Section 8 is a 32 player first person shooter that feels like a balanced mixture of Halo, Killzone 2, and Tribes 2 with a little bit of Team Fortress elements mixed in. You have shields that can regenerate (similar to Halo), you can boost up in the air with jet packs (similar to Tribes), the in-game mission objectives randomly change (similar to Killzone 2), and you can create or pick pick from different types of character classes (similar to Team Fortress 2). Overall though, Section 8 feels the most similar to Tribes 2, which is like a breath of fresh air. The similarities to Tribes 2 makes me wonder why no one has used a formula like this more often. The ability to hover over buildings and walls in your jet pack always seemed like a really cool idea and was very fun to do in Tribes, and to finally be able to do this again in Section 8 feels awesome. Not only that, they also added something called "overdrive", which allows you to sprint at very high speeds across the map. You can even "overdrive" into enemy players and make a huge metallic "thunk" sound, killing them in the process. Section 8's fun gameplay doesn't just rely on formulas from other games though, they added an original way to "respawn" your character. Whenever you start a new life, you will see your tactical screen, showing you the map of the entire level. You will also see red and blue circles on the map, indicating where anti-air turrets are. Once you place your cursor on a safe spot on the map, you will then spawn from your dropship, skydiving like a meteor getting ready to slam into the ground. That's right, you can basically spawn anywhere you want to in the level, as long as there isn't an anti-air gun preventing you from doing so. So how are these anti-air guns deployed anyway? Every time you kill a player, or perform a task to help out your team, you earn money. When you earn money, you can then purchase "deployables", which allow you to place turrets, rocket guns, anti-air guns, health terminals, radar sensors, and even vehicles. There are 2 vehicles that you can purchase, a walking mech suit with a heavy machine gun, which can also pick up and slam opponents, and a tank that can seat up to 4 players. Each seat in the tank has a different type of weapon: missiles, rockets, machine gun, and mortars. The driver of the tank can fire the main cannon, which is so powerful, you can often blow up deployables and kill enemies with a single shot. The only downside that the tank has is it's horrible controls. Yes, there is one gripe I do have about this game. The controls of the tank feel very 'laggy'. You will often rotate your tank, and then it will rotate too far, and it's often hard to tell which direction your tank is facing. There have been numerous times when my tank was wedged against a rock or a building, and I was frantically trying to move away from enemies firing rockets at me, only to blow up because I was stuck. Since the tank is very powerful, the gameplay sort of accidentally gets balanced out since it is very difficult to control. You can get used to the controls of the tank with some practice, and once that happens, you can be practically unstoppable. Section 8 doesn't offer a huge variety of "individual" modes. You won't see a match with an individual mode like deathmatch, capture the flag, conquest, or bombing run by itself. Instead, every match will have ALL of those modes with a few more thrown in on top of that, sometimes even going on at the same time! They all will appear at random also, keeping the action unpredictable and hectic. This gameplay element prevents players from just "turtling" inside their base and camping away at would-be point capturers. Sure, you could just stay at "capture point 2" and try to keep it well protected... but what will you do when a "outpost" mission pops up? Are you going to risk having your base captured in order to protect your outpost from being destroyed? Situations like this will happen often, and you will have to plan your strategy with your team mates in order to decide the best path to take. Because of all of the random missions thrown at you, no two matches will feel the same, and this is what gives Section 8 so much replay value. The other things I am not a big fan of, besides the slippery tank controls, is the dying online community. Most of the time when I sign on, It's hard to find ONE server with an adequate number of players. I think the main reason why you can't find many people playing is because of my second complaint - the price. Section 8 is a PSN download only, you can't buy it on disc. Because of that, you will never be able to buy it "on sale" or used at a retail store. Sure, the game was on sale for half price for $14.99 for one week on PSN, but then they bumped the price back up to $29.99! $29.99 is a ridiculous price to pay for a downloadable game, I don't care how much content or gameplay it has to offer. This high price tag reflects why the community is so small. How can you expect a large gaming community when hardly anyone is willing to pay that much for the game in the first place? Battlefield 1943 is an awesome downloadable game, and feels just as fun as Section 8 in many ways, and it only costs $14.99. If you look at the online communtiy between the 2 games, you can see a huge difference in the number of players. I am just begging the developers and the publisher of section 8 to please REDUCE THE PRICE! When a game has a strong community, the players will recommend it to their friends, and the community will grow. I feel this game never had a fair launch, because everyone ignored it due to the high price tag, and then no one bragged about it to their friends. Most of the time, the best advertising can be by word of mouth. This is part of the reason I am writing this review. I think Section 8 is a GREAT game, and I want to see more people playing it. It's very fun and addictive. So if you are sick to death of all of the "one shot you're dead" type FPS games like Modern Warfare 2, MAG, or Battlefield 2 and want something a little more sci-fi then give Section 8 a shot. My Score 85/100 pros - jet packs - overdrive sprinting - respawn from the sky - high strategy gameplay cons - dying online community - slippery tank controls - high price tag |
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Section 8 (PS3) |