Dark Sector
Preview
Forget guns, I want my glaive!
by Zkylon
previewed on PS3
Mix and match
Dark Sector is about to hit the store shelves and we are restless, eager to break necks, to separate upper parts from their corresponding bottoms and to set on fire the abominations that cross our path. Oh we cannot wait to put our hands into Digital Extremes' three bladed bone cutting boomerang shuriken. Think of a Resident Evil 4 perspective, Gears of War cover system and God of War button mashing mini games and you get Dark Sector. This Third Person Action game is packed with blood, gore, grittiness and all the violence to satisfy your thrill-kill and maybe even your neighbors'.
From Lex Luthor to Hayden Tenno
Meet Hayden Tenno, voiced by Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum, an unscrupulous CIA 'cleaner' sent to the fictional city of Lasria to investigate a biological experiment led by rogue agent Mezner. Lo and behold, the assignment isn't as simple as it may seem and soon enough Hayden realizes that the experiment has gone out of control, spreading a highly contagious virus that -out of sheer pain- turns people into flesh eating mutants. On with the originality (note the clever sarcasm), Hayden gets infected too and starts turning into a mutant himself. But something's odd. Unlike the other mutants, Hayden doesn't turn into a zombie right away, the infectious area on his arm starts spreading, slowly transforming the rest of his body as the game progresses. More importantly, Hayden skips the whole flesh eating zombie part. His lucky break is due to his congenital analgia condition, which basically means he can't feel pain and that his DNA has a bizarre reaction to the virus.
Now as any ex-CIA agent (I guess the Company has a policy on diseased murderers-for-hire) Hayden makes a deal with his former employers to assassinate virus outbreak responsible Mezner, in exchange for the locations of the viral suppressors.
Dark Sector doesn't make too much of an effort to introduce an original plot. It has been done a thousand times before and it will be done again so let's move onto what makes Dark Sector special: the glaive.
I'd like my mutant well done
The glaive is the ultimate effect of the virus and it is one mean blade. Crafted upon Hayden's arm, the glaive is a three bladed jumbo-sized shuriken capable of disposing and dismembering its foes in the most gruesome of ways. The glaive is a throwable weapon that will always return like a boomerang, ensuring that you won't ever run out of ammo. Talking of ammo, there is some degree of 'fire-arming' in the game, predominant in the pre-infected prologuesque part of the game. Enemy weapons in Dark Sector are DNA coded so while Hayden can pick up an enemy rifle it will self destruct after a while, making it worthless in the long run. Only exceptions to the rule are Hayden's own sidearm and the later-in-the-game customized black market weapons.
