[Review] Section 8: Prejudice

[DoctorFinger]

Section 8 Prejudice Review

Title - Section 8 Prejudice
Platform - Xbox Live Arcade. Coming soon to PC and Playstation Network
Developer - TimeGate Studios
Publisher - TimeGate Studios
ESRB Rating - M (Mature)
MSRP - 1200 Microsoft Points/$15
Editor - Michael "DoctorFinger" Chauvet

What's Hot: Top notch online play. Surprisingly strategic gameplay for a shooter. Engrossing co-op Swarm mode. Low price point.

What's Not: Lackluster offline play. Occasionally indecipherable HUD.

One of the great things about this current generation of gaming are the downloadable games. Developers and publishers have realized they can make a quality, engrossing game without gut busting budgets and get it to the consumer at a low price point. This is the lesson learned by TimeGate Studios in their new shooter Section 8: Prejudice. The original Section 8 from 2009 was a good shooter which simply couldn’t hang with the big boys as a $60 retail title. Instead of packing it in or trying to bloat their next product to death they went in the downloadable direction, and the result is a tremendously fun multiplayer shooter.

Section 8: Prejudice takes what worked from the original, dumped what didn’t, and in the process made some nice additions to the gameplay. At the beginning of each match you choose your loadout from 6 customizable presets and jump onto the battlefield. And I mean jump in the most literal sense; you enter the fight by leaping from orbit right onto the fray. You select a drop point from a map, but while in the air you can adjust your flightpath and land in a more advantageous spot. Of course you could also land in a bad place, but I’ll get back to that in a moment. You have a number of choices to make when setting your loadout, with more destructive goodies unlocked as you progress up the XP ladder and earn Achievements.

You begin every life by jumping into the battlefield from orbit. And no, you don’t have a parachute.

Once you land you things stay interesting. You have a jetpack which lets you maneuver around the battlefield and insure that no position is unassailable. You also have an Overdrive spring mode, which lets you dash quickly, but with less control than a normal run. By default you’ll automatically shift into Overdrive after sprinting for a couple of seconds, but I found it better to map that function to the right analog stick. Once you start racking up kills and completing goals you earn money, which can be spent on deployables. Things like supply depots, anti-air guns, sensor grids and even vehicles can be dropped right onto the battlefield for your destructive enjoyment. Early on these just seem like cool bonuses, but they become really important as the game’s difficulty increases. For example placing an AA gun in the right spot makes it almost impossible for the enemy to deploy in an area around it, making them head overland to get to the gun. These deployables really change the game from a basic shooter into something much more tactical. You need to use these properly to be effective, but it takes some time to learn the nuances of the deployables.

The single player campaign is pretty much a glorified, 4 hour tutorial. But since the game is at heart an online shooter - and the tutorial is both fun and informative - I don’t see this as much of a problem. Multiplayer is divided into 2 sections. Conquest has up to 32 players (upped to 40 on the PC version) split into 2 teams battling for control points spread across a fairly large map. For every second you hold a point, your team’s score goes up, and the first side to 1000 wins. This is the core of the game and it’s very effective. The press review events I played in didn’t have a ton of human players, but they were still a ton of chaotic fun.

Boom! Headshot!

Next up is the cooperative Swarm mode. You and up to 3 friends team up to fight off wave after wave of enemies. With all of the emplacements you can buy Swarm mode plays almost like a tower defense/DotA type shooter as opposed to Conquest mode’s Halo/Battlefield feel. I didn’t get too deep into this mode in my time with the game, so I can’t say how hairy it gets in the later waves, but even the early waves are no pushover.

The story is...well no one is buying this game for the story. You’re a member of the baddest of the badass squads of space marines, and you’re fighting the bad guys. There are no moral ambiguities or philosophizing. Which is fine in a multiplayer shooter. Had the single player campaign been a bit more extensive I would have found the lack of a story annoying, but for the amount of campaign it’s the right amount of exposition. But it’s still some very cliched exposition, nonetheless.

”Let me show you something!”

Visually S8P is competent but rarely spectacular. There’s a good visual variety among the levels, but the character models are mostly generic. At times the game actually looks a lot like Halo, and in a good way. I do wish the HUD was a little less chaotic. It can be tough at times to identify objectives and equipment when the fighting gets heavy. But the framerate is rock solid and everything is smooth and clean. The voice acting is uneven, with some nice work and a few glaringly lackluster efforts. Were this a full retail title I’d say the presentation was below average, but for a DLG it’s pretty good.

Score: (4 out of 5 Cogs)


Michael says, “While Section 8 Prejudice never quite crosses the line into greatness, it gets close while managing to be a hell of a fun ride. And it’s fun factor is multiplied by it’s $15 price point. It loses a bit of it’s charm when played single player, but go online with real people and it’s a blast.”

[Blue]

Appreciate the review. When I first saw the trailer it looked pretty but didn't really grab me (assumed it was generic as it looked a little so) but with the praise and the price, I'll have to grab this when it hits PC.

[Iron Past]

I tried the trial a bit this morning (campaign) and was kind of impressed. I'll go online with it later to decide if I want to buy it, but it seems like a cheap way to get some MP shooter fun.

[DoctorFinger]

I didn't put it in the review, but there's a spot on the menu for another multiplayer mode which is listed as coming soon, so there are plans for more content.

[Reverant]

Whew. I'm so excited for this that when I woke up this morning and bought it without even downloading the trial. Glad to hear it's what I expected to be- great multiplayer fun at a low price point.

[Purple Santa]

Karak just asked me about this. Thanks for the review. I'll be jumping into this soon

[Karak]

Ya getting this to play with Santa tonight. Going to be some jumping, running, ducking barely any enemies dying action tonight!...or whenever we play.

[digitalErich]

I won't be getting this until the PC version comes out, but I'll be curious to see what loadouts people are using.

[menage]

If I didn't have a half played Crysis 2 MP I would be all over this, but I can't really go for another MP shooter/game while ditching another.

[Kielaran]

I have been on the fence about buying this for a while, but between the review and wanting to encourage this kind of action, I think I am going to pick it up now.

[Spectre-7]

Gonna toss up a quote from the other thread, in case people missed it.

Originally Posted by Spectre-7

Eurogamer.net posted their review tonight and they gave it 9/10, saying, "Were it not for the outdated visuals and functional presentation, Prejudice would easily be worth a full-price purchase. It is, quite simply, the best multiplayer shooter since Battlefield: Bad Company 2. As a budget digital download, it's ridiculously good value."

Eurogamer is a rather notoriously tough critic, usually running about 2 points lower than the average American outlet, so Section 8: Prejudice got the equivalent of... wait, lemme do some math here... 11/10. Holy wow.

[Reverant]

I have to honestly say I'm more excited about this than Portal 2, especially after that Eurogamer review.

[Drayven]

dammit, i'm gonna get home and everyone is gonna be playing and I'm gonna have to buy it

[Wilkz07]

thanks for the review. i didnt' like the first one too much but after this review I'll try the trial and go from there.

[Goronmon]

Originally Posted by Spectre-7

Gonna toss up a quote from the other thread, in case people missed it.

That is quite the endorsement. Color me interested.

[SenatorSpacer]

Bought the game this morning, hopefully will see more COG people online over time.

[Darken Skye]

Originally Posted by Drayven

dammit, i'm gonna get home and everyone is gonna be playing and I'm gonna have to buy it

One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!

[Spectre-7]

For my fellow PC gamers out there, it's now available for pre-order on Steam with their standard 10% discount. Seems like a lot of game for $13.49.

[digitalErich]

Originally Posted by Spectre-7

For my fellow PC gamers out there, it's now available for pre-order on Steam with their standard 10% discount. Seems like a lot of game for $13.49.

I just bought it not 20 min ago, I see you there next week.

Edit: Weird, I can understand it not being available for preload (up to the publisher) but it's not showing in my list at all, odd.

[Shieldmaiden]

Eurogamer have gone downhill of late, in my opinion. I've noticed a shift from using a really good pool of freelancers for a lot of their reviews to keeping things mostly in-house I see more incidents of what appears to be score-padding or just plain awful writing.