Perfect Dark Zero – Review

So I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, playing through all those games that have sat gathering
dust in the back of my cupboard, and came across a game with slightly more dust than the rest of
them: Perfect Dark Zero was one of the 16 launch titles to first appear on the Xbox 360.
So I decided to look to the first days of 7th gen gaming and see just how much things
have changed.
Perfect Dark Zero tells the story of Joanna Dark (the female gaming equivalent of James Bond with
attitude) 3 years before the N64 game Perfect Dark, as she goes up against dataDyne, a sinister
defence contractor intent on the usual bad guy things, taking over the world for example. You’ll
travel all over the world from Hong Kong to Africa trying to thwart their evil conspiracy.
The games first level is an infiltration into dataDyne itself (or so it seems) and introduces you to the
mechanics of the game. You soon realise this is meant to be one of those stealthy games that I’m
useless at. Nevertheless, it soon builds up and we see the sheer graphical brilliance that many games
lack. It may seem a bit stone age compared to games like Halo Reach and Final Fantasy 13 but when
you think this came out all the way back in 2005 you see just how spectacular this was. With the
games leeching off the Xbox’s hardware for every last drop of graphical detail it can you may think
that it lacks in game play but you’d be so wrong, the game is thoroughly enjoyable and while it can
be quite difficult at times (especially on dark agent, the hardest difficulty. I felt like crying at points) it
is an absolute joy to play and the campaigns story full of intrigue, hidden relics and things exploding
will have you hooked for hours. If that wasn’t enough you can play through the story co-operatively
with a friend, and thankfully it adjusts itself to make it more interesting, for example some doors
need two people to open them, and in some cases the second player will take over a key character
(controlled by the AI in the campaign) and follow their path instead meaning whether you go it alone
or with friends you’re guaranteed an enjoyable experience.
Sadly, the game isn’t completely perfect. The multiplayer, featuring several deathmatch and
objective game modes is, as is the case with so many older games, deserted. This means that, while
they have included a mode to play against bots, you can’t get many of the achievements on offer,
stopping you getting the perfect 1000 gamerscore. Also, it can occasionally be a bit unclear where to
go, with objective markers rarely showing themselves.
But these are merely minor scratches on an otherwise flawless gem, and despite its age still plays
like a dream and I would recommend you all to play it, especially if you have a hankering to see the
spiritual ancestor to a lot of shooters on the xbox 360.