Perfect Dark: Zero Review (no fat)

Game Description

Perfect Dark Zero for the new Xbox 360 has lots to do and experience. PDZ is a first person shooter made by Rare. If you aren’t familiar with the Perfect Dark series, the first major publish was for the N64.

Joanna Dark and her father Jack Dark are in a high tech futuristic world of bounty hunting and good ole corporate espionage. As you play through out the game, you will notice the thoughts of other players and start to see the real story here. Data Dyne's leader is trying to become what most others cannot. A god. He combines himself with the power’s of ancient artifacts and becomes just that. You might not get the full story just starting off. But in the end you will see it and wonder what’s going on.

Game play

Perfect Dark Zero’s game play is just like any other FPS games in the genre. PDZ allows you to play in up to 3 difficulties, Agent, Secret Agent, and Perfect Agent (Dark Agent also once you beat those). You must complete each mission on Agent to unlock the other difficulties. This is not a simple task; It takes a lot of time and skill to get really good. In PDZ, it’s very hard to get lost since they have arrows on the ground whenever the game thinks you’re lost or confused. There is an option to turn off these 'waypoints' if you want a real challenge.

Being an Agent such as Joanna, you always have your high tech little gadgets. There are a few you will be using a lot. For instance, the Locktopus is used to unlock most of the doors. Another gadget is the Data thief which is used to hack the doors with computer locks allowing you to go further in your missions. There is a few more, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

Multiplayer

Xbox Live has made this game very likeable for online play. If you like to play with your other 360 friends you certainly can in style. PDZ has more than one online mode to choose from giving you some variety. I found online play to be smooth and I felt no high latency which is good; no one likes a laggy game. In the multiplayer action you have more use of the vehicles that are there for you than in the missions. One bad thing I quickly noticed was that the radar in the top corner that tells you where opposing team is coming from. That certainly makes it less fun to use stealthy weapons and tactics.

Graphics

The graphics in Perfect Dark Zero will leave you in awe; they are done extremely well and can be easily compared to Call of Duty 2 without a doubt. One little problem is that there are a lot of textures that should not be so radiant, for instance the floor is always shiny and reflective where it should not be, even inside dark alleys the ground and walls seem to always put off a shiny aura. Maybe they did this to make it the graphics seem a little better who knows.

If you have an HD-TV you will notice a difference in the colors and brightness. Most of the Xbox 360 games have great graphics since it is the next generation system out now. Having the HD-TV will not give you an insane boost in graphics, but will certainly give you a clearler and sharper image.

Weapons

The unique guns you will be prying from the dead hands of your enemies will soon become yours to keep. When you get a use a new weapon while in a mission, it becomes available for you to choose when you start a new mission. I love this feature making it more fun to play some of the other levels over again with new guns and gadgets. The weapons are best known for there secondary functions. A few of my favorites are the P90, and the machine gun style hologram gun. With the hologram gun you can go in a cover position and watch the enemy waste there ammo until they have to reload, since it makes a perfect copy of who you are. Thus giving you an advantage when to pop out and deal the damage. The P90 I also mentioned allows you to see the heat coming from all other people. I found this to be extremely helpful in the jungle levels and other levels that are well blended, also with the high ammo and ability to zoom in. I would almost say this is the best weapon in the game.

Conclusion

Has PDZ lived up to all the hype it was getting…? I think you need to try it out for your self and see what you think; Most people were expecting for another Halo. But since the standards for new games are usually very high, games seem to get under or overlooked. PDZ is going to be best remembered as an online multiplayer game. Chances are, you will enjoy this game much more for the multi-player than single player.

Cost

PD: Zero is $49.99US at the time of writing.

Review written by Pete Johnson.