Dark Sector
Preview
Forget guns, I want my glaive!
by Zkylon
previewed on PS3
I'd like my mutant well done (cntd.)
Wielding the glaive has many more uses: slitting an unaware enemy's throat, melee combat (God of War button pressing mechanics included) and the mother of all battlefields' come-in-handies: element infusing. Throwing the glaive into a fire source will allow Hayden to hurl the flaming glaive onto enemies and setting them on fire. The same counts for other element sources. Ice, for example, grants the glaive freezing capabilities. Elements are also used for puzzle solving and generally involve combining elements with enviroment obstacles. An example of a simple puzzle: Hayden's route is being blocked by a pile of wooden wreckage. The smart choice: set the glaive on fire and then throw it at the blockage, burning it away and clearing the road.
Glaives don't headshot
Hayden's skills with the glaive will improve as you learn new moves and upgrade the ones that already exist. One of the skills he picks up is aftertouch. Much like Nariko's feat in Heavenly Sword of changing the direction of flying objects, Hayden can control accurately where the glaive will go once thrown. This lets him cut people in half, decapitate and perform other such widow making stunts.
Dark Sector uses a zooming over-the-shoulder for laser sight aiming, similar to both Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War. It features cover mechanics, allowing you to blind-fire or pop out of cover and cap yourself a few. Out of ammo? The glaive can be thrown from cover as well and it is obvious that one should toy with Hayden's ever-handy extention. You can even use firearms along with the glaive either by pulling out a rifle after you have thrown the glaive or by using the handgun with the left hand.
Besides the ten chapter long single player campaign, Dark Sector will sport a number of multiplayer modes and maps for players to 'decapi-glaive' friends, all in good fun of course. Whether or not Dark Sector's multiplayer is a winner is up to the players. If using the glaive is as encouraged as it is in the single player campaign, it could lead to some fun matches. Hit or miss, at this point it is going to be difficult to dethrone Call of Duty 4 as the king of competitive online play. The number of multiplayer matches on Halo 3 received a serious blow after the release of Infinity Ward's monster game and we fear the availability on Dark Sector will run much lower.
Bottom line
While the mechanics behind the glaive are promising, we are still wondering if it is not a little bit too creative. Digital Extremes worked really hard to push the glaive's usage as much as possible and we hope the final product reflects that. On the good side, it takes elements from all the right sources. Even if Dark Sector turns out to not be groundbreaking, it will probably render a fun single player campaign.
