Pop Culture Reviews

Section 8 – Beta impressions

The PC multiplayer beta for Section 8 the new first-person shooter from TimeGate Studios began for Australians and New Zealanders on the weekend and thankfully, I was lucky enough to score a beta key. I hadn’t done any homework on this title and the only thing I knew about it was that it’s a shooter (which immediately sparked my interest).

I decided to jump straight in (without reading the forums or the online manual) and found that the basic control mechanics used in most online shooters these days seemed to work fine for Section 8. The W, A, S, D keys are used for movement (strafing etc) and left mouse button for shooting. But there are quite a lot of different control keys required for alot of the other basic gameplay mechanics in Section 8 so I’ve got a few hours of gaming ahead of me to learn about all of the weapons and their functionality.

From a gameplay perspective, it reminds me of Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. You play as a soldier that is shielded in special protective armour capable of absorbing damage (just like Halo 3). You get to choose from several different classes (such as Assault, Infiltrator) much like Call of Duty with specific weapon sets (which you can edit and change before each respawn). The sprint boost is unreal! Finally, a game where you can dash around the map at super speed that lasts longer than 4 seconds!

Weapons are also really pretty kickass – grenade (like rocket) launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles etc. There are various other weapons too which I have yet to use. I’ve spent most of my time playing Assault class but when I get more time, I’ll blog about the other classes. Section 8 also features vehicles (much like mechs).

There’s no campaign mode and you can’t upgrade when you rank up as yet. From the looks of things, ranking up (by team assists, kills etc) will be fully featured in the release and you’ll be able to upgrade everything from weapons to armour. Connecting to US servers was easy but laggy. My ping to Aussie servers was looking good on 37. It’s nice having local servers to connect to for online multiplayer.

So far, my first impressions of the beta for Section 8 is ranking at about a 4/5. I’ll blog more once I’ve had more time with the game online but so far, it’s looking pretty solid.