A very solid actiongame but it completely lacks personality.
Lets start by just stating what is already clear as daylight. Dark Sector is the most obvious Gears of War ripoff there will ever be. Exacly everything controls like Gears but not as smoothly. The camera works the exact same way, the shooting works the exact same way and the engine they are using actually looks a whole lot like Unreal Engine 3 even tho its not. Gears took alot of influenses from Resident Evil 4 and Dark Sector might be a bit more geared towards the RE4 parts of Gears of War and almost trespasses over to be a RE4 clone at times. Anyways, this results in the game feeling like exacly that, a ripoff of other kickass games, but it also results in it being extremely satisfying. I feel like I play Gears with a new skin and so I am naturally enjoying it alot. There is a unique twist to Dark Sector tho and you have probably seen it already. The glaive, wich you can dual wield with 1 handed guns and use to decapitate enemies or solves puzzles. A battle often resolves in you getting behind cover, popping up, throwing the glaive and firing a couple of rounds with your gun and it works very nice. The game also feautures some really awesome finishing moves. When you sometimes manage to stun your enemies you can run up and finish them off with a brutal finishing move that triggers a very short cutscene of Hayden doing something awesome to finish off his enemy. It never gets old and feels very satisfying.
In the more RE4 heavy parts of the game you end up vs hordes of rushing zombies rather than soldiers and the game switches on you completely making you rarely use cover and forces you to switch to shotguns and using the glaive as a melee weapon. Both parts of the game comes together really well and as I said, it comes together to form an actiongame that is, at its core, almost as satisfying as both of the games it copies wich is a very good place to be in.
The story of the game is a mess. You never really know who you are other than some "agent" named Hayden that has an ungly face and that is sent to some eastern europe country to stop a man gone crazy and the infection he is spreading through the population turning people into zombies. Hayden very early on becomes infected by this and his right arm starts to change, giving him the glaive and later on, more cool skills to play around with. The infection itself is very nicely done and very seamless. Early on in the game when the infection is rapidly spreading over his arm you can actually see it going through a level, crawling up your arm. 1 second your arm is only half way infected, then you shoot some badguys and discover that the infection has climbed closer to your shoulder. The infection keeps spreading thoughout the game and it results in both some cool storyelements and some cool skills very late in the game. Hayden has to battle with his own mind as he also battles the enemies. The infection is his enemy but also his weapon.
Anyways, the story is extremely uninteresting as a whole and every character that they for wierd reasons decide to throw in there are all boring and really have no personalities to speak of what so ever. Even their faces feels like they just lack any kind of modelling and just look so forgettable.
The personality problems is a pretty big problem overall. The game itself is a hybrid of 2 other games and the leveldesign is very blend. The levels blend together to form generic streets, generic tunnels, and textbook example A graveyards or apartment complexes. Except for 1 stage pretty late on in the game (wich made me think I was in the Silent Hill 2 hospital for a while) all the levels just mixes together without any structure to them. The same can be said for enemies. They lack personality and appeal and come off looking like random zombies and random soldiers. I dont want to sound like a broken record here so Ill just say you can apply this to most of the stuff in the game.
On the technical side tho the game actually looks really good. I would even go as far as to say it looks stunning in some parts. Some levels really shine with technical feats and its really a blessing to lay eyes on for the most part. Weather effects are used to great extent, wich I applaud. Youll see many levels with heavy rain in this game and its mighty impressive every time. The same cannot be said for the sound. Apply the personality problem to everything when it comes to sound and lets move on.
I would have liked to see some polish to the game. On occasion the camrea goes through the world, the sound of rain is heard but the actual rain is glitching so its only visible in wierd angles, enemies will spawn in their original no-animation positions and they will also sometimes lose their AI and just stand there & bosses have no lifebars so you dont really know if you are doing any damage to them. Stuff like this is what really separates Dark Sector from the big boys. Theres not enough attention to detail and not enough polish for it to really rise up. When you start to pick up skills like bullet reflecting, invisibility and start to mix in electricity, fire and ice to your glaive throwing, and when you are switching between a sawed off shotgun to squash zombies and getting into walker tanks for awesome shooting action the game feels so right. Sometimes I dont really care at all about all of the polishing problems the game has. .
Overall this IS really a great actiontitle that only sometimes feels more frustrating than fun and that just steals from the best but totally gets away with it for some reason. Its great to look at and mixes some really nice horror elements into the heavy action. The glaive is not just a gimmick, it is actually really cool to use and I most certainly recommend the title to anyone that has enjoyed coverbased action in this latest generation, not just gears fans. As long as you dont expect that the story or characters will drive you on and as long as you can get through it even tho it lacks polish and cool looking enemies, you will certainly have fun with Dark Sector. Its to much of a carbon copy to completely stand on its own amongst the giants but if you want a horror-action fix to tip you over between the really great titles Dark Sector is worth every penny.
In the more RE4 heavy parts of the game you end up vs hordes of rushing zombies rather than soldiers and the game switches on you completely making you rarely use cover and forces you to switch to shotguns and using the glaive as a melee weapon. Both parts of the game comes together really well and as I said, it comes together to form an actiongame that is, at its core, almost as satisfying as both of the games it copies wich is a very good place to be in.
The story of the game is a mess. You never really know who you are other than some "agent" named Hayden that has an ungly face and that is sent to some eastern europe country to stop a man gone crazy and the infection he is spreading through the population turning people into zombies. Hayden very early on becomes infected by this and his right arm starts to change, giving him the glaive and later on, more cool skills to play around with. The infection itself is very nicely done and very seamless. Early on in the game when the infection is rapidly spreading over his arm you can actually see it going through a level, crawling up your arm. 1 second your arm is only half way infected, then you shoot some badguys and discover that the infection has climbed closer to your shoulder. The infection keeps spreading thoughout the game and it results in both some cool storyelements and some cool skills very late in the game. Hayden has to battle with his own mind as he also battles the enemies. The infection is his enemy but also his weapon.
Anyways, the story is extremely uninteresting as a whole and every character that they for wierd reasons decide to throw in there are all boring and really have no personalities to speak of what so ever. Even their faces feels like they just lack any kind of modelling and just look so forgettable.
The personality problems is a pretty big problem overall. The game itself is a hybrid of 2 other games and the leveldesign is very blend. The levels blend together to form generic streets, generic tunnels, and textbook example A graveyards or apartment complexes. Except for 1 stage pretty late on in the game (wich made me think I was in the Silent Hill 2 hospital for a while) all the levels just mixes together without any structure to them. The same can be said for enemies. They lack personality and appeal and come off looking like random zombies and random soldiers. I dont want to sound like a broken record here so Ill just say you can apply this to most of the stuff in the game.
On the technical side tho the game actually looks really good. I would even go as far as to say it looks stunning in some parts. Some levels really shine with technical feats and its really a blessing to lay eyes on for the most part. Weather effects are used to great extent, wich I applaud. Youll see many levels with heavy rain in this game and its mighty impressive every time. The same cannot be said for the sound. Apply the personality problem to everything when it comes to sound and lets move on.
I would have liked to see some polish to the game. On occasion the camrea goes through the world, the sound of rain is heard but the actual rain is glitching so its only visible in wierd angles, enemies will spawn in their original no-animation positions and they will also sometimes lose their AI and just stand there & bosses have no lifebars so you dont really know if you are doing any damage to them. Stuff like this is what really separates Dark Sector from the big boys. Theres not enough attention to detail and not enough polish for it to really rise up. When you start to pick up skills like bullet reflecting, invisibility and start to mix in electricity, fire and ice to your glaive throwing, and when you are switching between a sawed off shotgun to squash zombies and getting into walker tanks for awesome shooting action the game feels so right. Sometimes I dont really care at all about all of the polishing problems the game has. .
Overall this IS really a great actiontitle that only sometimes feels more frustrating than fun and that just steals from the best but totally gets away with it for some reason. Its great to look at and mixes some really nice horror elements into the heavy action. The glaive is not just a gimmick, it is actually really cool to use and I most certainly recommend the title to anyone that has enjoyed coverbased action in this latest generation, not just gears fans. As long as you dont expect that the story or characters will drive you on and as long as you can get through it even tho it lacks polish and cool looking enemies, you will certainly have fun with Dark Sector. Its to much of a carbon copy to completely stand on its own amongst the giants but if you want a horror-action fix to tip you over between the really great titles Dark Sector is worth every penny.
