TL;DR – Section 8 is a forgotten 7th console generation FPS game with a heavy emphasis on it’s multiplayer mode, which died long ago. It’s also a game I have fond memories of playing back when it was a relevant, or at least as relevant as it ever got. This is due to the fact that it’s a simple FPS game with a handful of gimmicks stapled onto the veritable core that has been somewhat shamelessly ripped from Battlefield 2. As such you’ve got 4 classes in a team based FPS game that has various objectives to capture, support for bots in MP, controllable vehicles (albeit not planes) and an adequate selection of maps. You’ve also got a pretty bog-standard campaign mode, which I’ve only just played for the first time. Sadly the game has since been delisted from digital store-fronts, which does make it abandonware and thus free for anyone curious. Personally I’d say it’s not really worth it, but I wanted a trip down memory lane and by golly did I get one.
Section 8 as the TL;DR covers, is a pretty standard and long dead FPS game that lived and died by it’s multiplayer modes. With that being said, it had a few tricks up it’s sleeve which I think made it a pretty fun and enjoyable game, even if it wasn’t going to set the world on fire. Before diving into those though, I’ll just quickly rattled through the surrounding layers that aren’t really worth covering in detail. Firstly the graphics are fine for the era, nothing special but the variety in locations is appreciated and it avoids the near-ubiquitous BROWN AND BLOOM approach favoured by it’s contemporaries. It even avoids the near mandatory urine-filter that makes all the blues washed out in favour of a “nice” yellow layer. Instead this a game that just looks kinda nice. The soundtrack, such as it is, doesn’t really have a much of a role in this outside of the menu screen but it’s inoffensive so gets a pass. The weapon selection is about what you’d expect, namely assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles, a missile launcher, a shotgun and an SMG. Finally the AI manages to be both kinda bad and also adequate at the same time, they’re good shots but tactically brain dead so swings and roundabouts. Oh and obviously the writing sucks and the voice acting isn’t very good because this is a game on the budget end of the spectrum.
With that out of the way, why did I like Section 8? Well the first thing that was really cool about the game was the fact that you spawned in by jumping through space!!! The way it works is simple, you pick a place you’d like to respawn and the game obliges by booting you out of a space ship. You then hurtle down towards the battle field, with the option of either crash landing like a badass or initiating a space-break that gives you some control over where you land. Either way getting the whole battlefield while you rush towards it is genuinely pretty cool and a nice idea. One that even ended up becoming part of the Medal of Honor series via MoH:Airborne, shortly before they went full “let’s try to be even cooler than Call of Duty” and died. The other twist that Section 8 has to offer otherwise jaded FPS fans is that you get two mobility gimmicks. The first is that if you hold sprint, eventually you’ll enter SUPER SPRINT after a few seconds and then switch to third person view while running at a very silly speed. As a bonus, you can damage both friends and foes by barrelling into them at Mach 4. Which is honestly a great addition to any game. Then the other great addition to any game is the humble jetpack, which doesn’t last for very long but everyone gets one so Section 8 gets a thumbs up from me if only for that. To compensate for the fact that everyone gets regenerating shields that take a while to go down, plus these movements options the game also has a limited auto-aim feature. Essentially every now and then you lock-on to the enemy for a few seconds, which ends instantly if they go behind cover or line of sight is otherwise broken. The timing has been handled pretty well, as you can’t just abuse it due to the long cooldown and it doesn’t guarantee a kill as generally you’ll only whittle down the enemy’s shields or at least a big chunk of them. As a consequence of these ideas, Section 8 is a fun little multiplayer shooter that gives players the ability to flex on the baddies while still having some crutches for noobs. Plus the multiplayer modes while limited, do feature two variations on “players vs overwhelming numbers of bots” which you love to see in a game. Anyone who has tried playing the Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 galactic conquest modes knows how fun standing off against legions of the AI can be, even when the AI isn’t particularly bright.
Unfortunately as mentioned earlier, the Section 8 multiplayer modes are super dead and no one can buy the game. There is a discord community that has jerry-rigged the LAN mode and sometimes plays the game, so click here if you’d like to join them. Otherwise you’re stuck playing against the bots in a pale imitation of MP, convincing a group of your friends to play a LAN game or “enjoying” the campaign mode. Which is why I’m writing this review, because I’ve only recently gotten around to playing the campaign mode after barely thinking about this game for around 12 years. How is it? Well it’s pretty mediocre in pretty much every way imaginable. Now notice that I didn’t say bad, I just said mediocre. This is because the campaign mode can’t really be considered bad, as it’s too bland and inoffensive to be actually objectionable. It’s fine, it even has one or two interesting (not necessarily good) ideas and it functions as a nice enough tutorial for the multiplayer mode. Which is unfortunately dead, but if we consider it in the context of when the game was relevant it’s a forgivable offence. I mean Battlefield Bad Company had a campaign, and it was OK, but people only really cared about the game for the multiplayer mode. So what makes the campaign so bland I hear you ask?
Well first thing’s first, the campaign is just a collection of 8 maps where you basically play normal skirmish matches against the AI. There are some restrictions to your load-out at least initially, and the occasional (short) cutscene but generally speaking these are pretty standard missions. You spawn in to the designated area, move forward, shoot the handful of AI enemies, press the action button to hack something and then either more enemies spawn while you defend the objective or the map gets bigger. When the map gets bigger, you go to the next objective. Rinse and repeat for almost every part of this very short campaign. Should you die, you can just respawn back in. There are no penalities for dying at all. The enemy variety is very minimal, because the enemies are just AI bots and occasionally AI bots in vehicles. Sometimes you even get a vehicle too! The plot is basically an irrelevance, your squadmates have zero personality and neither does the protagonist. In fact the only thing I can think of as being noteworthy is the bizarre way that your squadmates interact with the enemy. On the one hand, they are invulnerable. On the other hand, they only deal damage in rare instances where they are allowed to, or when you’ve dealt a decent amount of damage to an individual enemy who they are then allowed to finish off. It’s quite common to see a squadmate and an enemy locked in an elaborate duel to the death, where both run into each other, unload multiple magazines of gunfire and neither take any damage. This does make them effective distractions, but the enemy will prioritise you if you get too close. Unfortunately, a squad of 5 enemies can all deal damage whereas your squad of 3 buddies is much more limited. As for why I described it as a glorified tutorial, well that’s because over the course of Section 8’s eight missions (in hindsight, was that intentional on the part of the developers?) you are gradually introduced to each mechanic that will be in the multiplayer mode. You get to play as each class at least once. You get to call in turrets and vehicles. You get to pilot each vehicle precisely once and you have to fight each “enemy type” (namely infantry, mechs and vehicles) multiple times. The whole thing is a pretty basic and barebones story stretched over a couple of maps that play like a more scripted version of a multiplayer battle.
And at this point there really isn’t much more to say about the game. The campaign is basically a blur and I finished it in one sitting, without any difficulty. The fact that you can respawn infinitely and that each completed objective causes a supply point (which regenerates ammo and health) to drop in at your location makes it a pretty easy time. The final boss fight is just a mech with some tougher enemies escorting it, while the only real fearsome gunfights occur during “defend the objective” missions. But you can keep respawning, and the enemy AI is pretty dumb, so I never failed a mission. As mentioned the plot is super basic, you are a MARINE in SPACE whose squad dies fighting the BIG BAD GUY and so you are MAD at the BIG BAD GUY and eventually you find him and SHOOT HIM. That’s about it, there’s no world building or side characters or ambiguity or choices or anything. It’s as simple as it gets. There is one cutscene that is unintentionally really funny because the protagonist keeps saying he’s gonna COME but I chalked that up to me being immature. I will note that the environments look kinda nice and uh… the shooting is fine even if playing against bots isn’t as fun as playing against real people. I guess I should point out that Section 8 is weird in the sense that explosives don’t deal that much damage, and as a consequence enemies are surprisingly durable even if they are unsurprisingly dumb. There’s not much more to elaborate on there though, because this is a very simple campaign for an enjoyable if fairly simple FPS game.
In conclusion then Section 8 is a good FPS game that has been largely lost to the mists of time. If you were to pick it up today, you’d get a mediocre campaign and some matches against AI bots that are pretty dumb. You’d also get the potential for a fun LAN party, but let’s not kid ourselves – that probably won’t happen. So would I recommend Section 8? Not really. It’s a game I enjoyed back in the day and playing through it wasn’t a bad experience, but unless you are someone like me with fond memories this is a short and insubstantial experience. As mentioned the game is sort of free, because it’s abandonware and the truly dedicated reader can join a discord group and maybe get an online match out of it. Alas Section 8 is a game that came and went, that I can’t in good faith endorse to anyone except those who are exceptionally curious about the dead games of the 7th console generation. If you are one of those eccentrics, then it’s a fine experience with some nice ideas. For everyone else, press F to pay respects.