We Just Played Section 8: Prejudice (in Single-Player)

Section 8: Prejudice will build on everything from the previous game and will pack a whole bunch of content into a value-priced downloadable game, including multiple multiplayer modes and a brand-new single-player campaign. While the original Section 8's campaign wasn't much more than a training session for multiplayer, Prejudice's campaign is a full-fledged, story-driven adventure that both introduces you to the game's multiplayer mechanics, such as alternate weapon loadouts, vehicles, and deployable combat aids (like stationary turrets), and takes you through a fully voice-acted challenging campaign of about five hours in length.

We recently had the chance to play through two different single-player levels. The first level was the game's tutorial, which mainly teaches you how to shoot, use deployables, and use Prejudice's alternative movement options, such as the jetpack (which effectively acts as an enhanced jump) and overdrive (Section 8's sprinting ability, which, when fully charged, can still kill an enemy outright if you can line up a head-on collision). The other level we played also took place in the early part of the game and gave us a good sense of what the campaign has to offer.

Prejudice's tutorial introduces you to the game's factions and primary characters--namely, your own battalion, Section 8, and the local planetary rebels, known as The Arm. As the campaign starts, your comrades have captured and are interrogating a high-ranking Arm officer who has smuggled decades of allied data to the other side. Before you and your buddies can successfully beat the answers out of your captive, he's mysteriously sprung from the base in a raid that results in the enemy officer hijacking a dropship and forcing you and your compatriots to give chase into a snowy, mountainous region.

The game starts you out with a basic assault kit that includes an assault rifle, grenades, and a repair tool (which can be used on vehicles or friendly turrets), though you can later swap out your loadout using a supply console once you find one. This loadout seemed more than sufficient for the game's early levels, which pitted us mostly against grunts who were kitted out similarly but seemed to have a distinct weakness against short, controlled bursts to the head. We continued our pursuit of the rogue officer both on foot and on a speeder bike, which one of our buddies commissioned, and the onboard mini-gun and turbo-boost overdrive were so handy that we didn't want to dismount (if plowing headfirst into enemies on foot is a good kill, squashing them flat with a speeder bike seems even more satisfying).

Unfortunately, we had to bid farewell to our transportation to pursue our quarry on foot--specifically, as he fled into an armored bunker. It was at this point that our allies, and our enemies, decided to play their own little game of dueling airstrikes. While the friendlies were determined to break open the bunker to extract the prisoner using a satellite-powered superweapon, our enemies continuously rained airstrikes on our heads (indicated by glowing red markers on the ground) to beat us back. After we survived through enough rounds of airstrikes (and cannon fodder enemies and their pesky turrets), our comrades finally busted the bunker, bringing our session to a close.

Section 8: Prejudice has a pick-up-and-play arcade shooter feel that seems really easy to get into, and its single-player campaign, various multiplayer modes and maps, vehicles, and $15 price point make it a pretty appealing package. The game will launch soon in downloadable form on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and the PC.