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Dark Sector: Another Letdown for Legacy Players in ‘08

Available Control Options: Default & Southpaw. We’ve briefly touched on this game before, so we’ll consider this to be a more in depth follow-up report now that I’ve gotten my hands on this one. And let’s get something out of the way first and foremost: Dark Sector is a pretty good game. It’s getting mixed reviews around the net and on TV, but I think it’s a fairly solid title. Even without support for Legacy, I still had some fun tooling around with this one.

You’re not going to remember Dark Sector as a landmark game in this generation of consoles. No, it doesn’t rank up there with the big guys like Gears of War, Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4. But it’s still a decent title for shooter fans out there, and offers some unique game play elements, in spite of the crummy AI.

Visually, the game is very similar to Gears of War, and sports some gritty, detailed environments that look pretty sharp. The characters also look fantastic and the music/sound effects are excellent. Dark Sector borrows some of the control elements from Gears of War as well, since it’s a third person shooter with FPS-style aiming. You’re also required to use the ‘A’ button for taking cover, rolling and sprinting, as seen in Gears. Fans of Marcus Fenix and his crew are going to enjoy this game, despite the fact that it is not quite as refined as the top-notch title it has obviously drawn inspiration from.

There are, however, a few features that set Dark Sector apart from Gears, the main being the use of your Bladed Glaive. This is a cool weapon that your character (Hayden) can spawn from his arm to throw at enemies. After a few practice rounds, you’ll soon be decapitating your foes with ease. All the practice over the years in honing your head shot skills in various shooters will pay off quickly. You’re also able to dual-wield the Glaive and a pistol, with can lead to some interesting combinations while you dispose of your enemies. Additionally, Hayden has the ability to execute finishers when you perform melee moves in close. For example, he might snap a foes neck, or he’ll perform a throat slash with the Glaive if it’s armed.

Southpaw fans of Gears are going to enjoy this game and feel right at home very quickly. Legacy guys, well… you’re going to struggle with the controls as I did. Movement felt awkward to me, and aiming was not comfortable at all. So many times while playing, I just wished Legacy was readily available, because I was struggling needlessly. Often times, kills were much more difficult than they should have been for me and I had difficulty staying in cover when caught under heavy fire. If Legacy was available, I would tear this game apart and it would probably be a definite purchase for me. As it stands now, I’m struggling too much with the controls, so I think this one is just going to be a rental and not one for the collection.

Generally, when Legacy is unavailable, I shrug it off and just wait for more games with full support. This one however, is my first “No Legacy” disappointment of 2008. There was also the Frontlines Legacy issues of course, but that game never really got me jazzed up. I had been watching and waiting for Dark Sector for some time now, so this is a bit of a personal let down for me. But, I still have Gears and CoD.

Control Configuration Screenshots:
Default Controls
Southpaw Controls

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 8:09 am and is filed under PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.