs nearing release stated that they had “toned down” the Glaive as it was too easy to decapitate the enemies and progress with little else required.  In some ways I think they neutered it a little too much.  You can use it as a death wielding boomerang, or you can use it as a shield to protect you for limited amounts of time.  Also, you can throw the glaive into electricity or fire and it inherits those properties for a short time (say roughly ten seconds) allowing you to deal out more death (at later stages you can “explode” the resource on the Glaive in showering enemies in fire or electricity).  You also use the Glaive to collect hard to reach items (a la Zelda’s boomerang) and to solve puzzles.  You can enter into a slow mo view and take direct control of the Glaive (a la the arrows in Heavenly Sword) and use either the analogue stick or the Six Axis controls.  The Six Axis, although fun, is a real bitch to control and after a while you will be turning it off in favor of the accuracy the analogue stick gives you.

Sound is a real top feature with this title.  The voice acting is spot on with the afore mentioned Michael Rosenbaum doing a good job with the paper thin script and story.  Other star turns include Dwight Schultz (The A Team and Star Trek) as the main protagonist Robert Mezner.  The spot effects, guns, explosions and cry of pain all hit the right spot with plenty of variety – although the Glaive does sound a little like a hub cap or bin lid being span on it’s axis.  The music, although not striking or in your face, serves it’s purpose well and add pace and weight to the story, which it greatly needs.

Longevity might be a toughie on this one.  Where as the campaign is not exactly short but that’s mainly due to a large amount of frustration, with the lack of good weapons and a large dollop of “Where the fuck do I go now?!”.  This game reminded me what it was like to play games 5 or 6 years ago when you could wander aimlessly trying to work out where to go next. Or spend an hour trying to take down an enemy that, had you stunned it and walked around it’s back, you could of taken over and ridden.  I don’t expect to be spoon fed games but I expect the pace to be a little tighter than that.  The complete game weighed in at around 13 hours for me which by the end of it was more than enough – not in a bad way I had just reached saturation with the game and style.  There is an online multiplayer segment to this title and being as it was from the daddies of Unreal, I had some high hopes. They soon disappeared.  There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the two multiplayer styles (Infection & Epidemic) but there is a distinct lack of players and a real lack of a hook to draw you back to it.  The multiplayer features a randomly selected Hayden character in a deathmatch against many soldier characters and an alternate mode involves two Hayden characters on separate teams; with one team attempting to kill the opposing teams Hayden first.  In each of these modes Hayden will have superior skills, weapons and the Glaive – fair huh!  The weapon system offers a small amount of modding but has limited slots.  You can pick up the special weapon skills from around levels and use them on your weapons.  You have a pistol, shotgun and assault rifle at your disposal.  The upgrades are things like double shot, fast reload, double clip.  This adds a little to the overall game but, like so many areas, is never fully realised and falls just short of being noteworthy.

All in all I am confused about Dark Sector, and I’m not surprised, as Dark Sector is confused about itself.  It is a mish-mash of great gaming ideas grafted to a game that started development almost a decade ago.  Its not a bad title by any means; frustrating at times yes; and I think it has received some piss poor press since release.  This is due in part to the fact that expectations had been so high with all those delays.  Scratch below the surface and you will see cracks my friends, but enjoy the title for what it can offer and you will get a good game out of it.  Sure some things are damaged or not fully realized in the game but nothing is fundamentally broken.  The graphics and sound pitch it near the top tear of titles on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and apart from the odd slip it keeps up well.  I picked it up from Game for £12 ($24) and to be honest it was a good deal for such a new game – so if you see it for around £16 ($30) or less try it out.  If you like 3rd person shooters then give it a go – it’s a safe bet as a rental also.  It robs things from some of the greats (GoW, Zelda, MGS etc) and pulls most of them off well enough.  The muted sequel will get a close look from me as I would like to play this game once it has been refined and polished a little more.  The story is poor, but the premise might carry through.

Related posts:

1. RUMOUR – Perfect Dark Coming To XBLA? Before the atrocity that was Perfect Dark Zero on the...
2. Dark Void flying on worldwide shelves in January ‘10 It seems that a lot of game developers have a...
3. Gears of War 2 : Dark Corners DLC Details Oh yes!  Major news coming out from Microsoft with the...
4. Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena demo now live Just woke up on this lovely sunny morning and browsed...