Dark Sector

Dark Sector, is the latest installment from Digital Extremes which puts you in the shoes of Hayden Tenno, a super top agent sent to Lasria (a location in the USSR territory) for an assassination mission. Your mission is to kill a mad man named Mezner who's in possession of a powerful virus that can turn every living being into a freaking zombie. As you make your way through Mezner's soldiers, when you think you had him, his mutated bodyguard pins you down infecting you with the very same virus you were sent to destroy. This is where our story begins.

From that point on, your body suffers mutations, your right hand transforming into a glaive which basically is the game's center of attraction. Hayden can carry a pistol and one more weapon (by picking up dead enemies guns) which will replace the glaive for a short amount of time. After that time, the weapon is automatically dropped. Controlling the glaive is quite easy, as there is a whole tutorial on how to use it efficiently; and can be thrown in direct mode or player controlled. By player control I mean that right after the glaive is in air, pressing the glaive button again allows you to control it using the analog stick or the SIXAXIS feature.

The glaive also has normal or extreme (1 hit kill) damage. If you keep the throw button for about 1 second, the crosshair will turn yellow, ready to instant kill the poor bastards. But that's not all. The powerful weapon can assimilate different elements like: if you throw it in fire, you will light up the enemies, break some ice canisters with it, you will get the ability to freeze the opponents, throwing the glaive over some electrical wires will absorb energy. You get the idea. These proprieties are not just for the fun of combat, but to use them in different in-game puzzles. First, if you happen to come to a locked door, you can only break it with the extreme power throw. Or a door that requires power to open, hit it with electrically charged glaive and voila!

Around the environment, there are scattered boxes containing money or ammunition, also silver briefcases with upgrades are available. From time to time, Hayden will find Black Market locations where all these can be put to use. Buy new pistols, rifles, shotguns and upgrade them with the items found inside those briefcases. These upgrades consists in higher firepower, more ammo or faster reload time and are absolutely necessary as there are a lot of enemies that can only be hurt with weapons.

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Speaking of enemies, the freaking zombies I was talking about earlier are not that dumb. They can flank and flush you out with precise thrown grenades. Another good or bad thing for some is that they come in horde. The same way that Uncharted was so criticized for hordes of pirates, Dark Sector gets the same treatment. Boss battles are also present in this game, monsters that can be defeated if you spot their weakness. Some are less resistant to fire, some to energy and some need a variation of combos like: hit him with fire then quickly charge the glaive with energy.

Dark Sector has, like most of the 3rd person shooters a limited HUD. Monsters don't have a health bar so you don't really know how long it takes until he's dead or if your weapon does any damage to him. You also don't have a health bar, but your health can be described by the screen flashing red. The faster the screen flashed red, the less health you have. The recovering system is just like the rest of the shooters. Take cover for a short amount of time and you're good as new. Hayden must often use the cover-shoot playing style, just like in Gears of War, if you want to survive.

The gameplay will definitely get a boost, unfortunately towards the end of the game, when you get the invisibility ability, allowing you to stealth kill your foes. When behind an enemy, the finishing move status will appear, also when an enemy is low on health, the "fatality" option will also be available, decapitating the enemy and splashing the screen with blood for a more gore feeling. The glaive is not that useful in melee combat, as the opponents don't seem to get very impressed with the glaive's damage.

The environment looks and feels very good, with the help of the special engine named Evolution, which was created in-house by Digital Extremes. The enemies also look great and Hayden does too, but personally I think he looks effeminate (speaking of facial characteristics).

Overall the game can be entertaining; with few drawbacks like repetitive combat and the lack of weapons but if you enjoyed Gears of War or Uncharted then you might just give Dark Sector a chance.

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Gameplay: 77

Despite the fact a glaive kill never ceases to bring a wicked smile on your face, the melee combat is practically non-existent. The AI is not that bad, but the never ending hordes of enemies might push you off the edge.

Graphics: 89

With their own engine, the game looks very good, with nice combination of textures. Using an improved version of Unreal Engine, how could Dark Sector not look good?

Sounds: 85

With lots of melons and cabbages sacrificed for the greater good of Dark Sector, the sound effects are quite good. The voice acting isn't something out of the ordinary and the music is appropriate for the game, but will surely be forgotten on the hearing of a song on MTV.

Multiplayer: 80

The game features only two modes hopefully more in the future. The first one is called Infection where one player gets the role of Hayden and all his powers, while the others try to kill him and be Hayden next round. This is similar to Timeshift's multiplayer mode "King of Time". The second mode is called Epidemic and divides players in two teams, each having a Hayden character on their side, while the team-mates protect him and try to kill the enemy Hayden.