Perfect Dark, ahh, Perfect Dark. It was easily the best console first-person shooter back in 00 and it was really one of the main reason why everyone wanted an N64. Perfect Dark was simply a "spiritual sequel" to Goldeneye since it shared many similarities, but what made the game different were the protagonist, the futuristic weapons, and it was set in a sci-fi world with cyberpunk elements. Rare had a rough time making the prequel since it was originally on the Gamecube, Xbox, and finally on the Xbox 360. There were some very interesting facts about this game. It was actually going to take place with another character instead of Joanna Dark. The game was released in 2005 and it was one of the 360's launch title. How does it fair off and can it compete with Call of Duty and Halo which are the two series that are dominating the FPS genre?
The storyline was really not that great. It felt like it was just put there so you could have a reason why you have all these weapons and why you must kill enemies. You are Joanna Dark. You're a chick, a spy, killer, and an agent. It took place in 2023 and this was when Joanna was really young compared to the original game. The whole idea of this storyline is you work in a small group with your father and this chick name Chandra. You're trying to save this scientist from the Triads and sooner or later, your father gets captured by a megacorporation called dataDyne. You will save him eventually, but then he dies in a firefight. You want revenge by killing their leader and president Zhang Li. Also out of nowhere another megacorporation called Carrington Institute wants to help you. The story feels a bit rushed. It's basically just go to point A point B and it doesn't really give you any interesting information. For example after Joanna's father death, it just went right to the next mission without giving showing no feelings or emotions by Joanna-you will see a lot of this type of stuff. Overall, it's mediocre and it could've been more engaging.
Some of the gadgets make the game look cool.
Perfect Dark Zero will feature some beautiful scenes to look at.
Graphically, Perfect Dark Zero was beautiful. The guns are AMAZING and they still look amazing to this date. It has very sharp textures and it just looks so real and that's nice because when you play first-person shooters, you will be looking at your gun most of the time. The ground, walls, water, characters, and pretty much everything looks nice for 05. The game also uses a cartoon type of art style unlike the original game and it's a bit awkward for the Perfect Dark series to use it, but not everything looks cartoony. The sound are also amazing. The guns sound amazing and they all sound perfect. For the voice acting part, Joanna actually had a British accent from the original game. She actually doesn't in this game. She sounds American so this is just an indication if you haven't played the game. The voice acting is fine even though most people seem to hate it. The voice acting in this game isn't what you expect from Call of Duty or Halo where it's very serious. This one's a bit more fun and silly and it works in that department. However, when Joanna melee and a couple of death screams from the marines, could've been better. Rare has always been good with the music department and PDZ doesn't disappoint. A lot of the songs fit great for the levels and the three songs in this nightclub were an absolute blast to listen while shooting memebers of the Triad gang. Most of the songs have this spy, futurstic or cyberpunk feel to it.
Joanna Dark in action.
Some levels kind of remind you the good ol days of Perfect Dark.
Now the gameplay which is mostly positive. The game plays like a reinvision of Perfect Dark and Goldeneye. It feels more realistic, but it still has the sweet charms that made those two games great. You still have a lot of weapon selection-there's about 25+ weapons in this game. Some of them make return from the original and some of them have resemblance to the older weapons. For example, the Shockwave Rifle has the ability to see enemy through walls which is kind of similar to the FarSight XR-20 where you had that ability, but you could shoot through it. Halo's taking over many FPS games with it's two weapon system and the game is inspired by that, but it has some of its own ideas. Basically before you start a level, you have the option to choose your weapons out of the weapons you found in the game. You can choose four pistols, 1 shotgun with 1 assault rifle, or you can choose 1 heavy machine gun with 1 pistol and etc. Expect to see a weight system when you carry these weapons. The bigger it is, the slower you move. Perfect Dark Zero also features some very fun boss fights and it's not the best out of the genre, but they're atleast worth mentioning and it can offer you some challenges at times. The game's very lengthy. Perfect Dark Zero mostly play like a run and gun shooter just like it's original game. However, on harder difficulties, it starts to play more like a stealth game for some weird reason. If you're gonna play the game on Perfect Agent or Dark Agent, you're forced to be more cautious and you have to take cover even more and running and gunning is really not recommended. So if your expecting this game is to be mainly focused on running and gunning and thinking the harder difficulty will give you a challenge in the same experience, prepare to be disappointed. Also the game does feature the same idea of the original Perfect Dark did. If you make the difficulty setting harder, you have more objectives to finish. It could take about 12-15 hours to finish the Perfect Dark Zero campaign which is a very nice length. Most of the levels feel very different too and they all have style. There's a level in the nightclub, laboratory, jungle, the streets, and a lot more. A lot of these levels are very well designed and there will be times you'll look at the environments and be impressed by the imagination of these level designers. The nightclub one was a personal favorite of mine. There's not many first-person shooters where you can go into a club and shoot a group of Triad members while listening to high quality techno music. There's also people in the club that just want to relax and it builds great performance when you get to see them panic when there's a gunfight. The club also looks amazing. It just has this very nice cyberpunk feel to it and it's very good to the eyes. Without a doubt, this is possibly one of the best levels of what the Perfect Dark franchise has to offer. This level possibly deserve to be on one of the best moments in FPS games with Half-Life's Surface Tension, Halo: Combat Evolved's Truth and Reconciliation, or the last boss fight of Serious Sam. It's that damn good. The game also have a cover system like Gears of War, but it's not as polished. You have to get close to the wall and wait for like 1.5 second and then you can take cover in third-person perpsective, but that system is there for the higher difficulties. You'll get a couple of vehicle sequences for your breaks of the firefights. Other than the weak storyline and disappointing difficulty system, Perfect Dark Zero shines very well in the campaign section.
The multiplayer is very amazing. It has so much content and there's also options to customize if the game doesn't interest you with any of its offer. When you start up a multiplayer game and let's say it's team deathmatch, you can make your teams start in a base with full of weapons or you can make it start at a random location and force the player to find them. There's a lot more like you can change or customize the weapon list, you can change the size of the map, game modes...It's a lot of stuff. The bots make return from the original game and they do a well job on them. You can also adjust the difficulty of them if you feel like they're not giving you enough challenge and do more stuff with them. The multiplayer plays a lot like the original game, but it's slower and feels a bit more Haloized, but it will still offer a great experience. Oh yeah, and there are vehicle features in this game and they make it even more funner to play. The multiplayer support up to 32 player and the online seems dead today, but playing with bots will still be fun. The maps are very different from each other just like the levels in the campaign, but there should be a couple of maps to satisfy everyone. Once you learn everything about the Perfect Dark Zero multiplayer options, it will be hard to ditch this game and it could prevent you from playing Halo or Modern Warfare.
Perfect Dark Zero is a gem at it's core and even though it's not as strong as it's original, it does an excellent job of reinventing itself. If it can fix it's difficulty setting, fix some of the weird glitches it has, offer a better storyline with a few more minor flaws, it'll be a classic game. Despite of having some disappointments within the game, this game is totally worth buying if you want to try something similar, but new and different at the same time. All we need to now is...Perfect Dark 2, where are you? 8.5/10
Joanna is young and has a new look, but she's still armed!
Futuristic madness!
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