User Review : Section 8

Ups

• Half the price of a regular game
• Awesome online gameplay, including a leveling system
• Awesome online gameplay, including a leveling system

Downs

• Can get repetitive at times
• Online can sometimes get sluggish when low on players, if the AI is deactivated.

Section 8 is an underrated, obscure game that is available by download or by disc.

Section 8, in my personal opinion, is an extremely underrated game that deserves way more than what it's currently getting credit for.
It is a game available on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Arcade for $30 USD, as well as on disc at the same price in game stores such as GameStop for all platforms. It is also available on Steam, for the same price.

The game has both online/offline multiplayer and single player story mode. The story mode's main purpose is to teach you the basics of how to play the game, and get you into the groove of the game. The multiplayer, however, is where the game really shines. The multiplayer has both online and offline modes.

I'll go into detail about the online mode in the online section.
The offline, however, includes robust AI support, so that you can play a match without online. The AI has several modes -- Balanced, Swarm, Super Swarm, and One Man Army. Each also has a difficulty level -- very easy, easy, medium, hard, and insane.

AI Mode Details:
Balanced -- Exactly what it says; the AI will make sure that both teams are balanced out.
Swarm -- Your team will have slightly less AI players than the enemy team.
Super Swarm -- Same as swarm, but with even less players on your team.
One Man Army -- You against an army, easy enough to understand.

There is only one game mode -- but within that one game mode, there are many sub-modes that can be activated at different times, such as Outpost, VIP, Bomb, Convoy, or Intel. Each mission is unique in its own way. These sub-modes are called "DCMs" and are activated for a team once a player opens the DCM menu and activates one. Each activation, however, costs money and requires a certain amount of points in the game.

Included online is a leveling system that lets you unlock simple customization changes and new ranks.

Many people have criticized this game for being a knock-off of Halo: ODST. This is completely untrue, as this game was under development before ODST's concept was ever even released.

Score

8.2

Graphics

The graphics are quite astounding. They are better on the disc version of the game, as the downloadable version compresses them heavily to squeeze the file size down. The game looks much better in HD than in SD, but both look fairly nice.

7.1

Sound

Many of the game's sound effects are repetitive, but at the same time, each is unique. For example, each weapon's sound effects are very different from each other. However, the reload sound effects are all almost identical.

8.5

Gameplay

Overall, the gameplay is excellent. All of the weapons are fairly balanced (with the exception of the det packs). When playing, you have to juggle keeping an eye on your capture points and fighting other players, as well as completing DCMs.

9.0

Fun Factor

Section 8 is a very fun game, and remains entertaining for a long while after you first start playing it, thanks to its multiplayer functionality.

10.0

Online

This runs on community-run dedicated servers on all platforms, meaning there isn't nearly as much lag as with other games. The max players allowed in a game is 32. Many of the servers have the AI activated to keep the teams balanced when there are not enough players to fill all slots.

Overall

8.8

[Kingdom Come]

Quite a generous review, but at the end of the day if the game is fun for you, that's all that matters. :]

[hkalic]

I played Section 8 on PC during open beta phase and by the first look it was very good. Then I started to play. The game is well thought and is interesting but player controls is terrible. There was some kind of inertia when you wanted to move that led me to berserk state. I wanted to play but I couldn't. That was it for me.