A war in the future. Big guys in bulky armor. Graphics powered by Unreal Engine 3. A heavy emphasis on multiplayer action.

Sound familiar? Perhaps on the surface, but new sci-fi first-person shooter Section 8 starts to form its own gripping identity when you hit the ground (literally) with controller in hand.

To be fair, Section 8 gave us a little déjà vu of a different action game during our exclusive hands-on time at TimeGate’s Houstonarea development studio. But our thoughts didn’t turn to Gears of War. Instead, we got a major Starsiege: Tribes vibe from the project, which made us party in our minds like it was 1999 all over again. (We still remember the smell of our video cards overheating!)

As Alex Corde, you’re the newest recruit into Section 8, the nickname for the 8th Armored Infantry division of Earth’s armed forces. You’re one of the go-to guys assigned to missions deemed “suicidal,” so it makes sense that all of Section 8’s “recruits” are actually volunteers.

Your crew is important, though, because in this “futuristic gold rush” — as producer Robert Siwiak describes it — the universe is like a new Old West frontier for humanity as it colonizes planets beyond the Milky Way. Given the newness of space exploration, communication is slow, which justifies sending in Section 8 when little intel is available in a given situation.

But it’s not all spelunking and discovery — a rogue faction of humanity has splintered off and begun attacking Earth’s colonies. Of course, the single-player campaign is merely a warm-up for the robust 16-player multiplayer mode, which is where we spent all of our time and the reason why Section 8 seemed to channel the spirit of Tribes.

Section’s hook is its “burn-in” spawning, which allows you to drop from low orbit into the vast, mostly outdoor maps, landing anywhere you like. Some areas will be marked as dangerous, though, because areas a team controls become equipped with anti-air turrets to ward off aerial invaders. More interestingly, everything is up for grabs and you’d better coordinate with your teammates to figure out a winning strategy. Will you all dive to the same location, moving through the map like a pack of locusts consuming everything in your path? Or will you split into two halves, burning in at opposite ends of the level and then pushing toward the center, where you can unite in the middle? Or will you simply scatter about, trying to be in as many places as possible as quickly as you can?

Regardless of your choices, everyone’s got jetpacks, and holding down RB ramps you up into a full sprint — both of which allow you to cover a lot of ground (vertical and horizontal) in a short amount of time. They also make battles very hectic, as you might think you’ve got someone cornered, only for them to jump-jet up onto the roof of the building behind you. You can follow them, though, making combat a constant mash-up of frenzied surprise.

Even more compelling is the potential of TimeGate’s Dynamic Combat Mission (DCM) feature. In discussing the game, Siwiak lamented how in other class-based shooters (yes, Section 8 will allow you to upgrade certain traits with Requisition Points, making custom classes like speedster jump-jetters possible), specialty characters such as snipers or engineers tend to not be rewarded for their efforts to role-play. Worse, he said, is how those dedicated folks often see little action in a round.

To combat this, Section 8 will introduce DCMs, which will spawn random objectives on the map. For instance, an A.I. VIP might need escorting from one part of the map to another, rewarding you with Requisition Points. Or a supply convoy might call for an escort, netting your teammates in the area a shield bonus when the convoy’s cargo is secured. It’s all optional, of course, and the other team will have counters for these tasks (e.g., kill said VIP or destroy said convoy), but we sure appreciate the developers encouraging role-playing and teamwork by adding dynamic missions in the middle of a multiplayer game.

Once we put down the controllers and left TimeGate’s offices, they could have fooled us into thinking Section 8 was Tribes 4. And that’s as high a compliment as we can pay it after an initial peek.