Certain games will stay in our minds forever. I will never forget playing GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. It was my first multiplayer experience outside of the arcade. Everybody would bring over a controller and you could sit locked away in a room for hours in front of the television. People would do something unique in the game or discover a glitch that gave that extra edge. Then you had people saying or doing something memorable in response to a death or kill. For me, this is the cornerstone for today’s shooter experience.
Then Perfect Dark arrived. Rare’s evolution out of the James Bond world featured the exact same gameplay with minor tweaking and extra polish where it counted. Fans of GoldenEye ate it up and longed for more. Sadly Rare fell out of the limelight and all that was left were the TimeSplitters games. It wasn’t until Halo that the FPS once again exploded in the console scene. Rare had announced a Perfect Dark Zero for the Xbox years ago, but it had been kept getting pushed back. Finally it was announced for one of the flagship launch titles for the Xbox 360. Perfect Dark Zero became the Xbox 360’s personal selling point for me; I would have to suffer in the cold snowy weather for the next generation Xbox because I neglected to reserve one. But let me tell you that through all the waiting, all the snow, and all the frustration, it has been worth it. The future is now and Perfect Dark Zero is here to usher it in.
It’s always better in the dark
The game switches on with a fully rendered techno-ish theme song with visuals taken right out of the Bond playbook when you are treated to a slew of options. I hopped right into the single player mode to get re-acquainted with Ms. Joanna Dark. For those of you just joining into the series, Joanna is a mercenary who is equal parts James Bond and Sydney Bristow (Alias). Perfect Dark Zero (PDZ) is in reality a prequel and tells the story of Joanna’s life before the events of the original Perfect Dark. The story tells that in the not-so-distant future, corporations control mostly everything. We first find Joanna investigating the shady dealing of the Data Dyne Corporation. Her father, Jack, is her point man, and behind the computer support is Chandra who is the glue that keeps the team together.
First of all, let me say that PDZ effectively brings the Rare shooter into the new generation. Considering the game has been in development forever and a day it has a tremendous amount of polish that is rarely seen nowadays (pun intended). The first thing I noticed is how the game effectively recaptures the madness of the original game. As you step into battles, you seriously step into a war zone. There are garrisons of troops running at you and you need to utilize every cheap and dirty trick you can think of to survive. My main complaint for single player, however, is with the enemy AI. As soon as one person sees you, everyone in that room will come running at you with no regard for their personal safety. Most of the time you can find a good cover spot and easily be able to successfully defend an enemy onslaught, against impossible odds. Very rarely (no pun intended) the enemy will find cover of their own, but no matter what the bullets will be flying and dropping. If a sequel is in the works, I certainly hope some of the enemies go back to mercenary training, seriously, standard maneuvers might be nice. To be fair though, computer AI drastically improves in the higher difficulty levels and is damn near impossible in Dark difficulty mode. There are thugs on ’roids here people.
What I think really differentiates a Rare shooter from other shooters out there is the increasing level objectives as you go up in difficulty levels. On Agent you normally get objectives like "blow up generator," or "download file," or "find/rescue so and so." As you go up in difficulty levels to Secret, Perfect, or even ::gulp:: Dark Agent, not only do the enemies get harder but you will be thrown extra objectives like "take sample of substance A". This in turn sends you to an entirely different part of the stage making things increasingly difficult. I feel this is refreshing as it increases lasting appeal with a truly more challenging adventure on the higher difficulty levels.
Another great feature that was brought back with the prequel is the multi-functions of weapons. It greatly increases a gun’s usefulness when you can add on a silencer and/or a flashlight to your weapon. It becomes ten times more useful when you can make a last minute attempt to get away by heating up your final clip and throwing it onto the ground where it can explode like a shrapnel grenade, granting you one last minute of cover fire to hopefully escape your assailants. As I sit here writing this on my laptop I long for one that is included in the game; they can transform into an assault rifle or a turret when needed. I guess I will just have to wait until Microsoft goes into defense technology.
A visual feast
The Xbox 360 is a powerhouse -- we all know it. I felt justified dropping all that money the second I switched it on. All the new standards in graphics are right here. I stopped to stare at a waterfall in one stage because the water looks exactly like liquid glass (at least I stared until I was shot at). The shadowing on the characters is something I’ve only seen in movies; the sheen on the eyes of the characters makes them come to life. No longer does one feel like they are controlling a 3D cardboard cutout
The game itself has a distinct visual style which beats Ninja Gaiden on its best day. It looks like an adult version of a Pixar movie or a Final Fantasy game with more detail. The anime influence is subtle, but obviously right underneath the surface. Combined with the techno music the game throws out frequently you would think Microsoft Game Studios were trying to cater to the Japanese as well (oh that’s right! they are). My only complaint is that PDZ has a tendency to become choppy every now and again.
What I cannot stop gawking over are the guns. The textures present make them look very lifelike. On some of the weapons you can see the serial code imprinted on the side and you just want to run your hand over it because of the dimensions. Also a point worth noting is the body armor -- when someone is wearing it you can see it on their body and as you take shots at them you can see the armor drop off. The attention to detail here is really impressive.
Does it sound like a shot in the Dark?
Audio here is great, but alas not revolutionary. The soundtrack, being an original one, stands out against most of the drab first-person-shooter soundtracks. Many original techno themes are present and even though I’ve only ever used glow sticks to see in the dark, some of the songs are pretty exciting. They make me feel like there is a steady pace of action. Sound balancing here is top notch, and as I flipped on my surround sound and heard the deafening noise of gunfire, my heart started pumping.
Voice acting is that of a B-action movie with not many dazzling performances to really speak of. The standout performances here are that of Daniel Carrington; head of an independent defense institute with a really thick Scottish accent and that of Chandra; the dark skinned, Russian hottie who is your computer tech.
Learning from the past
With no new Halo game available at the launch of Microsoft’s newest game console, people are instead giving PDZ a spin for their multiplayer needs. I first signed onto Xbox Live for a few rounds of deathmatches capture the flag and immediately felt comfortable. On live or local multiplayer you are offered a plethora of modes to play with. Deathmatch (being toted as the sport of the future) allows for a normal or team kill count, a normal or team capture the flag matchup, or a territorial game where you need to hold the objective locations to secure victory.
If that doesn’t whet your appetite you can always engage in Dark Ops games. Dark Ops allows games similar to some of those in the TimeSplitters series. You can play eradication which has your team with one life a piece against another team with one life. Whoever lives, wins. Onslaught has each team taking turns defending a base and whoever can hold out the longest wins. Infection has infected players earning points by seeing how many people they can infect within a certain time, healthy players win points if they stay that way by the end of the round. Finally, you can engage in Sabotage, which is much like Onslaught, but here you are defending equipment instead of a base.
Chatter on Xbox Live so far has been that of a positive nature with people saying things like "It’s Halo with chicks" or "These levels are intense" being two I’ve heard somewhat frequently this week. I can honestly say that playing on Live has been a great time and I find myself more often than not playing online than off.
Advanced options allow for up to fifteen bots of a varying difficulty making for some very intense free-for-alls. You can even turn off friendly fire, but in good conscience I can’t say it would be as fun if you couldn’t accidentally or not so accidentally take out your teammate. Finally, a notable exception which upsets me is that the options for no shields or one hit kills is missing. I used to love going up against an army of bots in the original PD and be able to take the swarm of enemies by being well prepared or just having a bit of dumb luck on my side. This is what will keep the game from being a truly great experience for me.
Control is a combination of what Rare has come up with in the past for the original PD/Goldeneye and what Bungie has implemented for Halo. You can choose as per usual either Halo or GoldenEye type controls as far as the sticks are concerned. Triggers obliviously fire your guns and the face buttons are same as Halo, save for one exception. There is no jump. That’s right, gone are the days of jumping to your doom in a panic or, like Halo 2, being like Superman and surviving a two story free-fall. Being that the experience is a bit different I actually don’t miss it that much. Also, before you start sending me hate mail, know that I am a huge fan of the Halo series (more of the first though) but am a bigger fan of the Rare-developed shooters.
Speaking of Halo, you are given a few control functions that the series didn’t have. You’re able to use an "action button" in place of the jump button. This allows you to utilize stacks of crates or walls as cover. For those of you that have suffered through the recent EA-developed Bond games, you know it was one of its few redeeming qualities. This actually makes for great strategic battles when cover is well utilized. Secondly the left shoulder button, or LB, is a dodge command which causes you to roll out of the way of any attack and be relatively invulnerable for a few seconds. The right shoulder button or RB controls weapons secondary functions which I touched on earlier.
Left in the dark
Despite my obvious love for this game, I don’t feel justified spending the extra ten dollars for the special edition. For the extra money you get an upgrade to a metal case covered by a plastic slip much like that of Halo 2’s special edition, only shinier. You also get a bonus DVD. Well, when I picked up my copy the Friday before launch I became very excited since I thought I could watch the DVD many times over before I could play. Much to my chagrin, I received the error message saying that I could only play the DVD on my Xbox 360. Well, this week when I loaded up the bonus disc I was even more disappointed. Designed to promote more interactivity on the system, the bonus disc provided me with a new PDZ desktop theme and about 10 PDZ icons. Actual special features included concept art and a few chapters of the upcoming Perfect Dark novel. Even though I used the desktop theme, I really can’t say I believe that was worth the extra money when Quake 4’s bonus disc offers so much more. There easily could have been a direct port of the original Perfect Dark which would have made me giggle like a school girl, but no -- no giggling this time. In short, buy the regular edition and save yourself the 10 dollars for the abhoringly expensive accessories.
As it pertains to its long-lasting potential, I honestly believe Perfect Dark Zero will stay around for a long time. Multiplayer is easy to pick up and provides a seemingly endless amount of entertainment; with Xbox Live you are never short for playmates. With Halo 3 being rushed out the gate for to coincide with the PlayStation 3 release (as of this writing), Perfect Dark Zero will be the multiplayer game you keep coming back to for a while to come.
