Section 8 Review

SouthPeak Games’ other major E3 game, aside from Raven Squad, is Project 8 for the PC and Xbox 360. It is a sci-fi First Person Shooter with a focus on 32 person multi-player action. Similar to Medal of Honor: Airborne, you control where you want to land on the map when you respawn. You can even hit people on the way down. Awesome, right?

Project 8 has both a single and multi-player mode to tide you over. The single-player mode tells the story of Alex Corde, who is dispatched to Earth colonies that are being attacked by rebels. You play in the elite 8th Armored Infantry, known as Section 8. Gamers are able to customize various attributes for their character. The idea is not to restrict players to a class such as a medic or spy, but to allow users to choose their abilities, weapons and armor. Newcomers are not penalized since the system is balanced.

The game is based on the Unreal 3 engine and the graphics are relatively impressive. Supporting 32 players on a map at once, the developers also allow players to fill in empty spots on the server with bots. The battlefields are large and wide open. You can drop in at any point on the map not marked in red (enemy territory) and can even aim your landing to a point on the map where you land on enemies for an instant kill.

Dynamic combat missions will appear as you play through the multi-player. These change the way the battle is waged as players will focus on achieving an objective and the other team will focus on preventing the other team from succeeding. On a side note, I have to say that I found that killing someone in Section 8 takes an exceedingly long amount of time. It is not as quick as a couple bursts. You have to penetrate armor and then take down their health all of the way. This can be somewhat annoying.

To get from one side of the map to the next players will be able to both walk, run and jet pack. Deployable weapons appear from time to time, varying depending on the way that combat is played on the battlefield. These deployable weapons range from mounted gun emplacements to tanks that teammates can ride on as well as mechanized vehicles. All of this adds a decent amount of variety to gameplay that is definitely needed.

My overall impressions of Section 8 are generally positive. The graphics look nice, the drop in feature is something that I think is underused in games and there is a good amount of action to be had in online multi-player. I can’t speak for the single player since I did not get a chance to play it. This is not going to be the next big First-Person Shooter, but it has the potential to be a decent summer release to keep people busy until Halo ODST and other shooters get released in the fall.