Section 8 – A lot of potential, but just short of landfall.

Section 8 (6 out of 10)

In a blazing pillar of fire, futuristic marines are shot from the stratosphere and sent spiraling to the ground at 80 miles per hour. Somehow, through the use of space magic or some unknown technology, they are able to land every time with no physical damage. Naturally I blame witches. Futuristic space witches.

Section 8 has been out for a while now and I recently got my hands on it. I have seen the commercials on TV and was oddly curious as to how the game would turn out. I don’t play an awful lot of PC games, but I have been trying to change that as of late. Section 8 was not exactly what I had imagined, but it did have some strong points. Before we go into great detail about space witches and the sort, take a gander at the trailer below. Take a moment to listen for the ultra macho voice over guy. “We always watch each others six.”  I wonder what the space equivalent of “no-homo” is.

So, it looks pretty action packed, right? The graphics look sharp, while the visual imagery is close to photo realism, and just look at that space armor! You could place a laptop behind you, turn your back on it,  stare into the reflection of that armor and enjoy your pornography in crystal clear clarity. It’s sad that I found a way to work that line into this review. What is even more sad, is that you took a second to visually imagine that scene.

Visually, the game is stunning, but that ends up being its strongest point. I would like to say that the concept is equally impressive, but it feels like the designers only ventured forward with it for a short distance, then abandoned it entirely. When I play a FPS, I usually find the most joy in playing with all the amazing weapons. If you add to that, the idea that this game takes place in the future, you can imagine my excitement when I imagined all the space weapons and laser guns and what nots. Unfortunately, Section 8 comes with a sparse number of weapons and they are all lack luster. The Halo franchise found itself loaded with cool toys and trinkets, but Section 8 dropped the ball when it came to weaponology. You are telling me that you have conquered space, but pistols are still the marine standby?  Boo, I say… simply boo.

The levels start out enjoyable, but you quickly find that they involve a lot of running around and very little interactivity. There is no organic nature to the enemy and the maps feel as if they were simply created to place objectives in. If that doesn’t make sense, imagine going through a haunted house. Sure, it’s scary at first, but after a while yoreu’ able to tell where all the masked high school kids are hiding, based on the bloody heads and claw marks. We all act scared, but in truth, we all die a little.

"Hey, is that guy hacking into our stuff? Let's sit here for a while and watch"

You spend a large part of the game hacking into access points, only to defend those points from enemy forces.  The enemy will often stand and watch you hack away, going out of their way to run around the complex before they make a b line for you. Unless the base was stocked with meth addicts, you would expect a little more direct action. This is enjoyable for a short amount of time, but after a while you start to feel like a hacker who has managed to stuff his fat ass into space armor. No one wants to undress a fat nerd… I would know.

At one pint, early on, they introduce the idea of dropping purchased weapons and resources into the game. Through your visual HUD, you are able to order “deploy-ables” straight into the battle. This concept works out great during a heated battle, but sadly the battles never get that heated and by the time they do, you realize you are fighting the final fight of the game. You also have to order these deploy-ables with space credits, which begs the questions, “Why would the army make you pay for the tools you are using to fight their wars?” Cheap bastards.

In the end, the game is entiely too short. It took me a breath taking 6 hours to finish and that was with a 2 hour break in between playing. Just as the game was starting to develop a plot, it was over. Now, I know I tend to be overly sarcastic, but I really was shocked at how short this game was. When I saw the credits rolling, my first thought was, “Oh.. I want my money back.”

Then I realized I borrowed the game from a friend. So naturally I  demanded they give me their receipt so I could return the game and claim the money.

All in all, Section 8 was a sparse 6 out of 10. If they had added more content, put some effort into the weapons and spiced up the game play, I would have been a lot happier in the end. The concept was great and it had a lot of potential, but even with it’s delays, the game felt rushed.