Perfect Dark Zero Review

Patience is the first thing that you need to play Perfect Dark Zero. Though the game fully exploits the Xbox 360 graphics engine, it misses the gameplay angle.

Overview:

Perfect Dark Zero was first released for the Nintendo 64 and was a huge hit. Microsoft undoubtedly made a revolutionary move by bringing the Perfect Dark series to the Xbox 360. The game is a sequel to the original series.

Graphics:

Simply awesome! Graphics are realistic, like the other Xbox 360 games, but the glows and the black shades, make you feel that you are in some kind of a movie controlling a female spy. The blood as well as the explosions make the game graphics rock.

Review:

Perfect Dark Zero too comes in a split screen mode. Therefore, you can play in multiplayer too. Now coming to the gameplay angle, as I said you need patience to play the game, it is slow, but can get very interesting as you start playing the game.

Before each mission begins, you have the option of choosing your weapons. The weapons are made in a very interesting way. By default, you have a pistol, but you can change the weapons as you progress in the game. Some of the weapons we liked were a pistol that fires madness-inducing projectiles that make your enemy turn against his allies. Then there is this submachine gun that projects a diversionary holographic image of the player. There are some rifles, which launch grenades too. But be careful about the weapon you choose, as it influences your speed.

Once you have started the game, there will be targets too, like once you have to trick a camera to open a door and then hide and shoot the same camera to destroy it, so the door remains permanently open. Then there are tasks where, instead of a secret agent, you play the role of her robot sidekick and then hover around and pass through air ducts to trick the computer. One more thing about the game, is that if you are killed halfway through the mission, you will have to restart the mission all over again. That can be quite a pain.

The physics, or should I say dynamics are used well, and when you eliminate the enemy, the blood splutters out very well. The AI of the enemies seemed a little stupid in the easy mode, but if you use the Perfect Agent mode, the AI of the enemies increases. There is a lot of variety in the missions and the tasks. Sometimes you just have one or two enemies, and sometimes there are many. Of course, you might even have some puzzles to solve, and by puzzles I mean, lock picking. There are tasks where you can use an electronic device to figure out the perfect combination of the lock.

Like the other Xbox 360 games, Perfect Dark Zero can be fun when you are playing multiplayer. This helps the most when there are a lot of hidden enemies and you can strategize as who will do what. This doubles the fun, as there is some kind of interaction and can make the game more interesting. Perfect Dark Zero doesn’t have any soundtrack as such, but you can surely put on some music in the background to make the game more interesting.

And don’t bother if you are going the wrong way, a glowing arrow line always indicates the correct way, as well as an AI voice which keeps guiding you as what to do next. That can be a little irritating at times. But the guns which are on the higher decibel range can make you feel nice. And if you like the tasks, there is also teleporting. Even though, the game is a first person shooter, there are times when you have to crouch and move ahead and also evade lasers which can surely hurt you. Don’t even think of shooting your co-op for fun, as there is friendly fire in the game, and you could end up hurting them.

If you are tired about walking in the game, there are a few vehicles, actually two of them are included in Perfect Dark Zero. One of them is the Hovercraft, while the other is a Jetpack, something like that you played in the game Dangerous Dave. The vehicles are interesting, but while playing the game, you do feel there should be more vehicles in Perfect Dark Zero.

The game as a whole is around 12 -13 hours in size, but the missions are hard sometimes and this would surely increase the time. You will be busy unlocking the achievements too, there are like 50 of them.

Verdict:

Perfect Dark Zero is a game meant for patient gamers who belong to the first person shooter genre. Perfect dark Zero can be fun to play, if you really take interest and will surely make you drool over the graphics.