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Dark Sector
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Developer: Digital Extremes
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Release: March 25, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Reviewer: Eric
 First-Person shooters are flooding the market ever since the Xbox 360 came
out. If a company releases one of these games it usually results into big money.
Digital Extremes took a different approach when making Dark Sector. This game
would make Gears of War so happy.
Hayden Tenno is sent on an elite mission at the start of the game. His mission
is to assassinate a former ally to his organization. During this mission Hayden
gets infected with a virus that alters your body. Hayden is now equipped with
inhuman abilities.
Third-Person shooters are starting to pick up heat ever since Epic released
Gears of War. Dark Sector borrows a lot of influences from this game and even
some from Resident Evil 4. The formula is the same, but what makes Dark Sector
stand out has to deal with the abilities you learn when the virus infects you.
The coolest weapon is the razor sharp boomerang. I can’t say this is necessarily
new, since you are able to control the boomerang when thrown (you learn this
fairly early in the game), but it is kind of cool. As cool as this might be, as
well as some of Hayden’s other techniques, I wasn’t a fan of the gun aspect of
the game.
In Dark Sector you can only have three guns at all time, in your inventory.
Whenever you kill an enemy you can pick up there gun, but only for a limited
amount of time. The game will remind you before the gun blows up with a series
of annoying beeping sounds. This happens due to Hayden’s metal arm that is
taking over his body. Thank you alter-changing virus, you gave us a boomerang
and left us with a low gun count.
 Later in the game you can buy a select amount of new guns and add special
bonuses to your existing weaponry. You can find these bonuses throughout the
game, most of which seem to do such minimal changes you won’t even notice. This
was a poor attempt to copy off of Resident Evil 4, but hey there are some
achievements to be earned here.
The games cut scenes and story fail to answer a lot of questions Dark Sector may
leave you with. I don’t want to say that Dark Sector is lacking in the story
department, but it sure is leaving a lot of doors open for a sequel. It would
have been beneficial for us gamers to know why this boomerang is in our position
all of the sudden. How come this virus is giving Hayden a weapon like this and
others get squat?
Unlike other third-person games Dark Sector has a lot of puzzles to figure out.
These puzzles are challenging! It seems strange that puzzles like this would be
added in a simple third-person shooter. While most puzzles in shooters take no
more than two minutes to complete the ones in Dark Sector can take God knows how
long to figure out.
I won’t lie; if I didn’t cheat on some of these puzzles I wouldn’t have been
able to beat the third chapter in the game. When playing this game you have to
look every where. This means the tallest points have to be viewed. The tiniest
thing can end up helping you complete a puzzle. If you hate challenging puzzles
then Dark Sector is not the game for you.
 To make these puzzles harder the game has some stiff camera angles and lack of
level depth. For starters the camera can be your worst enemy if you get stuck in
a corner. I found myself getting a small headache after battling with the camera
for a minute. Once my battle was over I got gunned down.
Secondly the level depth is so linier in this game. The boomerang can be thrown
and then viewed, which comes into play for some of the games puzzles. Guess what
if you hit leaves on a tree the boomerang comes back to you. Even if you chip it
the damn boomerang comes back. When thrown too high, the boomerang will come
back. Do you see what I am trying to say here? You must follow the path the
designers made or you will never achieve success in this game.
Dark Sector is a short six to seven hour game. Early chapters can be easily
completed within a two hours at most. Later on the game does seem to become a
challenge, but then the boss battles come around. Dark Sector does have some
pretty amazing boss battles, I will give it that. Once you can figure out how to
beat the boss, which should only take a few seconds, the battle ends pretty
quickly.
The game suffers from a huge problem, at least in my mind. Dark Sector is way to
dark! This game combines dark colors and throws it in all of the stages. To make
matters worse there are a lot of shadows in the game too. Everything in the game
starts to look the same and trying to figure out where to go next can end up
being a huge problem.
 When you finished playing the story mode you can sink your teeth into
multiplayer. Playing this game on Xbox Live is great; there is no lag or any
slowing down of the characters or their animations. The game may be lacking
stages and characters to choose from, but it is fun. Dark Sector might have a
good online mode, but it doesn’t feel as good as Gears of War. Though I will say
you can jump into this game and stand a chance.
Final Verdict
With first-person shooters leading the way in both sales and gameplay Dark
Sector is a nice change in pace. Dark Sector might not be the best third-person
shooter on the market today, but it does try real hard. The story is deep to a
point and you should be able find enjoyment with the online mode. In the end I
think you should give this game a try, however a rental or a bargain price
should be good enough.
Rating
7 out of 10
Dark Sector Trailer
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