Section 8 is set in a futuristic universe where players can customise their armour and weapon loadouts depending on their style of play. So you could have a Sniper Rifle with a Rocket Launcher as your secondary and change your armour settings so that you are invisible to Radar and carry your own Repair kit to keep you going between Sniper positions. I went with the Assault Rifle and Rocket Launcher combo and put my Armor points into shielding and armour so I could take a punishment and still win over my opponents. In addition as you play through a match you acquire exp points either through killing the other side or by taking Control Points and completing side objectives. Which you can use to deploy turrets/supply dispensers/additional sensors and to games two vehicles an anti-infantry mech that as Gatling guns and an impressive melee that will take out any poor soul who is front of the mech and the
games ultimate weapon the tank which seats four players who control a different gun expect the pilot who has the main gun and has to drive. The vehicles are brought into the game via some kind of dropship, which can be shot out of the sky before it drops off its payload, to the annoyance of the guy who spent all those points.

At the moment there are two gametypes; you have your standard Team Deathmatch and a capture points gametype that is very battlefield-esque. The game supports 32-players which is a little low for a PC game, I would have expected alot more, but it does not hamper the gameplay. As with the TDM gametype your player ‘burns in’ to the game from around 15,000 feet and plummets towards the earth, you could go straight down and land but you are then venerable for a few seconds as you gather yourself, the alternative is the ‘air brake’ which allows you some control of descent as you plummet but you can also be targeted easier by the AA guns, the best feeling is finding the right time to use the brake and swoop around the AA fire and land near or on top of the CP you want to capture. You can also land on people if you get it right and crush them as you start, which is fun when they do not notice you, before its too late.

The CP gametype has a default of 1000 points for the team to reach in order to win, you can obtain points by killing the other team, capturing/holding CP’s or completing one of the many side objectives that make this game interesting, sometimes the mission could be a simple one like ‘drive a supply truck to your base’ or it could be a lot harder such as activate a beacon (which deploys a mini base) and defend the area from attack for a certain amount of time. They are fun and add variety to a gametype that hasn’t changed much since BF:1942 in 2002.

The sounds and Graphics are great, again showing us like Valve, Epic Games knows how to make a brillant engine that can handle anything.

It is coming the UK around the end of august 2009 for the PC/Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and will have a full single-player campaign based around the missions of a character call Alex Corde, I will expand on this in a full review upon release.

Minimum system requirements:
Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1
Pentium 4 3Ghz or higher
RAM: 1GB for XP, 2GB for Vista
6 GB free hard drive space
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 or ATI Radeon X1800 with 256 MB, DirectX 9c and Shader 3.0

Some games play by the rules, some games break them, and some games redefine what the rules are. The question here is what  type of game is mass effect? A ground breaking adventure, a frankenstenien creation that never should have seen the light of day,  or maybe something in the middle…

Now Mass effect has been around for a while to be perfectly honest, and many people reading this will already have played it, or  in some cases decided not to. In the light of the announcement of Mass Effect 2, a direct sequel to the first adventure of  Commander Shepard, the time is ripe for another look at this game.

On the surface Mass Effect is an action role playing game, with a few twist on the norms of the style. Although neither of these are  ground breaking, it is refreshing to see a game that wants to separate it’s self from the “middle earth” like fantasy setting, so common for this genre, as well as a third person camera that is more reminiscant of games like Gears of War. Instead the game throws you into the action of this Sci-Fi future letting you play the part of Shepard cutting to cinematic camera angles during conversations that generally feel very right.

The game starts like so many games, with a character creation tool. Your last name will be Shepard, whether you like it or not, otherwise there are a good number of options. Male or Female, you can make your character look unique, and customize the way they’ll play. Despite this system being relatively deep, it’s really difficult to not be slightly disappointed after having played games like Oblivion. The one shining point is a combination of two sets of questions. One defines, where you came from, not in terms of race but in terms of whether you grew up in space, on a colony, or on earth. The other defines why you are exceptional, I chose to be a war hero. These two options then come up in conversations throughout the game, which although might not be a critical feature is a nice touch. Hearing from a random passer by that you helped save their colony, is if nothing else a little heart warming.

Once you’re character is created you’re thrust into the world of Mass Effect, or more aptly, the Galaxy. Unlike most games which keep your feet firmly planted on a single world, mass effect let’s you hop between many different fully explorable worlds. On the surface this sounds a little overwhelming, however, not all planets are explorable. Most planets simply pop up a message explaining what you found. Even with this eating into the experience, there is still a massive amount to see. The galaxy holds numerous systems, with at least one planet being explorable in each.

Mass Effect takes it’s story and universe to new levels of depth. Beyond the massive scope of worlds to visit is an entire encyclopaedia of information waiting to be read. Each planet, weapon, company, building, race, clan etc… has an in depth entry in your codex. This means that if you want you can read up on every aspect of the universe of commander Shepard. Taking your understanding of the events to new highs, this is a nice touch, which isn’t necessary for most people, but there for those that really want to sink their teeth into this game.

In regards to story, it’s an immersive adventure with numerous twists, and they all depend on how you play. The story mainly driven through voice acted interactions between characters, where you almost always have the right dialogue choice for your given situation and mood. The voice acting is for the most part competent, with only a few lines standing out for being either badly delivered, or poorly written. The musical score is well handled, helping to evoke the right emotional queues. Sound effects, like the weapons fire, or doors are all well chosen. Like a most films this is a universe where people will hear you scream, but unlike most of those films this sits out like the original Star Wars Trilogy for the fact that it’ll sound right.

Perhaps the biggest let down with Mass Effect then is the graphics, which to be fair are amazing… most of the time. The one big chink in this games armour is perhaps how long it takes textures to load. Also there are some odd visuals during some of the dialogue sequences… That aside though and the graphics look good, and do a good job of creating diversity in the vistas of space.

Gameplay is fluid with the exploration dynamics easy to use. During combat the game shines, giving you a comprehensive basic commands system, that can be expanded on by directing your alies to use specific Bionics and Techs. A great addition for this style of game is a working cover system, that in conjunction with unit commands and special abilities, allows for many different play styles.  Your team while ok, could have spent a little longer at school, as at times they do ignore immediate threats, instead choosing to fire at some one off in the distance. Ennemies on the other hand seem not to suffer from this lack of smarts, as they work well at out flanking you or throwing a well placed grenade or power behind your cover at opportune moments.

All in all this is one hell of a strong title, of course there are things that could have been better like faster elevators, or a few more biotics and engineering skills. These are minimal and in general this is a game that doesn’t just make you want to explore space, it lets you. This is a game that tears up the rule book for action RPGs , and tells the industry to try to beat it… I can’t wait to see the second instalment.