Lets face it; D3 hasnt historically been a publisher known for quality releases. For a long time, they put out terrible PS2 game after terrible PS2 game with some licensed crap thrown in here and there for good measure (Pirates of the Caribbean, Ben 10, Kim Possible, etc.). Somehow, around a year ago, D3 quietly reversed their fortune and put out two of the very best games of 2007, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (available on the DS, PSP and PC) and the criminally underrated Dead Head Fred (PSP). Two quality releases doesnt exactly make up for years of borderline painful games, so I was understandably skeptical about Dark Sector (PS3, 360). The game wasnt even a blip on my radar until a few weeks ago (usually a bad sign
like a movie that you dont see previews for until right around its release). After I checked out a couple of screens and gameplay videos, I left myself become cautiously optimistic. Now that Ive spent some time with the game, Id say that Dark Sector is both blessed and cursed to follow in Dead Head Freds footsteps. Like Fred, the game is a blast to play, but lukewarm advance reviews and a curious lack of marketing will probably hurt the sales numbers. Blockbuster smash or no, Dark Sector is an action extravaganza, with one of the coolest weapons ever, that may very well become 2008s best game no one played.
After a brief, yet fantastic looking, opening scene, Dark Sector instantly reveals to the player that in a world populated by sub-par FPS games and usually even worse 3rd person shooters, the designers werent afraid to buck the trends and go with (i.e. copy) a very Resident Evil 4 style of play. Being that RE4 is one of the Top 10 best games Ive ever played (the Wii version is the definitive package; the GCN version was great, the PS2 version was unplayable
the Wii version topped them both), the over-the-shoulder, zoom-in-to-aim setup grabbed my attention from the very start. Unlike RE4, though, Dark Sector controls almost like a FPS, whereas RE4 didnt have the same dual analog move/shoot setup. RE4 essentially froze the player where they stood while aiming a weapon; Dark Sector allows your character to move and shoot at the same time. If youve played though RE4 as many times as I have (8 and counting), this might take some getting used to. If you were born and bred an FPS player, you wont have any trouble at all. Just for good measure, the developers threw in a little duck-and-cover mechanic that is very, very similar to Gears of War and it works just as well as the RE4 mechanics. I dont really have a problem with games, in this case, Dark Sector, cannibalizing other games for ideas if the source material is as good as RE4 and Gears of War. The controls are tight and aside from sometimes-dull control sensitivity (it can be adjusted) and something Ill get to later, Dark Sector feels fluid and smooth from the get-go.
After you get over the quality of the controls, youll notice two things while playing through the games prologue chapter. The first is that the game gives you only a handful of cursory hints (what button does what); things like reloading, running, switching weapons, etc. are pretty much your responsibility to figure out. While the lack of assistance isnt as bad as, say, Mass Effect, I find that this kind of trial-and-error, Hey bud, why dont YOU figure it out stuff to be the kind of thing that usually gets a game Im playing sold or traded in. I like my games challenging, but not in the way that figuring out in level four or five that, yes, your character can jump can be challenging. Bosses, lasers, enemies, bottomless pits these are cool. Having to find out by accident that you can reload before a clip of ammo is gone isnt.
The other issue is that at the start, the player has absolutely no idea what is going on. Why is this agent infiltrating a decrepit castle? Whats this about a virus? Are we in Russia? Why shoot a man tied to a chair? How do submarines, zombies and generic Russian villains (complete with awful accents) fit into all this? Why is Saren stabbing me (another Mass Effect reference
play the game and youll get it)? It certainly wouldnt have been a bad thing to give the player even just a little more plot, if for no other reason than to hook finicky, easily distracted gamers. The story picks up in later levels, but youll be completely lost at first. Imagine playing Crisis Core or watching Advent Children if you had never heard of, let alone played, Final Fantasy VII. That about as lost as youll feel when starting Dark Sector.
Unfortunately, it would be impossible to write a spoiler-free review for this game. Why? Because you dont start the game with the weapon-to-end-all-weapons. I dont feel too bad, though; if youve seen a television commercial or even the box the game comes in, you know that Dark Sectors biggest draw is a thrown, three bladed boomerang called the Glaive. If youve seen Ninja Scroll, picture the rock-skinned villains boomerang-o-death. Now make it handheld and add a third blade to it. Or simply imagine what the blade in a food processor looks like and how much damage it could cause if you hurled it at someone. Using the Glaive, you can hack multiple enemies to bits in a single brutal throw. Even better, when thrown, the camera zooms right up to the weapon, giving the player the chance to control its path as it bounces off walls and takes off scores of heads and body parts.
