… and speaking of heads and body parts, I think it goes without saying that Dark Sector is an extremely violent game. All your enemies/victims can be literally torn to shreds with your Glaive, and as humans tend to do when injured, these guys bleed. A lot. And if that isn’t to your liking, or you simply want to change it up a bit, feel free to shoot, pummel or blow up all who stand in your path. There are two types of violent games these days: The first kind are games where the violence is incidental, like the God of War or Devil May Cry games. Your character must get from point A to point B, and if you’ve got to kill your way to the end, so be it. The other kind of violent game is the kind where the violence is the draw of the game, like the GTA or Manhunt games. These games tend to be shocking to most, but rarely offer much beyond gratuitous violence simply for violence’s sake. Being that I’ve grown up a bit and been able to purchase M-rated games for going on 10 years now (the cutoff is 18, right?), the second type of game no longer appeals to me. Thankfully, the violence in Dark Sector isn’t the showpiece; the enticing taunt to the under-18 crowd who can’t technically get their hands on it. Without the gratuitous bloodspray, Dark Sector would be every bit as fun and engaging; truly a hallmark of a well-developed game. Take violence out of a GTA game and what do you get? A bad game with horrible graphics, terrible controls (both in vehicle and on foot) the worst lock-on system ever in a video game and backwards racial stereotype heaped on top of backwards racial stereotype. Woo-hoo (sarcasm).

Back on topic, there are some problems with the Glaive. Even though it can be changed, the path of the weapon is controlled with the PS3 motion sensor controller. If you played Heavenly Sword or Lair, you already know how bad this business can get. Ugh. Like I said before, yes, the controls can be adjusted so it isn’t that big of a deal, but it is still annoying to me personally that it was included in the final product. Its as if the powers that be said, “Great game, guys. Now we’re going to need to add some crappy motion controls, just to mar the player’s overall experience.” I envy Xbox 360 Dark Sector players, simply because they don’t have to adjust the controls to un-suckify this beyond awesome weapon. Lets all hope that Sony wises up soon and leaves the motion stuff to the only people who can do it correctly, Nintendo.

Also, like it or not, the guns play a much smaller role after you’ve gotten the Glaive. You can still shoot everything in sight, but condemning someone to death with an end fitting of Gary Busey in “Predator 2” is a ton more satisfying than a hail of bullets. This drop off in conventional firepower kind of works out for a couple of reasons. First, it seems nigh impossible to upgrade all your firearms in one playthrough – or ever. Forget about a New Game +; when you sign on for a second playthrough, everything will be reset to how it was when you first started. Second, the game only allows you to carry two guns and a couple of grenades at once. Realistic? Yeah. But not all that fun… kind of like the Gran Turismo games. Basically, if you want to appreciate the Glaive for the great weapon it is, you’ll need to turn off the motion controls, end the love affair with the guns introduced in the prologue and practice a few times before you dive in.

When it comes down to how the game looks and sounds, everything is passible, but no character, environment, sound effect or piece of music in Dark Sector will leave you in awe. To be honest, I feel kind of bad relaying that information from a historical standpoint. As recently as 3-5 years ago, Dark Sector would have been the best looking game on the market. Today, stunners like Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4 and others have pushed the boundaries so far that a beautiful game like this one is considered simply “meh.” Since this is the sights and sounds part of the review, I’ll mention this as well – the Russian accents in this game are horrible. They very seriously make Yakov Smirnoff sound like Vladimir Putin (In soviet Russia, video games play you!). If that last little bit was over your head, know this: the accents are as laughably terrible as any I have ever heard. Just try to ignore them.

Dark Sector is by no means a fresh, original game. It copies from a lot of source material, from games to movies to, well… everything. The lack of a New Game + option severely limits the title’s longevity, mostly because after finishing the game, I was ready to play again to upgrade everything. No dice on that one; there was no way I was going to start back at square one. Those two complaints (and the accents) notwithstanding, Dark Sector rivals Patapon for the biggest surprise of 2008. The game came seemingly out of nowhere, it mixes great (if slightly unoriginal) gameplay, a somewhat interesting story (once you figure out what is going on), good graphics and sound and an imaginative and brutal new weapon into a fabulous action adventure game that is every bit as fun as Devil May Cry 4 should have been. Lucky for you, there aren’t too many great console gaming choices out there (portable gaming is another story) in the months leading up to the summer gaming season, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem finding time to hurl that Glaive at - and through - the scores of enemies Dark Sector throws at you. In a quarter filled with crappy games like Turning Point, Turok and, public enemies number one and two, Lost Odyssey and Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Dark Sector proves to be the most explosive, blood-drenched action experience of the moment.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 90%. Oh, D3… it will be a long time before I doubt you again. Fantastic job, guys. Just fantastic.

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