Perfect Dark Zero

Perfect, dark or zero? Steven decides...

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Perfect Dark Zero is the highly anticipated sequel to 2000's exceedingly successful N64 shooter, the original Perfect Dark. Although it hasn't aged particularly well, Perfect Dark was a great shooter for its time because of its vast collection of weapons, enjoyable set pieces and enormously fun, well designed missions. Just over five years later and Perfect Dark eventually makes another appearance, this time as a launch title for the brand new Xbox 360.

When you play Perfect Dark Zero for the first time you will notice how fast paced and involving the gameplay is. In many respects PDZ is surprisingly similar to TimeSplitters on PS2 and Xbox. Sadly, you will immediately notice that PDZ doesn't quite have the high production values 'feel' players experience in Halo 2. It's not perfect, however there is plenty to recommend about Perfect Dark Zero...

Every FPS needs an exciting set of weapons and that's something PDZ does particularly well. Because PDZ is set in the mid 21st century the designers had a license to create some slightly futuristic and more creative weapons you wouldn't expect to see in many other FPS's. Most of these weapons have some kind of alternate function modes including scopes, silencers and even specialist vision wizardry. Unfortunately you have very limited space to carry multiple weapons, but this is conveyed in a realistic manner. For example you can carry 3 pistols but only one heavy machine gun at a time, so you are forced to balance weapon size with power and what you really need to complete the mission.

The single player levels themselves are fairly well balanced and varied throughout the game. You will find yourself practicing all types of FPS combat such as sniping, close quarters shooting action, controlling turrets and you may find melee attacks are in order for certain parts of the game. Sometimes the levels can seem slightly confusing but after a while if you are not on the right track some arrows will appear on the floor to show you the direction in which to proceed, which can often be very helpful (on easy difficulty), if something of a cop-out.

The storyline is more or less an excuse to have a good old blast up, and to an extent it does show. The plot doesn't really inspire you to play on by getting you to know characters closely unlike some game's storylines have done so effectively before. You will play as Joanna Dark who is a bounty hunter working with her father against a corporate business giant in charge of a corporation called DataDyne, he has evil plans and must be stopped, but that involves going through plenty of armoured guards and many other such obstacles on the way. The story is mainly told through mission briefings and in-game voiceovers as well as via a few cutscenes during and between the missions.

PDZ consists of 14 single player mission levels, which in total is likely to take between 10 and 12 hours to complete. Each level has three difficulty settings ranging from Agent, to Perfect Agent. The easiest isn't likely to cause too many problems but the middle setting is quite challenging for first time players. Consequently the final difficulty level should only really be attempted by hardcore players looking for a stern challenge, as that's certainly what it provides.

Perfect Dark Zero has several multiplayer modes both split-screen and online. While in split-screen PDZ is ideal for having a few friends round for a bit of light-hearted tussling, there is also plenty to do on Xbox Live. The online mode is divided into two main sections. The first is Deathmatch which consists of the usual capture the flag, free for all and territories game modes familiar to most shooters of the genre. The other section is called Dark Ops which are team events resembling the Counter-Strike format in the way that you choose your equipment and then fulfil an objective. The Co-op mode is also rather cool. Unlike most games featuring a co-op section PDZ actually allows you to play as two different players. Instead of chucking in two versions of the same character to accomplish the same objectives, you will be given an alternate character and different objectives, then you will have to meet up at key instances to complete the mission.

I've got this far without talking about the sound and graphics PDZ offers. It's clearly a next-gen title both from an audio and graphical standpoint. Graphically everything tends to look clean and crisp with very few rough edges at all. The lighting effects are great, as is the frame rate which remains steady throughout gameplay. Most significantly the weapon models look amazing and you'll see characters react accurately depending on where you shoot them. Another noteworthy feature is that bullet holes stay in the walls and dead corpses wont just disappear after being killed, giving the player a truer sense of carnage in a realistic environment. If you had to criticise the quality of the graphics the first thing you would mention is the lack of detail in some of the enemies, and the slightly over reflective backgrounds, other than that though there's not much to complain about. As far as sound is concerned, each gun sounds as deadly as it should and the music is atmospheric and goes particularly well with the game. If you're not used to the Xbox 360's audio options its worth mentioning you can replace the in game music with your own at any time if you find it gets repetitive.

Put simply, Perfect Dark Zero is a solid, sometimes great game. Its single-player mode is good fun and online it's a complete blast; PDZ is a superbly social multiplayer game to enjoy in the company of friends. However, the game was more than a little 'over hyped' and doesn't quite boast the production levels, replay value or storyline to live up to the now legendary Halo 2. All things considered Perfect Dark Zero makes reasonable use of the Xbox 360s power but still doesn't really do anything revolutionary, or bring much new to the table as many may have hoped. If you're into fast-paced FPS games this is well worth a look but it's not quite the game worth buying an Xbox 360 for, and that in the end may be how it is remembered.

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By Steven Embling