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Log inSection 8 - A Time Gate Studios Game Fri Oct 16, 2009 8:40 am by Hendo 259 Section 8 reviewed by Christopher Henderson  Being asked to review Section 8 was a bit of a thrill for me, as I love futuristic shooters. As most 20 something’s, I spent most of my teens glued to my PC playing Quake 2. So I was looking forward to playing the multiplayer on Section 8, I will elude to that later in the review. First a bit of background…. Section 8 is a first person shooter developed by Time Gate Studios and published by South Peak Interactive. It utilizes the Unreal Engine 3, which gives it a real shot at being a favourite in FPS genre. The characters you are able to play in this game resemble the space marines of the Warhammer 40K universe. They are heavily armoured marine, who with the help of a type of energy field blast there way through missions. Now as cool as that sounds, there is one little hitch, it is so easy to die. The power of the enemies weapons vastly outweigh the defence you are provided with. Now as frustrating as dying is, the game seems to provide you with multiple re-spawns. This leads to no game over, which is a let down in a way as you don’t have to be very strategic in this game. You can just run in, get decimated by bolter fire and then re spawn constantly. (And trust me it will be constantly, especially on hard). Now there is a bonus to constant respawns, the way you enter the level is unique. You are dropped from a vessel high in the stratosphere, so you are literally a human missile, you bomb down to earth and crash into the battle field which is cool. But if you want to try and be a little strategic, you can utilise the air brake and drift to your desired target. Graphics The game’s graphics are smooth and in general easy on the eye. Camera angles are non existent as you control your view as with most FPS. The landscapes throughout the game are well produced but not by any means expansive. But as the game is a hard hitting shooter, I suppose crouching and sniping aren’t really an option. This game contains some really good cut scene where Alex Corde, kicks some major ARM butt.  Single Player So now I will start with the single player Campaign mode. You take control of a character named Alex Corde of 8th Armoured Infantry. You are sent to take on the increasing forces of the Arm of Orion, a terrorist group who have take control of a group of stars. With their forces building a battle fleet have been sent out to put a stop to them. As you progress through the campaign Alex will be promoted several times, but I will leave that for you to see. Now campaign mode is Objective based, with that said the objectives will update as you completed them. But I found you can run through the whole of a mission without having to fire a shot, as mostly the objectives are find a console and hack it. Well that is all but mission 6 which at one point you have to protect a convoy. This is by far the hardest mission on the game. But enough of that, the game play in campaign is simple enough. You do have a squad with you, which will vary per mission. They are not really much use, don’t get me wrong they will get in the action and take on the enemies and score kills but you can’t tell them where to go or who to attack. So they are pretty much superfluous to your game play. Another cool part to this game is that you get to customise your load outs (equipment). You get more options as your progress, but I stuck with the missile launcher for heavy armour and the assault rifle for troops. You also get to have two accessories, be they grenades or det packs to Repair tools to sensors. I found that an explosive and repair tools where my most comforting of friends. You are also able to “Boost” which is when you are running for a certain amount of time and then you charge up and pace at a searing pace towards your target. This I found more of a hindrance as it is hard to stop unless you run into something. A jetpack is also supplied, which helps with gaining a bit of high ground advantage, but this sometimes doesn’t help as the AI are amazingly accurate. You are given the option to deploy extra fire power or support, like AA guns or missile launchers up to heavy battle armour for you to ride in. But to tell the truth you don’t really find the time to use them. Also they cost funds, which are hard to get, as you only get a few opportunities per level. But when used they can be of benefit in an area dense with hostiles. The campaign all though fast paced and in my opinion engrossing it is very short lasting only 12 missions. Each mission shouldn’t take more than 20 – 30 minutes to complete. The game however is definitely worth a blast through as it gets you ready for where this game really comes into it own…..Multiplayer  Multiplayer Now Multiplayer is a revelation with this game. As I see it, the campaign is the training for a full out kill frenzy which is multiplayer. There are a few multiplayer modes but they all lead to the same thing…….. all out war. Now you automatically get selected for a team so you’re either Section 8 or ARM. Now being either doesn’t matter as they have same equipment and deployables. Even though when there are 16 players/Bots on each team it looks like a Metroid convention, in fact its a Metroid-mungus free for all!!! The maps are of a good quality and size, there are objectives to meet in the multiplayer which gives it that extra dimension. There is protect the VIP or Commando, collect the intelligence, intercept the convoy among others. This gives you a little side track from just blasting each other to smithereens. Now there is just one problem with multiplayer, there aren’t enough real players, as I found you will only get one or two others in a match. The rest are just bots, but on the harder difficulty settings they can be quiet handy and also a real pain in the butt if you’re against them. One mode that I enjoyed playing was super swarm mode, the enemies just keeping coming to attack your base and you have to defend it. A really enjoyable mode to play as the action is constant and as mentioned earlier you get the side objectives to do as well as defending your base. This makes for a really challenging and enjoyable match. Now I am rating this game an 8/10 just for the multiplayer alone and who knows it could have been higher if only there was the number of people to make it more challenging online. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good online free for all shooter. A thought to end with….. The name "Section 8" derives from an old United States military discharge regulation for the reason of being mentally unfit for service. So maybe we all are a bit crazy some times, but if we all wear a suit of powered armour. We too can kick ass. Thanks for reading Chris Henderson Comments: 5 Social bookmarking | Latest topics Top posters
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