Developed/Published by: Digital Extremes / D3 Publisher
Released: March 25th, 2008
Completed: 11th September 2015
Completion: Finished it.
Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Played this for a few reasons, some of them faulty: firstly because developer Digital Extremes are based in Ontario, secondly because I thought they were defunct and I wanted to see what kind of stuff they did (but they’re not—they famously did the awfully-received Star Trek game, but it didn’t sink them.) Thirdly… because I heard it was vaguely ok? It’s got a Krull-esque “glaive” in it! (As we all know, glaives are actually a kind of polearm, not a throwing weapon.)

But yes, the glaive, the amazing looking spinny-blade that the forgettable hero of Krull gets right at the beginning, and he goes to throw it, but the wizard (or whoever it is) goes “no, you’re not allowed to throw it” so he doesn’t for basically the entire film and when he does it’s pure disappointing.

Krull’s shite.

Dark Sector however, is… kind of exactly a D3 game? It’s basically a Simple Series version of Gears of War, with more Resident Evil 4 all over its sleeve than even Gears, and it’s Simple Series-ey because it’s got several ideas and none are particularly deeply implemented and thought out, they’re just “there” and you can take or leave them. Consider the glaive, which is a decent idea, but the game has also got tons of guns, so you can pretty much play the game completely as a shooter. Or the way the game swings wildly between Gears of War-esque cover shooter sections (lots of spawning baddies, use cover, shoot them, repeat) and Resident Evil 4 swarm battles (mutants try and punch you in the head, or magic up your business) without either being particularly deep. Or the way your hero keeps gaining new abilities, but they never seem that important to the point where I kept forgetting them (the magic shield is real useful, but I never remembered it. I used the ability to “explode” the glaive straight after they told me about, but only actually remembered it while writing this…)

And the world is grey, repetitive, and large segments you get the sense more stuff was supposed to happen but doesn’t (some levels are long, some are short, and some huge areas you just run through, like they forgot to finish them.)

Plus: I could not tell you what this game is about. At all. There’s some sort of metal disease? Our hero is maybe a CIA operative, but it’s not clear what he’s doing? There’s an old man there? Sometimes a lady?

Despite all this, I didn’t mind Dark Sector. It’s kind of like one of those films you’d pull up on Netflix or from a petrol station bargain bin—not a “Mega Shark vs. Killer Bees” kind of winking twattery, but like one of those films that stars Scott Adkins with a generic title (you know, like Dark Sector.) Totally workmanlike and with some small thrills—shooting people and slicing their bits off with the glaive works well enough—so it passes the time pleasantly enough. I even quite enjoyed the weapon upgrade system, which is utterly half-assed but once I had my pistol and assault rifle all set up, it made me pretty happy? So there’s that.

Will I ever play it again? Life is too short.

Final Thought: Dark Sector is one of those “double A” video games from the last generation I honestly doubt we’ll ever see again as the resources needed to make something that’s “not quite AAA” are now beyond basically anyone except publishers pushing out crappy derivatives of their AAA games using the same engines and assets. Rather sad, I suppose—the ecosystem is in a weird place and I do wonder what the future holds.