Coming into writing this, I was tentative. This is my first real game since I left World of Warcraft a week ago. From WoW, to Dark Sector, it's a pretty big leap. Instead of....healing another guy, so he could let the enemy hit him, so ANOTHER GUY could stab it with his daggers, I was pretty much just going balls to the wall cutting off peoples arms, heads, setting people on fire, and whatever else I could do to stop the bad guys shooting pain cylinders at me.

But less about how WoW is a work simulator, and more about Dark Sector (Evil 4)

First impressions upon firing up the game. Holy shit this looks nice. Being the first game I'd played since I got a HD television, I didn't really know what to expect. After trying out GTAIV on it, and essentially thinking "Why are the shadows made of.....black jelly", I went into the game thinking "I hope this doesn't look like dog food". How sorely mistaken I was. From the opening cutscene, I was hit by a definitive "Wow" factor. The water, the textures, even my character, albeitly wearing a mask, looked brilliant.

After the initial shock of transition to High definition, I realised. I was standing there with my thumb up my ass, not actually doing anything. So I got cracking. The game gives you no tutorials after "Move the left analogue stick forward to go forward". So I went into the mindset of "I'm playing Gears of War", adopted the control style of it, and went on into the darkness. After running around for a short time, I encountered my first enemy, a gentleman who was having a chat with an "Infected", repressed looking man. Who he shot in the head. With no visceral violence, I was a bit upset. Then I shot him in the head and grey matter (Which was red) splattered. I smiled. Then his friend threw a grenade into my open mouth and I died. So this happened 3 times. I don't know why, but everytime, a grenade landed in my lap. So after sometime I thought "Fuck this", and roadie ran to him, and beat him to death with my pistol butt.

Satisfying.

More bad guys, more guns, nothing much really happened until I got outside and encountered a Hind-D. Conveniently, there was a conveniently placed Stinger missile launcher, to which I proceeded to unload (With great difficulty seeing as the lock on took up to to the time inbetween a vernal equinox to aqcuire a target) and after a short time, proceeded to bring down Liquid.

I was pretty satisified, as that was a pretty good opening chapter and boss fight, but then out of nowhere, Dark Sector(Sons of Liberty) threw some unbeatable metal robot alien ......thing at me. Which proceeded to beat the shit out of me, then infect me. Which annoyed me as I couldn't fight back, but I guess it progressed the storyline, so it works.

This is the point in the game when you get the primary selling point in this title. The Glaive.

This was basically a giant ......glaive that you can throw at enemies and cut off their heads and arms. But....that was pretty much it. Don't think that you have a glaive for an arm, now you can melee them to death with relative ease. You'd do better waving your dick in their face and hoping they faint from the shock of human flesh in a "Gritty realistic" game.

Come to think of it, looking at the box the game came in, I had a realisation. If I wasn't recommended this game by the other attractive author of this blog...why the FUCK would I buy it?

Let's see what the box says- "The Virus. The source of all your pain...your enemy..your POWER. Unleash the deadly power of the glaive and become the hero". What virus, and become the hero OF WHAT? This is where the game falls down. The aesthetics are nice sure, but if you're playing this game for a brilliant plot, and character development, do yourself a favour: