Back in the day I never really played that many online multiplayer games. Actually for the most part, I still don’t. In a rare exception to the rule, one game that I did play on occasion was Tribes Online. Section 8 immediately brought back all the fun memories that I had of that game, and then squashed them FLAT. I guess it’s hard to make a game stand out from a crowd when you look like every other shooter out there.
The first thing that will be painfully easy to notice is that this game is geared heavily towards multiplayer. There IS a single player campaign, but I seriously had to look for it in order to play. My first mistake with this game was jumping to the online multiplayer by default. I thought that there would be at least some sort of tutorial to ease me into the fray, but no such luck there. Needless to say, I was dropped before I could even figure out what I was doing. Once this occurred, I was bounced back to the title screen and finally found the single player mode. In all honesty, single player is really only there for the purpose of being a guided tutorial.
You play the roll of Corde; a soldier in the elite (and crazy) squad known as “Section 8.” They are usually the first team to go in behind enemy lines or stare-down the opposition, before the rest of the backup comes in. Basically they are all considered to be not only crazy ones, but pretty much considered expendable too. You are dropped in from about 50K feet, screaming towards the ground, without the assistance of a parachute. It’s done with a lot of flash and rumble, but really after about the third drop, it’s all the same. The voices in your ear say you have the ability to “see the battlefield” as you plummet to the dirt, but really, you only see tiny units and then your fist hitting the ground.
The single player campaign consists of about 3 missions all done in several sections. I was able to burn through it in about 3 hours time, but as you already know well, this is not why most people are going to buy this game. In defense of those missions, I was able to get a grasp on the controls, calling in supply drops, and generally moving around the area. The game has your typical FPS controls, with the added bonus of jump jets. Tapping the left bumper will activate your jets and propel you into the air for a short time. It’s handy for getting to higher ground, or for avoiding short bursts of enemy fire.
Now let’s get to the “meat and potatoes” of this game so to speak: The Multiplayer. The multiplayer aspect of this game is pretty easy to jump into once you have the hang of the controls. I realized after playing a few matches that it actually DOES give you a sort of mini hurried tutorial. The down side of that it is attempting to teach you in the middle of a fire fight, so you don’t really live long enough to get all the necessary info from it. Pretty much everything about this game you have seen before. The landscapes are quite large but mostly barren of anything interesting to look at or play with. When you spawn, you have the option of joining up with your squad or “Free Spawn.” This pretty much just boils down to either spawning with your team or spawning where ever you like and braving it by yourself. Each having it’s own advantages and disadvantages.
One good thing that Section 8 does well is mixing in some elements of different types of multiplayer games, to try to keep you from getting bored with the typical death match. During a game you may have to either stop a convoy or help it reach a certain destination, not to mention an alternate gametype where you can either retrieve or protect information. Being on the winning side of each of these will net you a points boost towards your goal. You can also set up supply drops, request air support, or even munitions drop, all of which can help your team attain victory. It does a pretty good job of breaking up the monotony of spawn, kill, die, repeat, that is featured prominently in games of deathmatch.
Things are not all sunbeams and teddy bears here though. Several glaring issues with this game will stand out to ANY veteran of an online multiplayer game, the first being that you move very very slow. Walking feels like you are actually crawling… on your belly… in tar. There is the option to “run” by clicking the left stick, but oddly enough, that actually takes a few seconds to charge up. Once you are running, however, you switch to a third person perspective and do move at a pretty good pace. The downside is that you can’t stop on a dime, (I guess that’s realistic) and you lose the ability to shoot while in motion. Not the greatest thing in a game that centers around shooting… a lot.
Which brings me to the next problem: the shields are painfully overpowered. Each soldier’s shield function wears down with damage and recharges over time, much like you have seen before. However it takes well over one clip (400+ bullets) to deplete the shield, then another several shots to down the opponent. That’s way too much when you have 32 players all gunning to get points. Matches can take forever and a day to complete.
For as derivative as it tends to feel, the game does have its moments. When you actually have everyone in a smaller area, while trying to knock out or save the convoy, things can get pretty heated. Several of the set pieces do look pretty nice and a large majority of the sound design is solid. Unfortunately, in the days of games like Halo 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and Gears of War, you have to make your game stand out with SOMETHING. You can’t just take a piece here and a piece there from all of the big multiplayer shooters and expect it to sell. Section 8, in it’s defense, is not a “bad” game per-say, it just doesn’t do anything well enough to stand out in an already crowded market.
Popularity: unranked [?]
