Perfect Dark Zero

"Unimpressive"

INTRO: At last its finally here... Xbox 360! I had to wait 14 hours in line to get one because of the rarity in my neck of the woods. Looking at the launch lineup the most hyped up games were PDZ and PGR 3. I'm not a real big racing fan so that left one choice. But sadly to say Perfect Dark Zero is not the next-gen title that we have been promised.

GRAPHICS: This is the category that next-gen games are supposed to blow us away at. Perfect Dark does do a good job here. Characters are all well modeled and the game has unrivaled clarity. The guns and their animations are simply incredible. The game uses a mix of modern and sci-fi guns. The modern guns are supposed have a futuristic twist to them. The weapons is one part that Perfect Dark Zero perfectly (sorry) nails. But, I honestly would believe someone if they told me these graphics were capable on the Xbox. Maybe I'm expecting too much but PGR3 and NBA 2K6 look to have set the bar and Perfect Dark stumbles before it.
Score 7

SOUND: Again the weapon effects are done well here too, and are the star the star of the show. The voice acting is crisp and fits the characters well. All of the sound effects stand out as well. The most impressive one is shooting a wall with a silenced pistol. But again, nothing groundbreaking.
Score 8

CONTROLS: The controls are the most impressive part of the game. As you would expect both sticks are used for movement while the shoulder buttons are used for aiming and shooting. Nothing original but the precision you can move your character is amazing, hopefully this is something to be a mainstay on the 360.
Score 9

STORY: If you played Perfect Dark on N64 then you will probably get into the story. If not then you probably won't care. The basic premise is that corporations control everything and that your part of a mercenary team to take them down. The premise has potential, which is unrealized. By the way this is a prequel.
Score 6

REPLAY: Basically we have two separate games here. The multiplayer is good while the single player sucks. Not even a co-op would want to make you play this game multiple times. The multiplayer is online, splitscreen, and link. So no matter what, you can enjoy this part of the experience. Online is the best of course and it's so east to hook up too. As far game types go Perfect Dark has anything you want so pick your favorite!
Score 8

GAMEPLAY: Besides being mostly just “unimpressive” what is my biggest knock on the game? The AI. For all of the 360 processing power you would think the AI would destroy you. No the AI just stands there. I'm not joking, I noticed several times when in a fire fight the enemy would stop shooting and just stand there. And yes this was on the normal difficulty setting. Anyways, so just what is Perfect Dark Zero? It's best described as FPS with a half-assed stealth twist. The action is fairly typical and there are some cool gadgets to use, such as listening through a wall. Nothing that hasn't been done in this genre before though. And the whole stealth approach isn't needed because the enemies are fairly easy to dispatch in a firefight.
Score 6

THE BOTTOM LINE: Perfect Dark Zero is nothing that is going to rock your world but I say it does deserve a rental despite it's downfalls.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/05