Dark Sector

Rating Mature Genre first-person-shooter Publisher D3 External Links D3 Publisher

If you like lots of blood, decapitations, and plenty of explosions have I got a game for you. Dark Sector is a long awaited third person shooter bringing a bit of a unique twist to the genre. In Dark Sector you play as Hayden Tenno. Hayden is a shadowy government agent sent to the fictional Soviet bloc country of Lasria to dispatch another agent. Apparently Lasria was the center of bioweapons research at some point and now one of those weapons, called the Technocyte virus, has escaped and is wreaking havoc on the country. The virus causes the infected to mutate as they grow armor-like skin and develop superhuman abilities. As the mutation progresses, it also causes extreme pain and eventually drives the victim to madness.

At the end of the prologue mission Hayden encounters an advanced infected form and is nearly killed in the encounter. As he comes to, he is captured by Mezner, our main bad guy, and Mezner infects Hayden with the virus. Hayden manages to escape, but is now forever changed by the virus. Fortunately, he has some kind of immunity to the pain of the mutation and instead is able to control the new abilities. This immunity isn't really addressed in the game, along with a whole mess of backstory, and that's a little frustrating. The overall theme of Dark Sector is supposed to be about the birth of a superhero, but without very much history into Hayden; who he is, why he does what he does, it's hard to really embrace him as a new hero. There are several encounters with secondary characters, but we don't find out very much about them either. You can tell there's a story trying to come out somewhere in the game, but it never quite makes it.

When the story is lacking the only hope left is in the gameplay. First, the settings are beautifully done. The different areas of Lasria really feel like parts of the world left in the Cold War. You fight your way through crumbling buildings, burned out streets, and other zones that really immerse you in how horrible this virus is and what it's done to the country. One level is mostly fought in a cemetery and between the background music, ambient sounds, and the various mutated creatures popping out at every turn, it's a creepy experience.

The star of Dark Sector is in your main weapon and that's the glaive. As the infection progresses, your arm becomes armored and can also spontaneously generate the glaive, a triple bladed boomerang style weapon. You are also able to dual wield a pistol or switch to machine guns or shotguns, but the glaive is generally going to be the weapon of choice. Properly thrown, the glaive can take off a leg or even behead the various enemies that are after you. These events of course are followed by copious amounts of blood gushing from your screaming enemy. Dark Sector is certainly not going to get mom's seal of approval.

As the game advances, you gain new abilities simulating the advancing infection from the virus. Fairly early on you gain ‘aftertouch' which allows you to take control of the glaive in flight. You can also pick up elements from your surroundings with the glaive. This elemental ability is also needed to solve puzzles in each level. As you would expect in a crumbling city, there are plenty of fires burning and open electrical boxes. You'll need to electrify the glaive to burn out locking systems on doors so that you can advance. Throw your glaive through the fire and it will burn for a short time. Now throw the burning glaive into an enemy and enjoy the barbecue. As the game advances, the puzzles become trickier. Later on you won't just have an open electrical panel handy to juice up the glaive. You'll have to use aftertouch to guide the glaive through openings in a fence to get it juiced up and then dash to the locked door.

As I said, the glaive is really the star of the show and brings a nice twist to this style of game. If there's any complaint it's that there's only so much you can do with the glaive and the later levels do start feeling a bit repetitive. The ability to buy new guns and upgrade them through a black market system is nice, but there's nothing really new there. You have plenty of gun choices, but I haven't found too much I couldn't handle by simply sticking with the dual wield pistol and glaive combo.

Gamplay saves the day on this one and makes up for a lacking story. You get the feeling that Dark Sector aims to become a series with the whole birth of a superhero concept. The problem is, by leaving out all of the parts of a story that make me like and care about a hero, I'm left with a collection of characters that don't leave much of an impact. There seems to be a potentially rich character in Hayden, but leaving all of the juicy details for a sequel is a risky move, especially if you can't make me care enough about him in the first go round.