Brutal and interesting combat among less satisfying gameplay elements
Dark Sector feels like a difficult game to review. On one hand, I look at the hamfisted dialogue and the paper thin premise, as well as what seem like misguided attempts at variety in the forms of puzzle and vehicle sections and instantly want to dismiss it. On the other hand, I look at its approach to third person shooting and combat in general and see a lot of ideas that I genuinely enjoy. Dark Sector is at its absolute best when it focusses on the latter, though its preoccupation with the former is going to be a lot for some people to bear.
You play as Hayden Tenno, a US operative during the cold war working behind enemy lines in the fictional eastern bloc country of Lasria. Starting off, Hayden is essentially a regular soldier, however coming into contact with an experimental virus gives him supernatural abilities, most notably the glaive – effectively a bladed boomerang that allows him to dispatch enemies in gruesome and sadistic ways. Over the course of the game, Hayden discovers more information regarding how the virus is being used by the Soviets and what the US’ interests are surrounding his mission. It’s clear that the story is intended to be taken seriously, though sparse plot points and attempts at drama by delving into Hayden’s past carry almost no weight, and fail to convey any real sense of attachment or make the player feel significantly invested. The game’s plot is largely inconsequential as a result, and creates a means of loosely justifying the scenarios Hayden is roped into, involving murdering legions soviet troops and other people infected by the virus.
And man, does Dark Sector make this fun. Its approach to combat and third person shooting takes a lot of cues from Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, but introduces a number of mechanics that fit together in a truly satisfying way that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Most of the combat revolves around using a one-handed weapon in conjunction with the glaive, using the glaive to stun or dismember enemies, and using guns to quickly dispatch them or finish them off. Humans with automatic rifles and shotguns will drop them upon dying, which you can then pick up from across the battlefield with the glaive. These guns have limited ammo and contain a mechanism that makes them automatically jam after a certain period of time of coming into contact with Hayden’s infection. Killing a soldier, immediately picking up his gun from a distance and firing off every shot as quickly as possible to eliminate the rest of a squad feels crazy and immensely satisfying. Hayden also unlocks a temporary shield, invisibility, and the ability to steer his glaive in mid-air, among other abilities, all of which can be used in a variety of ways, and encourage approaching the combat with a variety of different strategies. The ways in which you use brutally kill with finishing moves and dismember enemies to the sound of their blood-curdling screams are incredibly violent and a little disturbing at points, though they are another thing Dark Sector manages to pull off extremely well. The combat is unabashedly over-the-top and brutal, but most importantly satisfying in ways that you won’t quite find anywhere else.
There are problems that come up involving virtually every other aspect of the gameplay, however. The way you buy and upgrade weapons has some truly baffling design choices – you find weapon upgrades stored in briefcases scattered around the various environments you play through, which can be equipped to the guns you own by accessing the black market shop that appears along certain points in levels. However, upgrades that are applied to guns are permanent, and take up one of the two or three maximum slots available on each weapon. Guns are also expensive, and can only be bought once. Later segments of the game essentially require you to buy an automatic weapon, mainly by virtue of the fact that you will run out of ammo otherwise; however, when I got to a boss encounter where I ran into this problem, I had to restart the entire chapter in order to scrape together enough rubles to afford the cheapest one available. Experimenting with upgrades and other weapons is largely discouraged as a result, and I also found myself in situations where I was finding better upgrades but could never actually use them, and frequently had very little money. Melee attacks and finishing moves also fail to connect in certain situations, making aspects of the game feel not nearly as well polished as they ought to be.
The sections breaking up the regular shooting, while not quite as problematic as some other design elements, are little more than unsatisfying departures from the main combat. There are parts where you’re required to pilot a tank to proceed, which involves slowly moving down a path and constantly having to pause and fire countermeasures to ward off enemy rockets. There are also puzzle sections involving charging the glaive with fire, ice or electricity, and using it on your environment to solve puzzles and proceed to the next section. At times the game will ask you to pilot the glaive in slow motion in order to steer it into a specific target, which is a decent mechanic for picking off enemies with precision, but never fun when it comes to puzzle solving. Boss fights are present, but require strategies than are much more specific than the rest of the combat, making them repetitive and overly punishing. These sections are inoffensive at their best, and frustrating at their worst. They feel like they were included as attempts to add variety, but ultimately come across as half-hearted and uninteresting.
Considering you can get a copy for under $20 today, price is obviously much less of a factor of whether or not you should purchase a copy of Dark Sector. If you’re willing to put up with sketchy and frustrating game design in order to play some genuinely fun and innovative shooting sections with some new ideas, then chances are Dark Sector will be worth your time and money. For those looking for a more refined game, and won’t have the patience for the less satisfying sections breaking up the action, look elsewhere.
