Dark Sector

When I first saw the advertisements for this game I was really looking forward to playing it. This largely due to the fact I'm a very big fan of the comic character Venom and this game reminded me of him. Being a living weapon is always appealing. Sadly, my hopes were led astray. Dark Sector while being an amazing combat game falls very short for a person that is looking for more than just a cool suit and weapons.
You are an agent named Hayden Tenno. A top secret something working for American interests in Russian. You apparently have a troubled past where you killed some people that got you labelled as a psychotic. A little vague isn't it, I wish I had more accurate facts, unfortunately that was all the game gives you. This lack of explanation run rampant throughout the game like a small child that has stolen your keys and has every intention of flushing them don't the toilet before you find out which keys they are. A virus called Technocyte has been released by a man named Mezner and the Russian government is trying to contain it. To make matters worse, you have been infected with that virus and it has given you unique powers because... well I guess it doesn't really explain that very well either. You manifest the virus is your right arm where a three pronged glaive pops out which you came throw. Sure this is very cool but with all the coolness put into your character, someone forgot to develop a storyline.
I'm fairly certain that the designers of the game thought the fighting system of this game was very good but they left a lot to be desired. While your glaive can come in handy when an enemy is around a corner they expect you to use it all the time. To use it as an effective weapon you need to charge it at the right second, otherwise you have to hurl it several times to kill one target. Since there are usually multiple enemies trying to kill you, relying on the glaive as a main weapon is pretty useless. You have a gun as well which you can use in unison with the glaive. This comes in handy during hand to hand battles as when you are fighting many pipe wielding infected you can only hit one at a time and that leaves you open to the others. Actually hand to hand leaves a great deal to be desired in this game and has caused me to curse more than I'd like to admit. Also you can modify your weapons at random sewer holes throughout the city by a black market dealer, even though all the other sewers are filled to the gills with infected, the market seems to be perfectly fine. Also the lack of story is replaced by endless battle, over and over with no end in sight. Once you finish one level you go to a different looking level to rebottle the same things once more.
When you are battling enemies you know you can administer a killing blow when they glow red. But aside from the humans that bleed when you shoot them you really have very little clue when you are hurting them. This is a maddening fact that made me want to throw something at my television. There are a few bosses in the game that you can empty your entire stock of ammo into them and you'd never know if it had done any damage at all. In fact you'd be right to think you had done nothing at all to them because you haven't. You have to literally try everything and die several times before you find some small unobvious weakness the enemy has. The lighting in the game makes it very hard to make out important details in order to survive.
One of the largest problems I have with the game is the lack of story. Hayden apparently knows Mezner from somewhere and he feels that you would enjoy the infection so he has his mysterious armoured minion do it to you. He also apparently wants you to join their cause even though he has plenty of minions and has no clear reason to know you will be loyal. Since Mezner turns out to be the last boss in the game he basically helped his own doom throughout the game for no reason than he felt like it.
To sum everything up, over all the game in unique, but can be very maddening. If you love to fight and never stop fighting in an interesting way, then this is the game for you. Everyone else should probably stir clear of it if you are looking for a good story.