GAME........

Section 8 has been a game that has been in the public eye for a few months now. Using the Unreal engine, high standards had been set for this, primarily multiplayer orientated game. Released last week, I picked up a copy hoping it would entertain me until ODST released. Did it?

The game involves you fighting against other soldiers in armoured battle suits with a variety of weapons, equipment, items and techniques. In multiplayer, Primary objectives include taking bases by hacking the computers in them and killing enemy VIP’s or transports. You then get points for doing this, and points for keeping the bases as well. The first to 1000 wins.

There are some good positives I took from the game. One of the main things I noticed when I started playing the game was the very original spawning system. You drop down from a ship, like a drop trooper does. You slowly watch the ground travel closer to you, and the details of the map increase as you plummet towards the ground. Not only does this provide great animation, but it is also very handy. You can pretty much land wherever you want, making it easy for squad tactical advances. If you land on an enemy, it also does a great deal of damage, if not kill them. However, anti-air turrets can be set up. These provide an area in which the enemy cannot land. If they attempt to do so, they will simply be killed before they hit the ground. There is also a nice variety of weapons in the game, and something to suit everyone. One particularity good weapon is the mortar in which a small area is bombarded with a mortar strike. This is very effective against heavily armoured foes or turrets. The levelling system in the game is a nice touch to the multiplayer as well. Being able to create and adjust classes, as well as increase or decrease skills in a certain area helps different players meet the criteria that they want. There is also an item system in the game. Players get cash for doing certain objectives. With this cash, they can buy various things, from turrets to tanks and battle suits. The AI in general is pretty good too. It could be tweaked in a few places, but overall it isn’t bad.

Now to the negative, and there really are some terrible faults with this game. Firstly, the driving. The controls of the tanks are awful. It requires using both sticks perfectly together. You may get used to this after a while but it could have been made a lot lot easier. The game play is also way to repetitive. You do the same things over and over again. This does work for many games, but not this one. I can’t help but feel that its a remake of Battlefield 2142, with new armour. The game play is very similar, as are the weapons. The single player is ridiculously short. You could easily complete it in two or three hours. Another problems is the online matchmaking. If you want to find a good match with several players, you usually have to play with bots. If you choose a No Bot game, I found it took a long time to find a match, if one was found at all. This is annoying, I don’t want to play bots all the time. The online community just feels dead, even though its been open only 2 weeks! The general graphics of the game are, at best, average. Sometimes however, on some textures they are awful and just flat. Another thing that really bugs me is the annoying voice friendly fire warning. For starters, it warns you too long after you hit a friend. Most of the time, its the friend that walks in front of you as well.