Available at a budget price Section 8: Prejudice offers a lot of value for fans of online First Person Shooters and to the original Section 8 and is worth more than its asking price if you’re willing to put in the time. Included for £10 ($15) is a single player campaign that will last around 5 hours and many more hours online.

Single Player

Section 8: Prejudice in its single player campaign tells the story of Section 8. You control Alex Corde (who was also in the first Section 8 game) who is a part of a military force that consists of soldiers that are deployed into the field by being fired from an orbital cannon (let it be noted that in single player you will find that this element does not really come into play and shines more in the multiplayer). Section 8 find themselves up against a military force that is after revenge – they want them wiped out, to go into any further detail would spoil whatever plot there is. It isn’t a bad plot and nor is it non-existent, it does a good job of preparing players unfamiliar with the original Section 8 game (such as myself) and introduces gameplay elements throughout the campaign from simple basic training to using vehicles and deploying mobile turrets, both important in the multiplayer component. I also never got tired of making use of the ‘overdrive’ run which had you sprinting across at high speed ploughing into a bad guy as you arrive at their camp.

The campaign will keep you occupied for a good 5 hours on normal mode give or take an hour depending on how good or bad you are. The story is functional and gives you enough to do in a few different environments. The game never leads you into thinking it’s a serious space marine epic, but it’s a passable 5 hours and there are only a few short occasions where things get frustrating. While you don’t get your epic single player campaign with Section 8, I found the single player helped me be a better fighter when I joined the online fight and be of better help to the other members of my team. For the price tag attached to this game, you are given a campaign that lasts around the time as some £30-40 games sold at retail.

Gameplay wise, there were a few small issues I had which starts with the AI allies and enemies. Neither are the smartest and I found myself getting swarmed with bad guys at later stages of the campaign, such as when it was required to stand our ground and protect something or survive for a set amount of time, my allies were sometimes useful but overly I died a few times from sheer numbers of guys gunning only for me. I also found that bad guys usually spawned at random spots in the area without a real pattern; it wasn’t really an issue until you come across areas where they are all behind objects and structures where they can easily shoot at you but you have to do some jetpack jumping and random shooting to take their shields out. The last issue I had with the single player was enemies using jetpacks. It is limited in its use and is generally used for getting up to higher structures or leaping over gaps because it’s difficult to fight using it, but the enemies did not have the same limitations as they didn’t have any issues aiming at me while hovering about although it was hard for me to aim at them without spraying their general area with gunfire or making use of the limited lock on ability. While the AI isn’t the best for the most of the campaign towards the end the enemy becomes a lot tougher through their relentlessness in all gunning for you and their shields and armour take a lot more to get through, engineers are the worst.

These issues aren’t enough to make you quit, but they are things that just slow down the fighting and niggle as you try and get through the game, although in the end it isn’t representative of the major portion of the game which lies in the multiplayer battle.

Multiplayer

The online multiplayer is the mode where you will be spending most of your time. Even if you don’t have an internet connection, you can bring in AI bots to help you get the most out of the game.

There is a reasonable variety of weaponry that you can equip yourself with before being shot down to earth and with each gun there is usually more customisation by the way of choosing the ammo you use. This largely comes down to whether it does more damage to armour or shields. The guns are your FPS standards and its really that customisation that makes each soldier running around a different fighter. Each time you die you will find that you can change the loadout you can arm yourself with before you rocket off again. So if certain gun and ammo types aren’t helping you then you can change quickly enough. There are also supply depots that can also give you the chance to top up your ammo and change the guns while on the ground, you will never be stuck too long with a bad combination of guns and tools.

Dynamic Combat Missions (DCM) also occur fairly often throughout the matches. These are pretty much secondary objectives to get your team bonus points. These objectives can vary from capture the flag in the guise of capturing or protecting intel, escorting or recovering. These give extra things to do while defending or capturing bases. Both teams generally ignored these unfortunately as it was hard enough to defend a base as a lone soldier while escorting a NPC across the map, although the times I did take on one of the DCM’s. I found it fun to change things up and get some bonus points to help bring the team closer to victory.

As with modern online shooters, there is a level system which sees you being rewarded for good work with higher ranks, better armour and weaponry choices. In each battle you are also awarded money for performing certain actions throughout the match, such as killing enemies, repairing, hacking and assisting your team mates. The money earned is then used to purchase and deploy turrets, supply depots, mechs and more all of them fired from orbit to you. The vehicles you will come across the most are the air bike and the mech and neither are the easiest to control but they offer more armour and heavier firepower for holding back the enemy, it’s always more fun to be giving out a beating with the mech than having one pick you up and smash you into the ground.