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Amidst the hustle and bustle of the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco at the end of March, I elbowed my way to a cozy little demo room to check out TimeGate Studios, Inc.'s new first-person shooter, Section 8. This futuristic game, built with the Unreal 3 engine, is named after a group of elite kamikaze-ish fighters who go by an old military term that means “someone discharged for having a few screws loose.” These guys, armored to look something like Halo's Master Chief, are embroiled in a civil war between two human factions fighting for control of the galaxy. Nope, no aliens here, no sir.
My first exposure to the game was through the trailer which was released in January of this year. The trailer looks phenomenal and sets expectations pretty high, although we all know how often a trailer is all sizzle, no sausage. Graphically at least, the demo at GDC seemed to be in keeping with the trailer. Before seeing whether the gameplay of the single playable map was of similar quality, I got a look at the character screen where players can customize their characters. There are no classes in Section 8 so customization means angling your weapons load-out and upgrades toward your personal fighting style. Players get to choose a primary and secondary weapon from assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, mortars and grenades and get ten points to spend on armored-suit upgrades like Stealth, Jet Pack, Overdrive and Shields.
Entering the game is pretty exciting. Rather than just popping into the map, players jump from a drop ship hovering way above the map and “burn in” like a human meteorite. It looks really cool and serves a strategic purpose as well since you can choose to land anywhere on the map, controlling the trajectory using your suit's air brake. This mechanic is part of TimeGate's purposeful attempt to eliminate spawn camping, as well as all the other barriers to fun seemingly built into so many other shooters (I'm looking at you, Counterstrike). There's also an achievement for burning in that's given to players who manage to land right on top of another player.
Like most other shooters, once you're on the map, you and everyone else scramble for the capture points. The designers of Section 8 wanted to make this mechanic more meaningful, so capture points aren't just flags that change color; they're terminals that when hacked give access to valuable resources and enable you to deploy defense turrets, sensor arrays, and supply depots.
The dev demo they showed was on Xbox 360 but the demo they let us play was on PC. Both looked about the same. The map was pretty huge but crossing it was easy using a cool feature of the armored suit that lets you run at ridiculous bionic man speeds. The Jetpack was a useful upgrade in terms of travel since it allowed me to get on top of tall structures and hills. The most stylish way to get around the map though was the four-seater tank which lets two players man turrets while another mans a vertical missile launcher and yet another mans a mortar launcher.
In the most basic sense, Section 8 plays like other multiplayer shooters. The run-and-gun mechanics will be familiar to anyone who's played games like Battlefield 2142. The differences are in how players take control of the map. The ability to call vehicles down from drop ships prevents players from wrangling over the driver's seat on isolated vehicles and the ability to call down resources from anywhere (they come screaming in from above like mini-nukes) makes winning the match about something more than map memorization. Another nice little touch is that proximity grenades detect alignment so if you throw one and it bounces back at you, you won't accidentally take yourself out.
A feature we were told about but didn't get to try, which is meant to add variety to the game, is the DCMs or Dynamic Combat Missions. During a multiplayer match, players will have the option to start a player-vs.-environment sub-mission, such as escorting a convoy. If they can complete this objective, they earn more points to spend on drops. The catch is that the opposing team can choose to perform the flip-side of the mission, which might be destroying the convoy the first team is trying to protect. It sounds interesting but since the game at this point is pre-alpha, it's hard to say how much DCMs will add to the game.
Section 8 so far is looking like a solid single-player shooter and is making a real attempt to resolve the issues that have plagued multiplayer shooters for years. Single players can play the game in Campaign mode or Instant Action mode gives them access to all the multiplayer maps. Multiplayer can accommodate up to 16 players on the console and 32 on the PC. The only thing the game appears to be lacking so far is creativity in terms of the fictional concept. After countless games about futuristic, armored soldiers, Section 8 is in danger of getting lost in the shuffle unless the gameplay makes it stand out. Let's hope we'll see more of that at this year's E3.
Section 8 is slated for release in Q4 of 2009 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
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