Dark Sector

April 3,2008 - Taking a break from using the Unreal engine, Digital Extremes has decided to incorporate the Evolution Engine to tackle another project. Incorporating the best elements from their other projects like Warpath and Pariah, and listening to the criticisms about the same games, Digital Extremes and D3Publisher has created a story-driven, atmospheric, action/shooter that will pique the interest of any sci-fi nerd.

Dark Sector takes place in the Russian-held province of Lasria, a once prosperous city that first crumbled under the might of the Nazis, then the Soviets, and now a virulent plague known as the Technocyte Virus. Protagonist Hayden Tenno fulfills his black-ops assignment by tracking down a scientist trying to unleash the virus on the rest of the world.

Once there, though, he is soon overpowered and infected with the virus, but rather than turning him into a mutated killing machine as it does to all others, Hayden’s psyche is affected conversely. The story is actually passable and the cut-scenes are well directed. The end, though, is almost an anti-climax. There are no big surprises or mind-blowing twists; it ends how you would expect it to.

Hayden’s body begins to partially mutate to the metallic sheen like the other victims. To his benefit, a booster shot he received before the mission keeps the resident virus solely in his right arm. A sharp-glaive grows from it, and Hayden will use it for the rest of the game as his fall-back weapon because ammo is scarce.

The virus also grants Hayden superhuman powers, but these powers are only acquired intermittently throughout the game. A consequence of this is that the action starts out slow, unwieldy and boring but gradually gets quicker and more visceral. On top of absorbing elements into his glaive, Hayden will also receive the abilities to disappear, create a temporary shield, and direct the glaive in slow-motion.

Add some flashy finishing moves at the melee level in for good measure, and you have a hundred different ways to kill a foe. This is very important because you’ll be mostly fighting Soviet soldiers and scattered infected, which has the potential to become a humdrum activity. The only real problem with the combat is the melee system.

That is a huge problem because melee combat should be a very basic component of gameplay. For some reason, the developer decided that melee moves would either rarely hit, or cause one-fourth the damage of a bullet would. Attempting to perform a finishing move may be unsuccessful as well because of the exact positioning of your body required by the system.

Most of your firefights will be fought from behind cover so you’ll be spared the melee for the most part. Enemies will also take cover and attempt to flank you. Since you’re always behind cover, you’d expect the ability to blind fire from it like you can in most recent shooters. Unfortunately, you can’t.

Shooting blindly will only lead to the realization that you’ll have to stand up into the suppressing fire the enemies are laying down just to have a shot at them. This is definitely a design decision, because combat might become too easy with the ability to control the direction of a thrown glaive. Besides, we already said ammo was constrained, so it’s not really worth it to shoot blindly anyway.

Instead of presenting the same crumbling landscape time and time again, Digital Extremes was keen to vary their environments and enemy placements. Even moderate changes to the same environments are welcome because they keep the adventure fresh. The graphics aren’t pushing any limits with detail, but the art is directed rather well to create an environment of hopelessness and despair with a touch of science fiction.

The developer also made an excellent design decision to have no HUD onscreen unless you are aiming or switching weapons, and even then it’s very minimalist. This serves to further immerse the player in the environment as well as the story, and sometimes both. The back-story is integrated well into the environment, as it is oftentimes delivered through listening to radios scattered about or watching military slideshows left on.

The music also perfectly reflects the brooding and ominous mood of the piece from the start menu. On the whole, the voice acting was delivered on par, with only a couple spots falling flat. Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luther on the TV series Smallville, voiced protagonist Hayden Tenno and falls into character fairly easily.

Online play is confined to two similar modes. Two teams will start on opposite sides of the map, with only one of them spawning as Hayden and the rest as soldiers. We’re glad it worked out this way because a map full of glaives flying about and invisible assassins just would not have worked out.

Therefore, it becomes a lively strategy for the soldiers to protect their Hayden while trying to kill the other team’s. Think of it as a variation on Halo’s VIP setting. Nobody, not even the VIPs, has very much health, so you need to be conservative with your movements and make sure to always travel with a teammate.

On the whole, while a few elements of combat fall short, a decent story coupled with consistently delivered “Wow!” moments make Dark Sector enjoyable. Rather than creating anything explicitly unique, Dark Sector borrowed elements from games like F.E.A.R, BioShock, Resident Evil, and Pariah, tossed them in a pot to boil, and produced a game that will sate any player's hunger. We do wish, though, that it had stayed in the broth a little longer so that Digital Extremes could deliver on a few more of their promises.

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