As a Rare fan it's hard to admit, but this wasn't exactly what we hoped for.
The Xbox360 can really show of some awesome graphics, and Perfect Dark Zero looks brilliant. The game has got some fantastic visuals that really show what the 360 can do. The weapons look perfect. This is maybe the biggest reason to buy PDZ (Perfect Dark Zero)! Not only because they look perfect, but they also play and feel perfect. Some things aren't that great about the graphics in PDZ though. The animations aren't that great, which doesn't work well together with the old artificial intelligence. The enemies are very simular to the ones we played against in the first Perfect Dark, which is bad after playing games like F.E.A.R. and Far Cry which features superb A.I. The menus are even worse. When you first start up the game you get shocked by how old and ugly they look. Why, oh why didn't Rare design some better menus?
The sounds in Perfect Dark Zero are actually very good. The sound effects are nice, and the music is superb. The music in the mission are really fitting, and reminds me of Rare's old classic. The one thing about the sound I don't like though is the voice overs. They are pretty bad overall.
Perfect Dark Zero may sound like an awful game, but it really isn't. There are many things that work here, but there is one more negative thing I have to say about it, and that's how bad the story is told. The story is horribly told here. The in game videos are short and only confusing, and the briefing before the missions are just not interesting at all. But that's that! There are also a lot of good things here. The single player contains mostly cool missions playing in high-tech buildings, a snowy mountain, the desert, a jungle and inside a disco. This, together with the weapons, music, graphics and a great multiplayer is what builds up Perfect Dark Zero. The multiplayer is really great featuring many play modes, and a good co-op that can be played over Live! as well. There are some new things in PDZ that I've never seen in a FPS before. One is the ability to seek cover behind walls and crates, this sets the camera in 3rd person view, and it's surprising how good it works. One other cool thing is guidelines that appear if you play on Agent or Special Agent. These guidelines show you where to head next, which is very helping cause the levels aren't exactly straight forward. And the last cool new feature is the ability to roll forwards, backwards or sideways to dodge bullets. Perfect Dark Zero ends up with mixed reactions. Many things are awesome, but the bad things are really bad too! So if you don't mind a bad story and an overall dated FPS gaming experience, you should buy Perfect Dark Zero because of the awesome weapons, missions, music, and multiplayer.