Xboxist

Dark Sector Review

Could you imagine being F.U.B.A.R (f'ed up beyond all repair) during a military assignment? What if no one could help you because you are all alone in enemy territory? What if you were infected with a virus that gave you armor and the ability to augment a blade? I bet the first thing Hayden Tenno didn't expect when he woke up this morning that the world he knew would take such a drastic change while royally screwing him beyond all repair. Welcome to the review of Dark Sector for the xbox 360.

The story begins in 1987 showing off some grim dealings until you get zapped twenty years later where our hero Hayden Tenno appears for what was supposed to be his last mission. You see Hayden is a cleaner for the government and your mission is to take out a rouge Agent. As you go through the compound you start to notice weird dealings going on especially when this projector gives off a movie warning about the virus. Either way you go back into your mission of setting C4 through out the building and looking for Agent Nadia. Once he is taken out your new orders are to seek out Dr. Mezner. However the plans go out of whack when you face what looks like a Guyver on steroids, after taking out an annoying helicopter mini boss fight with a missile launcher. Things start to look bad until you pick up that trusty missile launcher, but one thing goes out of turn when that monster does a Neo and re-directs the missile back at your direction. Long story short you get infected with a virus that enhances your body but causes some pain and now you must use your new abilities to take out the bad guy.

Now you enter the real action in which you have to get used to your new abilities especially your new toy the glave. The glave would resemble the blade that predator uses however not as powerful since it doesn't cut through anything. That little deadly Frisbee is one of your main tools to deal with in the game. The graphics are amazing I have to say which is up to the par with the movie cinematic, which entirely impressed me. It does have the dark gears of war feel, but surprisingly not running off the unreal engine.
I am impressed with the graphics and that the game does give off the nice action horror feeling, but there are many things wrong that I need to point out. My biggest peeve with this game is the clunky A.I which can kill a game for me entirely if the game has no real challenge when it comes to opponents. The A.I follows a pattern that can easily be followed. They try to balance out the dumb A.I. by throwing a huge amount of enemies so it can seem difficult, but that also makes it annoying since half the time you are playing the ducking game. You basically pop out and throw your disc hopefully aiming correctly to kill the enemy.

You also have the ability to duel wield weapons with your glave in one hand and your pistol in another. However you waste more bullets before even killing one enemy, which depletes your ammo very quickly so you are forced to use your glave again. Another thing about the glave is that it makes you vulnerable to attacks when you throw it, because you can't do anything until it comes back. There are some good points to the glave where you can obtain items from a distance in which it will retrieve it for you. Also you can pick up enemy guns that were dropped after they died; however since you have that armor there is a time limit which makes them useless. Yes that is correct sir; your armor burns the guns and forces you to drop it even though you haven't wasted any bullets on the gun. So I ask what is the point in that? I am not going to waste my time picking up a weapon that is going to burn out after a few seconds. The glave have some cool features such as dealing with certain elements that will transform the glave for certain puzzles. Interact your glave with fire or electricity and it will fuse with the element to become more powerful.

Now back to the enemies in which case the boss battles. Now these bosses come in all different forms and sizes which make it kind of one sided. When you only have that darn Frisbee to deal with them, so expect a long annoying battle! Yes there are going to be upgrades and finishing moves that will look cool during the game but it will get old pretty fast. I particularly was annoyed when an enemy got too close and I tried to use my melee attack and it was a simple weak punch, however you notice that the glave is in your hand at the time and that did no damage what so ever? I can understand as a regular human my punch being weak but when I have a blade in my hand at the time I better do some serious damage.

The sad part is the game has so much potential and yet they didn't do what I expected, especially going to a black market in a sewer. Now I might be getting to technical here but how does going to a sewer cap get you more weapons? I am going to summarize here because there is nothing more I can say about this game. The graphics are amazing and the storyline is okay. The game play needs a lot of work especially with the A.I. and as a suggestion since you still have another arm free. Why can't I use that to shoot my pistol while the glave is out killing people? Controlling the glave later on with your analog stick is a nice addition; however the game is a bit over hyped and is missing that fun factor. Also it gets the rental status since you can beat it in a short amount of time.

Lastly they were trying to add a bit of replay value by giving it multi player action. In the multi-player you can play as either the enemy of soldier or have Hayden's powers. How this works if you kill the ones with the power you obtain it. Did I tell you that you don't have a choice which person you end up with when the game starts? Yea that’s another thing to think about when you are going into multi-player. Honestly people keep saying it is like gears of war but as quoted by another reviewer "it is gears of war without the fun!" However I think the multi-player was thrown in there so gamers wouldn't complain about the re-play value, well it happened anyway.

So in closing I would have to give Dark Sector for the Xbox 360 a 2.5 out of 5. If you intend to get this game rent it first before buying to save you some time. Honestly the game is no longer then 7 to eight hours if you are skilled enough and on the harder level it is up tot 12 hours. That is all you are going to get. Please don't hate me, I am just being honest here. Stay frosty gamers.