Dark Sector has a pretty face, but serious issues underneath
Dark Sector is an example of a video game clone gone wrong; a game that takes many of the aspects of a previous successful game (in this case Gears of War) but fails to add anything new or meaningful to the experience that would otherwise differentiate itself from the game it's copying.
The game starts you off as Hayden Tenno, a government agent sent to some part of the Soviet Union to prevent mysterious virus from destroying the world. During your mission of spalunking, you eventually find yourself caught and infected with the very virus you came to stop. Being infected isn't all bad however, as it introduces the one thing that Gears of War didn't have, the glaive. A sharp three-pronged boomerang that you can use to slice and dice your enemies in a number of horrific ways. Along the way you gain a couple of different abilities as well like a magical force field and temporary invisibility, but nothing that is as useful or fun to use the glaive.
The combat in Dark Sector is unsatisfying for the most part, as there really are only two main types of enemies that you will fight throughout the game: Gun-totting soldiers, and "mutations" that might as well be zombies. While it's unfortunate that there aren't more types of enemies to fight, the larger issue is the AI. Gears of War was famous not only for having one of the first excellent cover systems, but had superb AI that would take cover when being shot at, while also trying to flank you and catch you off guard. In Dark Sector, more often than not enemies will stand in plain sight while two feet away from cover making most of the fights stupid easy and adds to their repetitiveness. There is a store that allows you to purchase new guns and get upgrades, but I couldn't tell much of a difference when upgrading.
The game also offers the occasional puzzle in order to break of the repetitive combat, but fails to offer anything that requires a good deal of thought. Each puzzle always involves either hitting a switch/button with your glaive, or destroying a piece of the environment by infusing the glaive with fire, lightning or ice. The puzzles never delineate from that style and really only end being time consumers, forcing to to slowly shamble around the level look for a tiny button to open a locked door.
The best thing this game has to offer is it's presentation. The Unreal engine holds up well in this game, offering impressive lighting effects and character models. It is especially impressive when in areas that involve rain, as everything actually looks soaking wet, instead of an added layer of "shine". The sound effects are pretty impressive for the most part. Guns sound powerful and there's a satisfying sound that is applied to the glaive whizzing through the air.
The story in this game might as well be non-existent. At no time during the campaign did I care about what Hayden thought or did, since Hayden isn't much of a character to begin with. His personality and emotions less relate to that of a human who is slowly being eaten away by a virus, and more like a tree. He's one dimensional, and you never get a sense that he has a thought outside of "must complete mission". What about the diabolical antagonist who wishes to spread the virus? Does he have any ulterior motives for turning people into mindless zombies? Nope, he's just evil for the sake of being evil. There are times when the story tries to become something more than a cookie board cut-out of a bad spy thriller, but every time falls flat on its face due to weak dialogue and stale voice overs.
The multi-player doesn't fare well either. The main mode involves one player being Hayden, and having access to all the abilities in the first game. The rest of the players are the basic soldiers searching for Hayden, kill Hayden so that they may become the "new" Hayden in the next game. Unfortunately, my experience involve less of a nail-biting experience that the developers hoped for, and more of a boring game of hide and go seek. Winning becomes due to luck more than skill, which is not only frustrating, but poor game design.
It's disappointing how Dark Sector turned out, especially when you consider how promising it looked when it was first announced. The images looked great and the story the developers were trying to tell sounded promising. Unfortunately, stale combat, tacked-on multi-player and a non-existent story makes this game difficult to recommend even as a rental.
