Hands On: Dark Sector
Dark Sector - it's a name that's been with us for some time, being the first "next gen" game ever announced, way back in 2004 when the Xbox 360 was still called the Xbox 2. In that time, Dark Sector has gone from being a SciFi MMO set in space to a moody shooter set in a disabused version of the real, planetbound Earth. But protagonist Hayden Tenno and his awesome bio-hazard glaive arm are as sweet and playable an idea as ever - and I use the word "playable" with full awareness of the game's notorious difficulty as a playable demo on the TGS floor.
Yesterday, D3Publisher's Fall Tour of NYC gave me the chance to sit down and play Dark Sector under the direct tutelage of Digital Extremes Production Assistant Dave Kudirka. While I did take a moment to mourn the absence of my digital babydaddy, the squeaky-bald and damn sexy Sheldon Carter, Dave did an awesome job showing off some new levels I hadn't seen before, including a bunch of new glaive powers and evolutions that I can't share with you just yet, but which were wicked cool nonetheless.
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What I can say is that Dark Sector looks fantastic: better air distortion/concussion effects I haven't seen anywhere on the 360, and I saw some really rolling, crashing waves as well as lighting that was more theatrically focused and well-implemented than even BioShock's beautiful lighting. While Dark Sector is definitely targeted toward the hardcore FPS fan (making it somewhat of the anti-Darkness, a game otherwise not terribly dissimilar from some thematic and narrative viewpoints), the four-level difficulty slider (not present at TGS) and some cool environmental puzzles will open up gameplay to a much wider audience.
The targeting reticule has changed from a frustratingly tiny laser pinpoint to a wider circle that also pulses in time to let you know when to use the glaive's charge attack, and without dying so quickly I managed to make it into one of the game's interior environments, where the combat seemed to change to another style entirely - less about sprinting between cover while taking potshots at hazmat-clad bad guys and more about close combat with the "haz" itself - 28 Days Later-style mutant/zombies that rush you, grab you, and require a simple God of War style button guessing game to push off and eviscerate.
And eviscerate is the right word: some of the coolest attacks come from up-close finishing moves (like splitting a mutant stem-to-sternum with your glaive before cutting off his head) or glaive-based tactical attacks that remove your enemies' arms or legs or heads in spectacular fashion.
Dark Sector has taken its sweet time to get to us, and that's exactly how it should be. Nobody wants to play a rushed game, and while 'da Sector is clearly still in the oven, it smells wonderful. With such a great team at Digital Extremes and such good oversight at D3, I'm sure it'll be given all the time it needs to launch as the Gears of War killer it ought to be.
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 26 October 2007
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: d3, dark sector, digital extremes
It's great to see D3 breaking out of the budget title ghetto - with the folks behind the title it should be top tier. The enemies in the clip from E3 all looked a little samey-same so I hope there's a little more variety in the actual game. Still, exploding bad guys = endless fun.
Any word on the PS3 build or is it lagging behind? I'd love to have a reason to buy a third party game for Sony's console instead of defaulting to the xbox 360 version.