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The opening tutorial level of Perfect Dark Zero is like a video training manual on how not to start a first-person shooter. Dominated by tiny spider robots that recall the cyberfrogs of Daikatana and finishing up with a scripted battle on a rocket platform that finds your companion getting shot countless times but still managing to survive every seemingly lethal blast, it sets entirely the wrong tone for a game that never climbs out of the hole it begins in.
The story of Perfect Dark Zero takes place before the Nintendo 64 game released over five years ago. It features Joanna, but also includes her dad, Jack, and a cast of forgettable extras including the stereotypical bad guy bent on acquiring ultimate power and immortality. Told through poorly animated cutscenes, the narrative succumbs to the same problems most "Zero" games and movies do: what came before the original game or movie isn't nearly as enticing as what comes after. The characters are lucky to have any kind of lip-synching with the often banal dialogue and only Joanna, voiced by Laurence Bouvard, stands out as a particularly good performance. Shooters don't necessarily live or die by the story they tell, but the gunplay has to be up to the task if the exposition isn't. Unfortunately, the shooting is mostly average. It's held down by little need to venture outside of a few core weapons and a lousy rogues gallery to blast. You shoot pretty much the same type of bad guy over and over again from beginning to end. A couple boss fights pop up to liven things up but none are anywhere near inspired. Also for a game centered on a Super Spy of sorts, there's not much sneaking around. That causes a lot of problems as you want to approach the levels with stealth but are all too quickly in the midst of a shootout because the game simply doesn't allow for any kind of real hide-and-seek action.  There are a few moments of greatness and those are almost all found in the midst of larger scale firefights where you have ample cover. Pushing the A button near corners and behind walls lets you get an advantageous view around an obscuring object while protecting yourself from enemy fire. It's a great gameplay convention but it gives the player unrealistic awareness of enemy positions. It also rips you out of the first-person perspective, a cardinal sin in a genre based on You Are There immersion. There's also a way to roll out of the line of fire that would make a nice addition to any first-person shooter down the road, but once again, that rips you out of your head and into third-person when it should be handled somehow without that camera switch. Multiplayer saves the single player game from sinking everything. Xbox Live play is smooth and streamlined. It's easy to join a regular old deathmatch or participate in some of the more unique game types. Filed under the collective name of DarkOps, these include variations of the Counter-Strike formula enhanced by the unique weapons with various secondary and tertiary functions. Many of these functions are useless in single-player, but they spice up multiplayer matches with decoys, night-vision, radar enhancement and plenty of cool ways to knock out your online foes. Player armor that breaks apart during combat helps visually show the level of damage you're causingï¾—something single-player is once again lacking, good feedback. Multiplayer isn't good enough on its own to make Perfect Dark Zero recommendable, but it's certainly the game's best side.  Everything seems rushed to meet the launch deadline. In hindsight, given how good Call of Duty 2 turned out, Microsoft probably should've left Joanna's game simmer for another six months to give the game the polish it needed to move from middling to good. That probably wouldn't have saved the single-player game from its poor level design, hard to decipher goals and trial and error gameplay, but it might have added enough time to get the graphics out of the sometimes real good/sometimes real bad malaise they wallow in throughout the game. This game won't be remembered fondly a few years from now when the 360's lineup includes first-person shooters from the likes of Bungie, Id and Epic, but it's passable to keep you busy online until something better comes along. If you want single-player action, Call of Duty 2 is a much better choice. 
The game earns its M mostly with language and all the headshotting going on. The best way to knock out any bad guy in this game is with a bullet to the noggin and that definitely doesn't match up well with kids or even teens. This isn't Halo with alien baddies and the somewhat comical deaths of the Master Chief. Perfect Dark Zero is a lot more visceral and overt with its violence. The violence stands in contrast to the silly G.I. Joe-like story and the plasticky, Saturday Morning cartoon look of some of the characters. So don't be fooled by this game's kid appealing looks. It definitely deserves the M.
Xbox Live is ... well ... Xbox Live. So you can be guaranteed of an F-bomb dropped pretty much every thirty seconds. That's especially true in shooters, which seem to attract those most adept at using the f-word in uncreative ways. It's used as a noun, a verb, an adverb, an adjectiveï¾—pretty much everything but a conjunction or pronoun but I'm sure someone will find a way to make it one soon. Anyway, like all Xbox Live games, care should be taken online if you decide this M rated game is ok for your kids. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Perfect Dark" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Perfect Dark Zero |
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