While the original Section 8 did have moments of innovation (particularly with your super suit’s dash and rocketing abilities), it didn’t quite have enough juice to justify a $60 price tag, especially considering that the higher quality Halo games were available for an equal, or lesser, price. But now we have a much better option with TimeGate’s sequel, Section 8: Prejudice. Rather than going the full retail route, the company opted to release the game as a $15 download through Xbox Live. A better deal? You bet it is – and a better product, too. The game has a prolonged single player campaign, one that’ll take about five or so hours to get through. You’re essentially part of a commando space team, decommissioned by your former government and eager to get a little bit of revenge. Your timing couldn’t be better, as sinister military forces are moving in for a hostile takeover, and only you (and your comrades) can hold them off.
It’s typical sci-fi mumbo jumbo, and though you won’t be moved by twists and turns like in other games, it’s serviceable, and doesn’t stray into Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus territory. (Still, we’d pay good money to see a space shark bite the crap out of a ship.) There are some decent improvements to the gameplay engine, including more weapon arming stations (in which you can also change your weapon loadout and special abilities, including engineer), a little more precision on the aiming controls, the ability to melee in a much sicker fashion (two knife slices and a stab, or taking someone down from behind), and slightly better handling over your dash ability. Other than that, it’s Section 8 territory for the most part, from the drop into the map from thousands of feet above to being able to literally run over your enemies in dash mode. (You’ll even score an “I’m the Juggernaut” Achievement for the trouble.) For the most part, the gameplay is very good, though hardly original. You can see nods to Halo here and there, from riding around on a speeder bike to shoot down enemies to using a rocket launcher to clear out a fortified base.
Considering that the hype for Halo: Reach has died down, perhaps it’s a flattering compliment that TimeGate kept must of its Section 8 gameplay intact. You could certainly play worse shooters online than this one. Still, it’s not quite perfect. Trying to go from a dash to a rocket pack jump is tricky, as both use the same meter and precision isn’t always their strongest suit when it comes to transition. Also, some weapons work better than others. The rocket launcher isn’t nearly as powerful as we would’ve liked, and we expected more oomph out of a shotgun. Still, the ability to jump on enemies from above or run them over with the suit adds some creativity. And you’ll be promptly rewarded for it, as we mentioned beforehand. One area where Section 8 has made notable improvement is presentation. The visuals really bring out the best in downloadable Xbox Live quality, and seeing as how the game takes up about 1.7 GB of hard drive space, we aren’t surprised. Still, TimeGate is to be commended by pushing a little bit further in the visual front, with great-looking stage design, impressive lighting details, cool weapon effects (just wait until you see a gigantic laser try to cut you in half, followed by – three others?!) and cool animations.
This feature review continues on the next page, please click Page 2 below to see our final thoughts on Section 8: Prejudice for XBLA.
