"It took 4 years to develope this turd?"

This game was announced around 4 years ago. I had read about it and heard nothing but positive news about how it was coming along all that time. When the game was finally launched, I made the mistake of buying the game without renting. This is against my normal nature. I usually just rent games because they only last a day or two before I beat them and watch the ending. I just can't justify shelling out $60+ for something I am only going to get a couple days out of. It is a waste. Sadly, since the PS2, there haven't been a lot of games of decent length (I am, of course, excluding RPGs and such because they are some of the few games that are long enough to warrant a purchase... in my opinion, of course).

Games are getting shorter and more expensive. A lot of companies are using the multiplayer as their selling point. I don't like that trend. I play multiplayer once in a while and I find it to be fun for a little while, but it gets old for me. The game needs to be fun and has to have a story that keeps my interest for me to keep playing. I believe we have hit, what I like to call, the A.D.D. video game generation. Kids don't care about story, they just want to "pwn noobs". I feel this is not good for the industry.

The controls for this game are stolen ideas from Heavenly Sword (the after-touch ability), Gears Of War (the basic control theme), and various other titles that hit it big. The problem is, this game had all that time to be polished (which is what the company said they were doing with all the extra time) and yet they still managed to make everything feel broken. The after-touch ability lets you alter your glaives flight path after you have thrown it. There were a lot of times when I would hit the button to activate it and it just wouldn't work. I found myself throwing the glaive a 3 or 4 more times before it would work. This is a major problem that should have been handled MUCH earlier in developement. There is another move that involves charging your glaive with elemental properties like fire and ice. You then throw the glaive and press a button to make it explode in a kind of "elemental grenade" effect. This seemed to only work when it wanted to as well just like after-touch.

The graphics were a grab-bag. The environment and enemies looked decent and well detailed as did some of the supporting cast. The wierd part is that the main character looks disproportionate and awkward. I believe "rushed" would apply.

The sound... what can I say about the sound? It was easily the best part of the game. The machines and such sounded good. I only used the guns a little bit but they sounded passable enough. The music... nothing stands out. That means that the music wasn't bad enough to notice... but it also means it wasn't good enough to notice either.

The multiplayer did not deliver anything noteworthy at all. It felt more broken than the game itself did, and that is pretty horrible.

There is no replay value whatsoever. The game was horrible the first time around and most people will likely stop playing before they ever beat it the first time. I "toughed it out" all the way to the ending in the hope that all of the story that was hinted at through the characters you come across would have a big pay-off. Sadly, this was not the case. The story is base and completely unremarkable.

This game, like all games for the 360 and PS3, is just a rental. It is likely that very few people will like this game... if any.

It is sad that this game had such a big buildup just to fall WAAAAAAY short of even the lowest expectations.

Please note that this is the first, and possibly only, review I will ever write. I wrote this review simply because this is the first game that was so disappointing that I actually got angry enough to consider writing about it. When companies start demanding over $60 for a game there is a certain level of content that I want to make me feel like spending that money is a good idea. Games are now a major investment and they are getting shorter and shorter. I would love to see this change. I would love to see the video game industry see a loss in money because people realize that they can rent the game at Blockbuster for 99 cents and beat it in the rental time instead of shelling out $60 or more. People need to stop throwing their money away on the worthlessly short games that only provide a couple hours of fun.

As this will likely never happen, as it appears people have no problem blowing their money on junk, I will just say that you all can have fun with your more and more expensive games. I will continue to save my gas money by just renting games at Blockbuster.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/08

Game Release: Dark Sector (US, 03/25/08)