Perfect Dark in name alone!
The game as with a lot on the 360 can be divided into single and multi player. So we'll start with single player.
Firstly, gameplay. Now, when you play a “Next-Gen” FPS you expect something at least remotely new and fresh, even if it’s the smallest thing, it’s something you just expect. Well, perfect dark zero (PDZ) didn’t have any of these. It didn’t even match that of Current-Gen FPS, the gameplay mechanics where old, generic, and overall very uninspired.
They somehow managed to take what was an excellent N64 game and basically sh@t all over it. This was indeed perfect dark in name alone. The level design was basic and contrived things we'd seen a million times before in a million other FPS, only done infinitely worse. The story itself was pathetic, consisting of a confusing, laughably bad script and voice work (why was Joanna dark now American?) characters where brinking on ridiculous, no, wait, they where ridiculous, and overall they simply messed up the whole perfect dark universe, Joanna’s father was a clumsy fool, Joanna had gone from cool to annoying brat, and the less said about the enemies the better.
Adding insult to injury, the AI was terrible, and consisted of 2, yes TWO, methods of attack, running full charge, or side strafing, you could just hide around a corner and pick guards off as they came into sight.
Now the graphics, I understand the temptation when getting hands on new technologies to put effects on everything, but every developer I know of has managed to keep sane and use them sparingly, subtlety is key. Rare clearly don’t know the meaning of the word and hence proceeded to coat every single surface with a thick layer of gloss. Now I’m a fan of bump mapping when done right (prey, doom 3) but PDZ took it to new dreadful heights. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked, the dry, baron desert didn’t look like it had experienced a nail polish explosion.
Finally sound, now, this is something you would have thought they couldn’t mess up on, it was a given, but, somehow, they managed it. In terms of gun noises it’s perfectly adequate, but the music, my god what where they thinking. Most if not all games understand the meaning of an adapting musical score, quite in areas of no action, music building when action takes place. Again, this is clearly something rare missed out on when going through game development 101. Instead of excellent use of music found in almost all games today we got a pretty dire soundtrack looped over the main action, if feels less like a well incorporated musical score, more like a very badly chosen personal soundtrack.
But all is not lost, the game has 3 redeeming features, well, I say redeeming, I mean, they stop the game receiving a 0. One of which was the weapons, not only where they well modelled but also very original, often coming with a second and third fire mode. Another plus point going for PDZ was the texture work, it was extremely high resolution and still some of the best seen on the Xbox 360, but as mentioned, the gloss finish on everything lessened the impact of the texture work. And finally…co-op.
Which brings me onto the multiplayer side of things. If your growing bored of this review, let’s just say, multiplayer isn’t going to make the bad single player any more bearable.
First off, co-op, well, lets just say it was competent. It took the very, VERY bad single player campaign and made it playable with 2, either split screen or live. Now, despite the fact the single player was bad, it actually became a little better when you had a friend along for the admittedly tedious ride. It was still no halo or chaos theory in terms of co-op, but it was playable.
Now, the mode that sold the game to millions. Online competitive multiplayer. Well, wasn’t this a waste of time. Ok, ok, I’m being a little harsh, but the complete lack of an auto aim, the fact you run like you weigh 1000Lbs, and the very basic map design just equalled a very boring, repetitive, generic multiplayer experience, this may have been acceptable back in the N64 days, but this is next gen.
But….as with co-op being the silver lining of the single player campaign. The “Dark Ops” mode was the silver lining of the multiplayer mode. This added more strategy, and objective based gameplay, it turned what felt like a very bad halo 2 wannabe, into something that had more in common with the likes of counter strike. But this one single mode is simply not enough to make this game worth even the minimum asking price. Out of all the games I own on the 360 (13) PDZ is, and will no doubt always be, the biggest disappointment on the system. If not in terms of all gaming in general. It promised so much yet delivered so very little. im quite frankly shocked that gamespot would review such a lacklustre game so highly.
Avoid at all costs.