The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Now with that being said Dark Sector is a game that knows it's place, It's not trying to blow you're mind with over the top cinematics or start a franchise of games, its simply a fun game that tries something new and succeeds at it. Many people will hop into this game thinking they are using the Unreal Engine 3 because of the dark gritty environments. You will be very surprised to know this is not the Unreal Engine but a new engine known as the Evolution Engine. The game is simply beautiful from the golden dusk vistas to the gloomy dark blue cemeterys. However the game starts off in black and white, and only until Hayden (you're main character) becomes infected with a virus does the world fill with color. I believe this has something to do with character development because Hayden is a very ruthless killer in the beginning and only once he becomes infected with a virus does he see "The Light" and change his ways. This "virus" is all over and its very clear in the environment as you can see dozens of body bags thrown next to trash cans and the fact that everyone is wearing a gas mask and environmental suits makes it pretty obvious. You're mission pertains to this virus in a great deal because you must stop a rouge agent who seeks to control the virus and use it for evil. However you're mission turns sour when you yourself get infected and receive a new weapon known as a Glaive. However after you receive the glaive the game really starts to open up and show its strengths. The glaive is used like a boomerang and once thrown in combat it will automatically find its way back to Hayden no matter what. The core of the gameplay revolves around this glaive and most of the games puzzles and bosses must be defeated with proper use of it. For example you're glaive can absorb 3 elements; Fire, Ice and Electricity. Now if you came across a river you would throw you're glaive into ice then throw it into the river, the river would then freeze over making a ice bridge for you to cross. This concept will work the same for bosses and will constantly be used for puzzle solving throughout the game. You can also freeze, burn, or electrocute your enemies with these elements making for some very strategic gameplay. Hayden also receives 4 powers throughout the experience. The first power will let you throw the glaive for quadruple damage, however you must throw it when you're reticule turns yellow otherwise it will not work. This can take some time to get down but once you do, you will feel like a glaive master. The second power is my favorite, it allows you to slow down time and take control of the glaive in mid-flight. This is great because you will have full control of the glaive, with the ability to turn it around corners leaving you're enemies little cover to hide behind. It's satisfying to see you're enemies die in slow motion as well, wheather it be sawing them in half, decapitating them, or just taking off one of their limbs. The 3rd power is probably the most useful because it creates a huge shield that reflects bullets, missiles and any other projectile thrown at Hayden. The shield will only last for a few seconds so you must use it sparingly before it recharges again. The 4th and final power is "Invisibility" this power is pretty self-explanatory but it will make it easier to pull off some of Haydens brutal finishers. These finishers must be executed when you're enemies are blinking red or when you sneak up behind them. Some of these can be a simple snap of the neck while some look like brutal murder. In one finisher Hayden took his glaive and stabbed the enemy in the gut, then proceeded to run it up to the enemies neck then turned him around and sliced his head off. That is only one of the many finishers you will see, also you will get a different finisher depending on the enemy you kill as well. There are a number of different enemies in Dark Sector. They span from regular humans, to zombies, to things that can only be described as gargoyles with powers. You are always up against something new and it keeps things fresh so it never becomes too repetitive. Also to break up the action there are a couple of moments when you control a walking tank known as a "Jackal". The Jackal moments are great, you get to blow you're enemies away with a chain gun and missiles, you also have a pretty cool defensive option with the ability to diverge oncoming missiles with signal flares, much like fighter planes do in dogfights. Another thing keeping things fresh was the scary moments in the game, it should be known that I jumped a couple times playing this one and things can get pretty eerie at times. Now after reading about all these powers and tanks I know what you're thinking "Wow this game must be easy". The funny thing is it really wasn't easy at all, I found myself dying a lot and actually having trouble with the learning curve in it. Not until after I mastered Hayden's abilities did the game get a little easier, but you must learn to be one with you're glaive and learn how to use you're powers properly, otherwise you're zombie food.


The Bad

Dark Sector is a great game but all games have their faults and Dark Sector is no exception. One of the main problems is the story. You really don't have a good idea of whats going on and its all just happening so fast you really can't keep up. Also you will notice connections with these characters in the game, but you don't know how they got to know each other or why they are so close, its like the game just expects you to know. It is also clear Hayden has a dark past and everyone keeps referring to him like some monster but without knowing his full background you don't really care. Another problem is the voice acting. Its hard for me to say it was bad but, the thing is you just don't believe the things they are saying, their words have no emotion behind them and the dialog can be just plain bad at times. It saddens me because there is such potential for a great story and they completely ruined it. One thing that will really take you out of the experience is the enemy AI. I swear sometimes I thought the enemies I was fighting were autistic, somtimes the enemy would just stare off into space or run around in circles staying as far away from cover as possible. I noticed most of these encounters would happen only with the human and zombie AI, the gargoyle AI actually worked really well. These problems were all pretty bad but perhaps the biggest problem lies within the upgrade system. There are tons of collectible upgrades all over the map and you can upgrade you're guns with perks similar to ones in Call of Duty like a bigger ammo clip or rounds that pierce through you're enemies etc. These are great but the fact you cannot removes these upgrades once they have been attached is very frustrating. In one instance I upgraded my pistol with extra firepower and it barley added anything to my damage, I could not take the upgrade off and put it on another gun it was just simply wasted and I also lost an upgrade slot. In order to get it off I had to restart my game and do it again. One thing that might leave the online gamers a little pissed off is the fact the online is non-existent now. Yeah it seems no one is playing Dark Sector online at all. At first I was a little disappointed but then I realized the game was 10.00$, and forgot all about online.

The Ugly
One thing about games nowadays, if you get bad AI you usually get bad glitches, they always seem to go hand an hand in video games. The usual clipping in and out of walls, guns sticking to objects, you're glaive going through walls, you know all those stupid glitches...there are all here. However I played the game twice and failed to see as many glitches on the "brutal" difficulty setting, it was very odd. Another thing I found to be very odd was the cover system, it actually worked very well, being very responsive, much like Gears of War but the one thing that made it on the ugly list was switching from cover to cover. The odd thing was whenever I would switch from wall to wall Hayden would automatically come off the wall and stand in plain site, time and time again it would happen until I figured out you had to press A again once hitting your back against another piece of cover. It is done very sloppy and many times you will forget to press A that second time getting yourself shot and killed. However once mastered things can run pretty smooth. However there is no blind-fire capability and in games with a cover system blind-fire can be pretty important nowadays. Also a couple of times I was on a small piece of cover and had no ability to duck leaving my head exposed for enemies to pick off, this can get really annoying. But I'd have to say out of all of the ugly things with Dark Sector I would have to say the melee is the ugliest feature of them all, however this is a big complaint I have with 3rd person shooters in general. It seems Gears Of War is the only one that got it down pretty good with the chainsaw but even that is really broken in multiplayer, Resident Evil has a bad melee as well, how stupid is standing there with a knife waiting for an enemy to come in range to slice them? Aren't knife fights suppose to be fast paced and quick movements? Well unfortunately Dark Sector doesn't really break any mold here, the melee attacks go through you're enemies and basically have no affect even when they do strike, leaving them pretty much useless. I patiently await the day when 3rd person shooters get the melee down right.

Final Grade 8.5

Final Thoughts
I gave Dark Sector an 8.5 because I believe it was a great game and was just really over-shadowed by games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Condemmed2: Bloodshot, Army Of Two and God Of War: Chains of Olympus, games that all came out in March of 2008. People failed to see it under all of these new releases and it really didn't help sales. It is unfortunate because Dark Sector was one of the first games being developed for 360, however it was scraped in the early stages and the developers had to start over, which is why it took so long to release. I feel if it had been released before games such as Gears of War it would have been one of the better known tittles. Instead critics will bash Dark Sector and say it falls short of being one of the greats. Dark Sector will diminish in the dark and will never have its time under the spotlight and its a damn shame. The reason I did this review is so people will pick this game up and see how great of a game Dark Sector really is, so if you liked what you read do yourself a favor an pick this one up... I mean come on it's 10.00$.