Here in the Dark...

What do you get when you cross the camera angle, animation, QTEs and thoughtful third-person shooting of Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 with the dystopian destroyed beauty, cover system and HD sheen of Epic’s Gears of War? The answer, according to Digital Extremes, is Dark Sector – the latest project from the talented team behind under-appreciated Halo-inspired Xbox first-person shooter Pariah.

So Digital Extremes may not be the most original of developers – but they do what they do very well indeed. Pariah was a good, solid stab at doing a story-driven sci-fi FPS without a certain Spartan 117, and in gameplay terms Dark Sector is an action-shooter with a clear love for Resi 4 – but with its own, very literal, spin on things.

Causing carnage

That spin comes in the form of Dark Sector’s unique gameplay device, the glaive. Its basically a serrated spinning disc boomerang which the main character uses as his primary weapon (ahead, even of some pretty powerful firearms) – hurling it at enemies and scenery to lob off limbs, sometimes slice foes clean in two, clear his path and generally cause carnage in Dark Sector’s eastern European setting.

The glaive itself is ironically part of the reason that Dark Sector’s main character CIA agent Hayden Tenno is there in the first place – or rather, the reason for his having the glaive is.

You see, when he initially arrives in the town of Lasria, sent to investigate a mysterious bioweapon, he doesn’t have it. It’s only when he’s captured after Dark Sector’s opening mission and infected with the Technocyte virus that his body starts to alter – getting a metal coating, giving him his aforementioned deadliest weapon, and also providing him with means for solving puzzles which Leon S. Kennedy could learn a thing or two from.

The glaive can take on elemental properties by being thrown at particular targets; so aim at industrial wires for an electrical charge, throw it through fire and see it come aflame… and so on. We’ve seen Dark Sector running, and were given a good taste of how this will work with puzzles in the final game; Tenno first throwing the glaive towards a fuse box, then the charged glaive at an open gas valve to create fire, and then retracing his steps to a few rooms back, where his newly blazing weapon burned through a mucus-covered door, allowing him to continue onward.

The further you get into Dark sector, the more the glaive will be pivotal in defeating infected enemies, too. The code we saw focused on the earlier levels, with the infected running right at Tenno and looking a little like Halo’s Flood. There’s gun-toting human enemies too, sent to contain the outbreak and eradicate the infected; and because Tenno is half way between human and infected, both factions seem to be after his blood.

Versatile and stylish

Luckily, Dark Sector’s glaive is a versatile piece of kit, so you’ll not only be able to take out hostile people with it and accrue their guns (with the right sided trigger and bumper taking care of glaive and gunfire respectively) but also burn the armour off monsters with the glaive and gun them down right after.

Dark Sector is a technically proficient game, and noticeably style-conscious with it. The first level takes place entirely in black and white, starting you in a clifftop village with a vista that lets you see the true enormity of the environment. Not only that, but Dark Sector looks great; it’s very much in the Resi mould, and with the village setting, monstrous enemies and gothic architecture, at times looks like a HD version of the title it takes so much inspiration from.

Currently in Beta testing, Dark Sector looks on course to make its March release and gauge its own distinct sector of next-gen-owning action fans in the relatively release-lite first quarter of the year.

Preview by: Mark 'Dark' Scott
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Preview Published: 11.01.08