Expelling the Section 8 Prejudice(s)

Section 8 Prejudice Wallpaper
1920x1200

Section 8 is a game by Timegate Studios featuring first person shooting and a host of innovative and different game play mechanics. Sadly this fact was not clearly communicated and was thus lost on the general public. Most, I think, came looking for a PC version of a Halo experience. What they got was a game so different it required a learning curve to great for the typical Halo player to handle. PC gaming vetreans who have mastered the learning curve behind a game like Starsiege: Tribes had little problem getting in to the game but only after spending some time learning and doing some reading on forums to discover the pieces left out of the game tutorials.

The biggest detractor wasn't any one game mechanic but rather a mentality. One that Halo and Call of Duty fans have had to deal with very little until recent itterations of those games. That being management. Section 8 required you to passively manage your armor configuration, weapons load out and even your spawn location on the map. Things that see limited use, and some times don't appear at all on other games. Then once you are "on the ground" you have to manage not just shields but your movement power and timing while you move. As well you need to manage your weapon choices as you go along. Plasma isn't useful against a physically heavy armored targets where physical rounds are more effective and vice versa for lightly armored heavily shielded targets. Once you pile on item and mission requests the game becomes a rough learning curve and a much more tactical experience.

Unfortunately it appeared Timegate's dev team did not effectively communicate to their PR firm/department the nature of the game and it was advertised in the same manor as other pick up and shoot FPS games. So when the masses arrived they found they were shooting their shielded opponent with full gattling magazines and doing little damange which became frustrating so they left declaring Section 8 a terrible game. If only they knew you needed to drop the enemies shields first with plasma based weapons before inflicting the physical damage.

I played Section 8 and loved it while it lasted. Unfortunately it didn't last very long with both the PC and PS3 console versions dwindling to almost nothing with in a year. I did in fact buy it twice, once on PC and once on PS3 and I wager folks like me are the reason Timegate has been able to make another game. They do say they've made many changes to the new game. Their marketing doesnt look much different so here's to hoping their tutorial systems are better and that they haven't stripped the game entirely of it's tacticle essence that was so amazing the first go around.

Timegates website can be found here.
The Section 8 Prejudice website is here.

Go grab your copy on:
Steam (releases 4 May 2011) Pre-order nets you 10% off for a cost of $13.49.
Xbox (all ready released)
PS3 (No date set yet "coming soon" on Timegates Buy Now page)