Perfect Dark Zero (X360) (2005)
Developer: Rare

Review by Faididi and Co.


When youth also means extreme stupidity


Story: Poor

As its awkward title suggests, this game is a prequel, and it deals with a younger Joanna Dark in her days as an independent mercenary. There's nothing special to find here, as the boring story merely tells of when she begins tangling with the evil Datadyne Corporation, joins Carrington's agency, and earns her shitty codename. Replacing the cold, dystopian motifs of the original game is an ill-fitting 1970s-style groovy spy feel, made worse by the weakly written dialogue, annoying attitudes, cartoonishly racist characters, and awful music. But, hey, at least you don't need to deal with any silly bulb-headed space aliens.


Gameplay: Poor

Rare's Perfect Dark Zero attempts to bring back the supposed fun of its predecessor. That's its first mistake, because the original Perfect Dark has simply never been a strong FPS from the beginning, and that's all the more apparent at a time when the FPS quality gap between consoles and PCs is narrowing. Joanna does absolutely nothing new in the story mode's 14 missions (including the introductory level), killing the same cookie-cutter guards and fetching one stupid key after another. The so-called new features are already done better in previous-generation games. The vehicles are more plentiful and handle more responsively in Bungie's Halo, and the partially regenerating stamina behaves more consistently in Guerrilla's Killzone.

The weaponry continues to lack the sense found in those of Valve's Half-Life. The firearms may have up to three functions now, but these functions are mostly reshufflings of old ideas, and their assignments remain horribly arbitrary. Why does the basic shotgun have a scanner but not the other firearms? Why does the RCP90 have a threat analyzer but not the other rifles? The slot size limitations also make switching guns a needlessly complicated pain in the ass. Given these problems, along with the nonexistent requirement for stealth, there is no reason to use anything but the same two or three rifles throughout the entire game.

If the stale, uncreative enemy design isn't bad enough, the quality of the level design takes an eye-popping dive. The bloated, repetitive jumbles of corridors and rooms never seem to fucking end, and absolutely no help comes from the characters' now-plodding movement speed. The working doors are so difficult to recognize that the game throws in a path-illuminating navigation system, and even that's botched, due to the low-visibility markers that force Joanna to sit around on her ass until they finally fade into view. And, just to piss you off, the doors take ridiculous amounts of time to open.


Controls: Poor

The controls suck. Working with the perspective-switching cover system is an aggravating mess. The structures that can be used with this system are inconsistent, and when they do work, there are unacceptably long delays in leaning in and out from their cover. No less retarded is the use of one single button to handle all the weapon management functions, to the point where the characters can't switch between their current guns if they're standing over other firearms lying on the floor.


Graphics: Poor

Prepare to be blinded by the nasty lighting work and the confusingly cluttered environments. The characters appear as though they're made of plastic, while the excessive texture sheen makes the scenery look creepishly artificial. Yet, none of that is as irritating as the keycards being concealed by the excessive blooming effects, or the navigation markers being so frustratingly faint.


Audio: Poor

The voice acting is worse than before, due in no small part to the lousy writing and the unbelievably idiotic phrases said by certain enemy guards. The entirely unmemorable, inspiration-deprived music is so annoying to hear that turning it off makes the game more bearable.


Overall: Poor

The "zero" in Perfect Dark Zero serves better to indicate how well it scores across the board. Failing to show anything good, it's plagued by imbecilic problems from beginning to end. Its controls are clunky and unreliable, and its level and enemy designs are mindnumbingly dull. Its weapons are dragged down by imbalanced, nonsensical function assignments, and their slot size restrictions make using them even less fun. Stay away from this joke of a game, unless you wish to suffer and risk losing brain cells.


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