If you're going to 'borrow' ideas then you might as well borrow them from the best games that the industry has to offer. Digital Extremes have been happier than anyone to do just that over the past five or six years, releasing homages to/rip-offs of (depending on your viewpoint) Halo and Unreal Tournament in the form of Pariah and Warpath respectively. Each game had its fair share of positives, but each of them also suffered greatly from a severe lack of innovation and an inevitably unfavourable comparison with the games that they borrowed so liberally from. Although this is also the case of Digital Extremes' latest release, a game best described as the illegitimate lovechild of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, upon spending some time with Dark Sector it quickly becomes clear it is unquestionably Digital Extremes' most polished and entertaining game to date.

Dark Sector was originally announced nearly four years ago, as a third person action game that would be coming to both the PlayStation 3 and the then Xbox 2. Back then the game was set in space and shared little in common with the game that has arrived on the shelves all these years later. Usually when a game makes a large scale appearance before vanishing back into the wilderness as Dark Sector did, it's reasonable to hold one of two fears; either the game has fallen into development hell never to be seen again, or it has been remade from the ground up due to not living up to the developer's or publisher's initial expectations. Well, be it simply a change in artistic direction or a complete overhaul of the initial design and game mechanics, Dark Sector finally fell into the latter category.

Although still a third person action game, Dark Sector's final form, both thematically and in its design, is nearly all down to its inescapable links to both Gears of War and Resident Evil 4 - and to be honest, the game is probably all the better for it. While other games that have been remade from scratch, such as the recently released Timeshift, feel dated before they have even hit the shelves, Dark Sector, although far from being revolutionary, feels every bit like a next generation release, thanks to its one unique selling point and some smartly implemented, if totally ripped off, gameplay mechanics.

The one, but ingeniously unique, selling point that Dark Sector has to offer comes in the form of the game's primary weapon - the glaive. Although you also use more traditional weapons throughout the game's reasonable play time, it is the glaive that is easily the most memorable, thanks largely to some extremely well implemented special abilities and a solid mix of traditional gunplay and glaive-based action.

When you start off the first chapter, in its very pleasing Casino Royale like monochrome, you are introduced not only to the basic weaponry of the game but also to the villain of the piece - Mezner - along with some of his evildoing comrades and mutant type creatures for good measure. You play the role of reluctant hero Special Agent Hayden Tenno who's on a mission in Russia to take down the aforementioned Mezner and stop the spread of his evil toxin that is apparently turning everyone it touches into mindless monsters - so far, so Resident Evil. Although this opening mission doesn't involve the glaive, it works to successfully introduce you to the story while giving you a good idea of the basic game mechanics.

Once you complete this well presented introduction, the story sadly takes a bit of a nosedive. You get attacked by Mezner's fearsome looking bodyguard and slowly start to become infected - but in a really cool way that gradually transforms your body into metal and gives your arm a glaive extension that just keeps getting more badass as the game progresses. The rest of Dark Sector is subsequently spent killing everything that moves with little idea as to why. As you go your skills are systematically upgraded, again with little to no explanation as to why this is happening. In truth, the game quickly becomes a balls to the wall action affair, with upgrades and new skills used as the primary mechanic to push you forward, rather than the paper thin, poorly delivered story. But, while Dark Sector may not have the strongest narrative in the world, it happily gets by on the strength of its very solid action, even if it has been largely lifted straight out of some of the genre-defining games of the past few years.

The camera is almost a carbon copy of Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder viewpoint. As with Capcom's classic, this gives the experience a more cinematic feel, adding a certain immediacy to proceedings that is lacking from so many other third person action games. While the camera system is all Resident Evil 4, the running and cover system has clearly been stripped straight out of Epic's modern day masterpiece, Gears of War. As with Gears, there is a sprint button accompanied by the now pre-requisite shaky cam and a cover system that works to provide a tactical edge. While these systems have been unashamedly stolen by Digital Extremes, to their credit, they really are implemented extremely well. The cover system is up there with Gears and Rainbow Six: Vegas, while the shaky cam again pulls you into the intensity of battle as you run from one point of cover to the next. Although these mechanics have been done before, and better for that matter, when combined with some of Dark Sector's mutating primary weapon, the whole package starts to look a lot more intriguing.

Unlike the aforementioned games, Digital Extremes have made the smart choice of all but doing away with the onscreen HUD, allowing damage to be gauged by a quickening heart rate and reddening of the screen. This again adds immeasurably to the game's cinematic appearance and overall sheen, but while this is a welcome, and largely well implemented, feature, it doesn't have a huge impact on the gameplay. However, the same certainly cannot be said of Dark Sector's trump card: the glaive.

Upon starting out with the glaive, you can do little else other than use it like a boomerang to take out enemies - fun, but hardly groundbreaking. However, soon enough your skills increase with timed power throws added to your arsenal, giving you the ability to take the limbs of your enemies. You also get the ability to imbue your glaive with elemental powers that can be used to not only take out your enemies in a more experimental fashion, but are also essential to many of the simple but frequent puzzles. As fun as these skills may be, they are all left in the shade by the magnificent aftertouch mechanic, which allows you to throw the glaive before taking control of it in mid-air to slice through numerous enemies at once. The glaive can be controlled via the SIXAXIS's motion sensor, but to be honest, as is the case with the majority of PS3 games, you are better off just using the analogue stick. From this glaive point of view, you can steer around obstacles and around corners to get a firsthand view of your would-be assassins being cut in two. Believe me, in a game that suffers from repetition and a poor story, this is the mechanic that pulls it clear of mediocrity - you may get bored of the story and maybe even the locations, but never the glaive.

Although the glaive is always ready to use, you are also given a hand gun, which works extremely well and varies the tactical options that are available. You can also pick up guns from downed foes, but these can only be carried for so long before they are forcibly taken from your grip. At first this was a feature that I wasn't all that fond of, as the choice to go about my business in a more traditional weapon-based manner was seemingly taken from me. Luckily, another huge Resident Evil 4 'homage' came to the rescue in the form of the underground black market; found under the under the manhole covers that are strewn around the levels, here you can purchase new weapons and apply the upgrades that are found throughout the game.

Although these sewers are easy enough to find, the money in which to spend in them is not. While Dark Sector is unquestionably an all-out action game first and foremost, if you want to upgrade your weapons to a decent level or get your hands on some of the finer weaponry that's available from the poorly mannered shop owner, you are going to need to do some serious exploration. Money is scarce in the world of Dark Sector and the goods do not come cheap, with upgrades being discovered rather than bought. This all means that searching every nook and cranny is near essential if you don't want to be carrying around a basic level pistol for the entirety of the game. This may be a bit of a chore, especially given the severe lack of light in many of the underground levels, but the effort is largely made worth it thanks to some pretty outstanding weaponry. Although none of them are especially groundbreaking, with traditional weapons such as shotguns, machine guns and trusty magnums being the order of the day, each carry some extremely pleasing oomph, with special mention going to the outstanding shotgun.

While the majority of the game is spent taking out your usual marine types and mutated zombie folk, you will also find yourself coming up against a large, varied, and mostly impressive array of bosses. Although none of them are all that challenging, the majority are fast-paced, edge of your seat, exciting events, with most requiring the use of a different skill to defeat them, adding variation to the battles.

Beyond the single player game, which will take between ten and twelve hours to complete, there is also the option of online multiplayer to get to grips with. It may only have two modes and five maps, but thanks to a few unique ideas and a largely lag-free gameplay, the experience proves to be extremely enjoyable for as long as it lasts.

The first of these modes, Epidemic, has two teams of five pitted against each other, with one member of each team acting as the leader via the use of a fully kitted out Hayden Tenno. The other players then take the position of run of the mill soldiers with the aim of being the first team to kill the opposing team's leader. This leads to some exciting cat and mouse games that can be very tactically nuanced with the right kind of players - think capture the flag, but with a moving flag that will happily blow your brains out. The second mode, Infected, has the interesting premise of pitting nine players against just one, who begins the match as a fully kitted out Hayden, with all of the extra abilities, while all the other players once again take the role of everyday marines. This may sound like a huge mismatch, but thanks to the full list of abilities, including stealth and the whole range of glaive powers, the matches can often be more balanced than you might imagine.

As fun as these modes are, it's a real shame that there isn't an all-out deathmatch option; although the option for all players to choose a fully kitted out Hayden might well have led to games bordering on the insane, the choice of a basic Hayden, with only the initial glaive skills at his disposal would have been a welcome addition, perhaps unlocking new powers for a certain number of kills without dying.

From the largely impressive graphics in Dark Sector, you might be fooled into thinking that you are once again looking at the oft-used Unreal Engine. In actual fact, Dark Sector is run on Digital Extremes' own Evolution Engine, and while it does a great job for the most part, offering up one of the best looking third-party offerings currently available on PlayStation 3, it does suffer from a few too many low-res textures and some strange-looking facial animations on the part of Hayden Tenno. The sky also suffers from an almost constant dreamlike look about it that occasionally clashes with the gritty realism of the game's locations. Despite these minor grumbles, Dark Sector still looks incredible, with some brilliant lighting, well-realised art design and solid animations. The audio is also very good, with a rousing score that does a fine job of complimenting the onscreen action. The weapons sound pleasingly brutal, while a collection of ambient noises and scary-sounding enemies add greatly to the overall sense of impending doom.

Dark Sector may not be original and it may not have a great story, but if you are looking for a solid action game to spend a dozen or so hours with then you can't go too far wrong. Digital Extremes may have taken liberally from a collection of superior games, but thanks to Dark Sector's robust game engine, top-notch presentation and solid multiplayer, it is certainly worthy of your time. Oh, and there's also that glaive thing, which, in case I forgot to mention, is terrifyingly awesome. Now, if Digital Extremes can only show enough bravery to create something unique to match their undoubted talents as a development team then their next release could turn out to be something very interesting indeed.

Reviewed by Liam Pritchard for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).