eat. sleep. game.

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. 
(more…)