Dark Sector is a hard game to judge right now, especially from the shortish demo on display at PAX this year. On the one hand, control is generally good, the Glaive mechanic is largely functional and satisfyingly brutal, and the graphics are pretty good. On the other, the only level on display looks like the missing orange town level from Gears of War, the main character looks like Resident Evil 4’s Leon with a metal arm, and the enemies are palate swapped dudes in identical biohazard gear with traditional shooter weapons.
Luckily (or cleverly) for Digital Extremes, the developers of the game, they’ve removed themselves from the melee of this fall’s release wave of titles and have instead moved it to next February, a time that both Crackdown and Lost Planet demonstrated could be a perfectly viable release window for competent games that might otherwise get lost in a crowded holiday shuffle. And despite my apprehension at some of the more derivative elements of the game, from what I’ve seen so far, the game is looking promising.
The graphics in the demo I got my hands on were well on their way but still had some rough edges, literally; it appeared that there was no anti-aliasing to be found anywhere, and jagged edges and stair stepping was visible pretty much everywhere. Dark Sector wasn’t the only game guilty of this by any means (Haze was a mess in this regard), which generally tells me that this is one of the last things to get tweaked in the game prior to going gold. That notwithstanding, the art direction was cohesive and effective at painting a picture of a eastern European village where something has gone very wrong: biohazard bags with remains that are clearly human (and some that are more indeterminate) are stacked high in alleyways and other bodies lay in the streets torn and rotting. Some vehicles remain, which aren’t good for driving but are good for creating pretty huge explosions.
The well executed third person combat is also fairly standard currently, with a cover mechanic that’s important but not a cure-all to keep you out of harm’s way. This is partly due to cover that’s usually too low to the ground to provide complete protection, and partly due to destructible objects that enemies will chip away at if you stay in one place too long. This helps to keep combat frantic and fast paced, although it can be annoying when you’re getting nailed repeatedly when it looks like you’re completely behind something that should be protecting you. The cover is less integrated than it is in Gears or Rainbow Six Vegas (games I bring up a lot because they’re the ones that have gotten cover the most right this gen), and while hitting the A button is both your cover and your dodge button, much like in Gears, neither works nearly as well. This all leads to a game that feels more arcadey than a lot of other third person shooters with a cover system that have released in the last year. One thing that seemed to stick out though is that when you get shot or injured, I don’t remember any indication of which direction fire was coming from. The regenerating health system is nice, but it doesn’t help when I have no idea where I’m supposed to shoot.
The important part though is that combat is still fun in the game, despite some of its current hitches. The guns are satisfying, even though enemies are tough to kill with them (or maybe I’m just a poor shot), but the Glaive is clearly where the bulk of your time killing will be spent. For the peons I encountered during the demo, solid contact with the Glaive was usually a one hit kill, and aiming for the neck or a limb took arms, legs, and heads off on a regular basis. Throwing the Glaive into an electrical transformer yielded an electrical attack that stunned enemies (which actually was less useful than the regular attack), while passing it through the flames of the aforementioned exploded truck allowed me to set enemies on fire. Still, shy of puzzles oriented around the mechanic, there was nothing in the demo to make me want to use the other abilities of the Glaive other than throwing it and slitting throats with it.
Like Lost Planet this year, Dark Sector could well prove to be the right game at the right time early next year after gamers have moved on from the heavy hitters and also rans on both the 360 and the PS3, and so far, I’d be glad to have it. Not every game needs to reinvent the genre, and so far, Dark Sector does what it needs to in order to provide a compelling third person action experience. I look forward to getting my hands on it when it ships next year.