It’s odd to have a game marketed based on its price, but that’s exactly what Timegate seemed to want to push for Section 8: Prejudice, a downloadable sequel to last year’s full retail title. The other half of that message though is that the game wasn’t going to be downsized, instead it would still be packed with plenty of content. We’ve had the game in our digital hands for almost a week now and can definitely say this isn’t your standard downloadable title, you’ve got a single player campaign, online versus for 32-40 players and of course 4 player online co-op.
The campaign of Section 8: Prejudice puts you in the role of super soldier named Alex Corde of “Alpha Squad.” The game starts simple enough with a training exercise, but quickly things turn sour as your base becomes under attack in a jail break attempt of an enemy prisoner. Soon you are off on a journey through multiple planets to track down your prisoner and find out some nefarious plot. The story isn’t anything to write home about, but it is filled with some fun voice acting (the lead general is the same voice as the narrator from Crackdown) in cut scenes and it lasts just as long as your average Call of Duty shooter.
Graphically the game looks gorgeous on both the 360 and PC. While the console doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the PC version, the variety of environments simply look great.
Its kinda hard not to get a "Halo" vibe from the game.
On the versus side of things you have one mode called Conquest, but calling it one mode isn’t quite doing it justice. This 32 to 40 player affair has players capturing specific areas of the map and earning points for the longer they hold them. What sets this apart is the game’s strategy elements - killing players and completing objectives earns you cash. Cash lets you drop in items like a machine gun turret, supply depots, or even a hover bike. These items can be used to defend or attack locations turning the tide of battle.
Alongside the main objective of capturing control points, Section 8: Prejudice has something called DCMs, or dynamic combat missions. These range from protecting a VIP to gathering a piece of intelligence and delivering it somewhere. There’s another one that charges a team with getting an airstrike beacon and delivering it to a location wiping out the entire opposing team. Completing these not only earn your team extra points, but they add a certain ebb and flow to the game. You’ll find it brings the battle on larger maps into a smaller area with really intense fighting as one team tries to stop the other from completing their objective. There’s at least 8 different maps, though they vary and scale depending on player count which on the 360, which supports up to 32 players on dedicated servers. The PC version supports up to 40 players on dedicated servers.
I was actually surprised at the depth of Section 8’s character classes - not only can you customize your weapons with different ammo types as well as customize your secondary tools like grenades with different effects, but you can actually balance out your character’s abilities with an RPG like character sheet. Players are allotted 10 points to put into things like extra shield, extra armor, better aiming, repair abilities and firepower. Each of the 8 upgrades, as they are called, have four levels of power that can be placed in them helping you created custom classes that suit your playstyle. This can be done not only in versus and single player, but also in the game’s co-op mode.