Perfect Dark Zero

"Perfect Dark Zero is nothing special."

*Original review date = January 3, 2006* I might get flamed for this one. Remember PD for the N64. Shortly, this game really has nothing to compare with it, plainly said or should I say sad. Of course Perfect Dark Zero and the original Perfect Dark are 2 completely different games, PDZ does little to help the Perfect Dark Franchise. I've read a lot of other reviews, but I will tell nothing but the truth and hopefully save you money, a lot of money. Perfect Dark Zero is a prequel to the Frist Person Shooter for the N64, Perfect Dark. Set 2 years earlier, Joanna is an unexperienced agent/bounty hunter and is learning the ropes. She eventually starts her first missions and so on. She works also from time to time with her father. I don't want to ruin the storyline for you. I couldn't even understand the storyline, so I guess I can't ruin it for you. The storyline in Perfect Dark Zero isn't a strong point in the game. I didn't have an idea on what the hell I was doing or why I was doing this stuff in the game. So I guess this is the beginning of the long DataDyne battle against Carrington. Each mission has a briefing with voice overs (terrible voice overs) and you can choose new weapons as you progress through the game before each mission. Other weapons have to be found or stolen from dead or alive enemies during missions.

The original Perfect Dark storyline was much far better and deeper and the missions went along with the storyline. Not in Perfect Dark Zero though, in one level I shot up everyone, and (even though I shot all of his men and) a man wanted me to play a game with his daughter?? A virtually reality game at that?? So basically I killed his troops and he ask me to take a seat and play a game with his unbeaten daughter in a virtual reality game, WTF!!?? I could go on and on talking about how bad the storyline is, but I won't. There's plenty of other bad stuff to talk about. Now the graphics are superb. Way above average, it looks so real that I thought I was watching a movie (during gameplay of course). Almost everything in the game looks beautiful. ALMOST! Some characters look good, while others look passable, in other words, the game looked rushed in order to make a deadline or something. Most enemies look alike and everyone in the game pretty much looks like a plastic doll. Not a bad thing, characters and enemies just look unrealistic at times. Everyone looks like they have pencil drawn on eye brows. Everyone eyebrows are arched neatly too, even the men (eeewwww....). The clothes looks very realistic. Everyone basically dies with their eye's wide open, seriously. Kinda scary, huh? The weapons look dramatically downgraded from the original Perfect Dark. Weapons look barely passable, I mean, they look somewhat awful with the exception of a few. A few weapons looks good, such as the Falcon (N64 version still looks better though). Some weapons just looks ugly, and completely different.

There are also new weapons included. Some original weapons from Perfect Dark didn't make it also. The "Reaper" didn't make it along with some other cool weapon. This could be because PDZ happened 2 years earlier, before the aliens showed their weapons. Remember the "Magsec" from the original PD, well it has an upgrade in accuracy! Plus it has a scope! Why would it be so much better 2 years before the original PD, it has terrible accuracy on the original PD (also with no scope). The wielding 2 weapons are different now. You know use the R trigger for the right gun and the Left Trigger for the left gun. Not bad, but wielding weapons are kinda balanced, once reason being that you can't use Manual AIM. You can also drop weapons whenever you want to, but you can only carry a certain amount of weapons, 4 slots actually. So basically you can't hold no more than 4 weapons. If you have a "heavy" weapon you can only carry one pistol of your choice. So you'll basically have 3 weapons through out the game. You can chage weapons during missions only by finding them or exchanging them after defeating an enemy. The weapons are passable in this game I guess!

Next on the list, uhh, the gameplay! The gameplay is slow. Well if you are not carrying any weapons then you could run a lot faster, but you'll be carrying weapons most of the time anyways. On my first play through I had to basically look down at the ground in order to find out where to go (Waypoints) cause the game kinda looks blocked all up (no space to move around freely on some mission). PDZ has a few slowdowns, but nothing to worry about. You can now hide behind walls (you'll do this a whole lot), have conversations while unarmed during stealth missions, dodge and taunt enemies during a few battles. All of this does little to make the gameplay more enjoyable. The gameplay becomes very boring after the second or third mission. A few levels are nice, but are late in the game. The gameplay feels just plain as daylight. Slow and boring, PD was harder on the N64, in PDZ you just wait for enemies to show themselves then shoot, very boring, and non-tatical. The music in the game is passable, but is not better than the original Perfect Dark. Some of the music sounds like a Bruce Lee Karate flick from the 1970's. All the game needed was a few ninjas. Seriously, the music is o.k, but nothing spectacular or special. Multiplayer has no music, maybe because of voice chat I'm guessing. Multiplayer isn't all that great either. There aren't as many options to create a fun game in Multiplayer modes. Multiplayer mode gameplay is bad as well and is a HUGE, and I reapeat HUGE downgrade from Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64) I haven't played it online yet, but it's probably the best thing about the game. It might not be all that great either, thanks to the shallow gameplay. System Link is great, since people can't "Screen cheat". Co-op is o.k, but eventually ends up boring thanks to the gameplay. You can use Co-op with System Link and Xbox Live (that's just cool)! O.k, the music barely passable, weapons and gameplay are less than expected, passable multiplayer, and the worst voice acting since Resident Evil 1 on the Playstation 1 means
Perfect Dark Zero receives a passable 5.3 out of 10!

*SKNMAK BREAKDOWN*
Graphics: 9/10
The graphics looks very very good and shows the world what the Xbox 360 and PDZero can do. I wonder how well other games will look. Joanna shadow is on sync with her whenever she reloads, dodge's or ducks down, etc. Missions look beautiful. Some character's could have looked better, and everyone looks like their wearing make-up and eye liner. But overall everything is well polished. The graphics are really eye candy!

Controls: 7/10
Barely above average. The controls are nice, and you can now customize the controls to your likings. You can also change the sensitivity levels and stuff, and choose whether you want to use the original PD control style. It's also nice to have a Secondary Function button too, but I think it's a little to close to the Primary Fire button, since you will, from time to time, hit the secondary function by accident. Changing weapons is a challenge at first, but you'll get used to the Armory and how many weapons you can carry. The controls are pretty good and is very responsive during gameplay. One of the downsides is the unforgiving aiming mechanic that just doesn't feel on sych with the controller.

Gamplay: 5/10
Game---what. Play game????? The gameplay is boring! Basically slow and unfun after 1 hour of gameplay. The game is short, so you don't have to worry about the bad gameplay for long. The game has some glitches, from bad to worst, dramatically effecing the gameplay. Sometimes a annoying sound will continue to repeat itself, which means you'll have to restart a mission or wait until the mission ends to fix the glitch. There's a few graphic glitches also, but that rarely happens. Covering behind walls is nice, but I think the N64 version gives you a little more comfort and realism while shooting from behind walls and objects. The characters and enemies talk, so that makes the gameplay a little better, but sometimes they say stupid crap making the game feel very chessy. The cut-scenes feel very cheesy thanks to some poor voice acting and dialog. Dodging is a nice add on too, making the game a little more tatical. Enemies don't roll and stuff like on the N64 version. In other words, enemies where harder to shoot on the N64 version, PDZero enemies uses "basic easy patterns" to fiqure out. Aiming feels funny for some reason, even after you've customized your controls a few times. I think Rare focused to much on the graphics and not the gameplay. The vehicles are nice, but nothing special. Slow throughout the game. Enough said.

Fun Factor: 4/10
Why is this game Mature??? It should be teen or something?! Sorry, but this game fails in comparison with Perfect Dark for the N64! Rare should haved named this game something else with different characters to see how the fans like their First Person Shooters on the 360. Feedback first, PERFECT dark zero later. Waste of time and money. The graphics stand out the most, while the music being second. Lame developers, most characters look alike, and some of those ladies looks like Joanna herself???!!! The weapons have been downgraded, seroiusly, Perfect Dark weapons out do Perfect Dark Zero weapons almost completey. PDZero has only 24 weapons I beleive, while PD has 30 (or 33 with extras). I might get flamed for this one too, but aiming kinda sucks and gameplay is way too slow. What happened to the PD franchise (they made it with microsoft studios!). I guess I'll have to play another FPS on my 360 cause PDZero is pretty much crap in comparison to other FPS (Perfect Dark, Halo series, Call of Duty series, Metal of Honor series, Time splitters series). Even if you don't compare PDZero to other games it still sucks on it's own. PDZero has some nice features (and the plain and smallest menu I've seen in a long while) and added moves for Joanna. I loved to read the Mission Objective in the previous Perfect Dark game, but I don't like reading it in PDZero. It's too many things Rare rushed or didn't do correctly. The game is pretty much passable with a lot of flaws! Multiplayer is another strong point, but the game must balance out all together. Multiplayer has been downgraded a whole lot!!!! What the hell happened! I used to love customizing Simulants, well bots on PDZero. Yeah, the PD we used to play for countless hours is gone, but PDZero isn't bad bad, it's just way below expectations. The hype was their for PDZero for years and this is all fans end up with. Plus to top it off the bonus disc sucks, seriously. The Limited Collectors Edition sucks and is a waste of money, so buy the regular game, or better yet, buy the original Perfect Dark. Limited Collectors Edition only gives you a Bonus DVD, a Special Issue Comic Book and a limited edition glyph (or something like that). It has a cool ass CD case though. The Comic Book sucks badly. And the bonus DVD sucks dirt, dust and rocks! All you get is some concept art, some more art, one stupid song thats really not all the good to listen too, and a PDZero Theme that you can download to your Xbox Themes (on the Dashboard). That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. I had more fun playing with dead corpses than I had with the actually game. Wait, Shoot, Reload, Wait, Kill, Run, and Repeat. I hate this sequence when it comes to games, especially First Person Shooters!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/07

Game Release: Perfect Dark Zero (Limited Edition) (US, 11/22/05)