Dark Sector is a Gears of War wannabe
There’s nothing wrong with borrowing certain minor elements from a few blockbuster titles every so often to add some zing to a game under development. But when you take everything that reminds people about said blockbuster, then you’ve got yourself a wannabe. Or a clone. Or a rip-off.
Dark Sector is such a game. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
Is it just me, or does this game scream Gears of War? The running, rolling, and the cover are particularly too familiar. Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing a few minor elements, but if the game under development is becoming more and more of a clone, then there’s a danger of backlash from gamers.
While we agree that Gears’ gameplay is fantastic, duplicating it in another game would only make gamers look disparagingly at said clone.
Would Dark Sector be a keeper or a rental?
Maybe this version of Gears will work on your PC? ;)
Touché, Klopzi. That made me laugh out loud. I can’t say that it’s really coming out for the PC, though.
According to Wikipedia, there will be a PC version. Nothing on GameSpot though. As far as they’re concerned, the game is coming out for the 360 and PS3.
Then again, I can’t really believe anything that GameSpot says these days.
I still trust GameSpot, but it does make you wonder what reviewers are playing when they hand out their scores.
For what it’s worth, X-Play gave G.O.W. (PC) 4 out of 5 and they never mentioned crashes either. You’ve got to wonder how much was screwed up between the review copies of the game and the final production release.
I think this is an indication of what the future of games journalism holds.
Yes, these game websites would still exist. However, due to the rather unusual relationship between game publisher, game periodical, and game journalist (i.e. publisher advertises in periodical, tells periodical what to do, journalist either relents or protects his integrity), there is always room for doubt whether review scores are the real deal or just guerrilla marketing.
This is where bloggers like us come in. Despite being “just bloggers” and not really journalists in the strictest sense of the word, we actually have an edge over the enthusiast press because there are no publishers breathing down our necks.
As a result, we can give scathing reviews if a game deserves it. If the game is really good, then we’ll say so. We say things as it is. There’s no pressure from external sources.
What I’m saying is: people, you should trust us bloggers more than your average game journalist. We’re not in publishers’ payroll, at least until these companies start advertising on our blogs. :P
While the money may be tempting, heaven forbid. I’d rather keep my integrity, thank you.
Oh, and I seriously doubt the publishers can chase us all down and advertise in our blogs. There are just too many blogs and bloggers unlike the enthusiast press, which can be easier to control because of their smaller numbers.