One of the most disappointing games on the XBox 360; and here's why.
Perfect Dark Zero fits under "same name, different game" right next to Call of Duty: Big Red One and Battlefiled: Modern Combat. If you're looking for an improved, evolved sequel to that shooter you loved back on the N64 you are not going to find it here. This game fails to resemble the original in both style and gameplay.
But enough of the past; onto the game itself. Frankly, you are not paying for a finished game. You are paying for a BETA release. A game rife with irritating problems in both single and multiplayer. You finish a death match and reach for your pen to note down the problems so you can report back to Rare. The only problem is that these issues wont be fixed before release; this "BETA" is the final version of the game, and you just paid a "next gen" price tag for it.
The game just suffers on so many levels. The single player is short and pretty darned bland, with only two levels standing out from the cascade of mediocrity. You'll know which two levels i'm talking about the instant you complete them, simply because they're the only two locales which appear to have had the correct amount of time and effort put into them. The campaign ends in an embarrasingly poor boss battle involving strange wizardry and magic. If that makes you cringe at the thought of how awesome the game's super-high-tech espionage used to be, i can only offer my sympathies, as it has been replaced with completely unexplained magical powers.
The bad guys are now mindless henchmen, with comedy death animations, cartoonish character models and high-pitched voices. Well done, Rare. Jo Dark has had her personality from the previous game completely removed and replaced with one) someone of a completely different nationality and two) someone who is an entirely different person in everything but a vague resemblence. Once again, great decisions at the board meeting Rare.
Then we have the things which just scream "you're playing a BETA game". For one, aiming. That's right, the aiming. The one thing more or less every shooter ever made gets right is horribly, horribly broken in this game. It's as if your cross-hair (which for some bizaare reason is the same for every weapon) is fixed to either straight vertical or horizontal movement. Why does nobody snipe online you wonder? Because the aiming makes it impossible to do so. Melee attack has been copy and pasted from Halo 2, only the crazed, jittery motions of your opponents make it damn-near impossible to land a hit.
Need i go on? Basically, you have a fundamentally flawed game which scraps everything good about the original and replaces it with crass attempts to be "cool." The aiming mechanics are broken, the multiplayer is terrible (i mean, the cross-hair for a full auto rifle is the same as a pistol?), with many players able to jump into their very first game and defeat somebody playing their hundredth match, thanks to the stupidity of the deathmatch system. There are only ever two or three kills separating each player at the end, which really helps to personify just how flawed it is.
If you loved PD, dont buy this game for your own sake. If you're looking for a good shooter on the 360, i'd go with COD2 over this any day - or hell, even Halo 2. Want a good online experience? GRAW beats this in every respect.
Put simply, dont buy this game. Check your bargain bin for a few cheap thrills when games are scarce next summer.