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I had high hopes for Dark Sector. I use "had" as in "past tense" , and "hopes" as in "I hope this game is better than shooting myself in the face with a nail gun". Unfortunetly, Digital Extremes has proven me wrong. I have nothing good to say about Dark Sector, and I warn you ahead of time for this review, was written in a state of pure, unadulterated hatred.

Graphics:

While not the game's worst feature, I've seen much better. There are points in the game where you cannot see anytthing at all, including the enemies that are shooting at you. This is only made worse by the fact that your flashlight turns off  on it's own. Also, the main character's head is much too wide for his body, making him look like a cabbage patch kid.

Story:

The story isn't bad, but it's not compelling either. It is mostly progressed through cut-scenes and little snipits you get over radio frequencies. You're infected with a bio-virus that makes you change into a metalic-zombie type creature over time. The bad guys are trying to sell the virus. You were sent in to stop them. The End. How predictable.

Gameplay:

Now we're getting to the fun stuff. First, lets talk about the guns you get in the game, all, you know, 4 of them. You have your standard handgun, shotgun, rifle and bazooka. Now, you can't hit anything with these guns no matter how hard you try. I fired six shots with my reticle over an enemies head before I got a headshot. Also, all of the guns you can pick up throughout the game will stop working after about 10 seconds because they have sensors on them that can detect the virus and will disable the gun to keep it from getting into the hands of the infected. This is a cool concept, don't get me wrong, but the bazooka dosen't have a sensor. The most powerful gun in the game is seemingly left unattended. Silly bad guys. You can buy more guns and upgrade them on the black market, which is cool, but considering that you aim like a drunken, retarded monkey it dosen't make much difference. The Black Market would have been more usefull if the money/pricing made sense, as after hording all of my money until the end of the game, I finally had enough to buy 2 of the "middle of the road" guns.

Now the Glaive is cool in theory. It's a razor sharp thrown weapon that can be infused with different elements such as fire, ice, electricity, and well, ... that's it. You can even use aftertouch to steer the Gakive after you've thrown it. Awsome right? Absoloutly not. You may have to throw the Glaive 3-4 times at a single enemy to kill them, and while you can decapitate enemies, you may have to hit them in the head 3 times to do it. Plus, the hit detection is so bad, that when you hit an enemy in the head, it usually just cuts off their arm. The game has an achievement for scoring 2 decaps in one throw, which I will forever call the "pure luck" achievement.

Most of your enemies come in 2 flavors: Guys who stand behind cover and shoot, and guys who run at you with a stick. Now, the guys who stands behind cover and shoot are tricky. Just when you think they're going to flank you or find a better angle to shoot you, they pop up and shoot some more. Tricky bastards. It's not like they NEED to find a better angle to shoot you from anyway, because most of the time, you'll still get hit if you're behind cover. They might throw a grenade at you, but you'll be fine because they throw like pre-pubesant girls, lobbing the grenades directly AT your cover and it just kinda bounces off. Now the enemies that run at you with sticks are much diffrent. First off, instead of shooting at you, they run at you............while wielding sticks. They're tougher to bring down than the "stand there and shoot" enemies, and can kill you in about 2 hits. Fortunetly, if you walk backwards WHILE throwing your Glaive, they will never hit you, ever.  They'll even line up in a neat little row for you to throw at, which in any other game would mean you would probably kill all of those enemies in one swoop. Not in Dark Sector. Your Glaive will hit the first enemy and then fly harmlessly through all the others, even when it boomarangs right back through them into your hand. Now if one of them gets close, don't worry, you do have a melee attack. Just hit the melee button to take them out at close range. Strangely, the developers decided to give the melee button another use, which makes you flail your arm wildly THROUGH your enemies body. I figure this is some kind of "illusion" attack, designed to confuse you enemy as your giant sharp wheel of death does absoloutly nothing but fly through their body as they hit you, or as they stand completley still while your trying to kill them. Usually, two melee hits with the Glaive will let you perform a finishing move. As long as your fingers don't hurt after mashing the melee button 8-12 times to hit them twice, you can hit the button yet again to view 1 of almost 5 diffrent finishing moves. I use the term "view" lightliy, as the camera usually pans in such a way that, even if the lighting wasn't terrible, you still would have no idea what you just did.

The levels are fairly straightforeward, and by straightforeward I mean there is absoloutly no exploration at all, as most of your paths are blocked by doors, pieces of wood, and the ever-daughnting invisible wall. They are also paced horribly, as I finished one level in about 5 minutes, and the next in just under an hour and a half. But, atleast there isn't much load time. I'm serious, that's probably the only sentance in this section that isn't a jab at the game.

What they could have done to fix it:

Considering that the game has been in developement longer than any other game of this console generation (remember the trailer for this game months before the Xbox 360 was released?) I feel completley cheated. That being said, this game could have been a success if the developers would have done a few things diffrently. Things like, of I donno, fix the collision detection, offer more then a handfull of weapons, fix the collision detection, make cover "cover" you, el colisiono detectiono dell fixo, and finally, not have released the game in the first place. 

In closing, do not buy this game. If you are an achievement junkie and a masochist, as well as have poor taste, rent Dark Sector and rent it only. Now to go buy that nailgun.

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