"Dark Sector" is a game from Digital Extremes, the makers of the critically acclaimed Unreal series. The game was first announced in 2004, and now, four years later, it's out and in my hands. Only one question remains: will "Dark Sector" live up to my own personal hype? We shall see...
"Dark Sector" has you take control of Hayden Tenno, a CIA sweeper agent with congenital analgia, a real disease that makes the holder feel no pain. That's why he can take a bullet and still stand up.
In the first level, Hayden is infected by a virus created by a biogenetic weapon experiment gone wrong. This causes his right arm to become a titanium alloy that is virtually impenetrable.
With this demon arm, he also gets a bladed boomerang called the Glaive. This becomes the primary weapon and puzzle element in the game. It works as a flashlight, an energy absorber and an easy-bake oven.
The main problem with "DS" is that the story is virtually nonexistent. The game just has you stumble from fight scene to fight scene to fight scene to cinematic cut-scene to fight scene to fight scene to fight scene to the end of the level.
But even though the story is completely incoherent and stereotypical, the gameplay more than makes up for it.
"Dark Sector" plays like a mixture between "Gears of War" and "Resident Evil 4," with great cover-based combat and plenty of frustration from the enemy AI.
The game takes the second-person shooting position where it puts the camera over one shoulder and tells you "Hey, deal with it." While I personally find this frustrating, it does add difficulty to games.
I never ran out of ammo, and I only used my pistol-Glaive combo, so that tells you how awesome the Glaive is. The puzzles are incredibly simple -- so much so that even an inbred monkey could do them in seconds.
All things considered, "Dark Sector" is a pretty good game, though it doesn't live up to the expectations I had for it. It ended a little too quickly for my tastes, but it does have some replay value, which is quite surprising for a game nowadays, it doesn't.
Oh, yeah, the game also has multiplayer. But the developers would have to send me a lifetime supply of Dove chocolate and Pepsi before I started caring about it.
Dark Sector gets a 4 because of its fun and innovative gameplay, but not a 5 because the story is more twisted than a 4-year-old's Slinky, and it really doesn't bring anything new to the shooter genre.