Perfect Dark Zero

In today’s day and age it’s very important for a console to have an excellent launch line-up.

Don’t know what the PS3 will bring to the table, but I wasn’t too happy with the 360’s line-up. Sure, they looked next generation (well most of them at least), but there was nothing there that would have persuaded me to go in for this console.

So when we got our grubby little paws on the 360 (which you can read about here), I pretty much knew what to expect; only I had forgotten about Perfect Dark Zero (PDZ), Rare’s follow up to their critically acclaimed FPS for the Nintendo 64. Would this title persuade me to buy the 360? Not really. Would I shell out nearly 3000 bucks on this title? Umm no. So is this game any good? Well, read on to find out.

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I never got a chance to play on the N64 (except for maybe a little Killer Instinct at a friend’s place), so I had no clue as to what PDZ was all about. Not having played the original I didn’t have a lot of hopes for this game and if it ended up sucking, I wouldn’t be as crushed as some of the fanboys out there. But, fortunately (for me and those fanboys) the game doesn’t suck, and here’s why.

In PDZ, players will step into the neatly polished bots of bounty hunter Joanna Dark once again as she traverses the globe in an attempt to thwart the plot of a mad man, who goes by the name of Zhang Li. It seems Mr Li has been searching for an ancient artifact called the Graal, and this artifact grants it’s possessor with superhuman powers. To make matters worse, your father dies along the way (don’t whine, it’s not a major spoiler) and you guessed it, its time to kick some serious ass AKA retribution time.

As you can see the story’s not all that hot and the over-the-top voice acting doesn’t help either. Nearly every character (Dark included) will ham it upto such a level, your ears will start bleeding. To make matters worse, the game has successfully managed to use some of the most retarded dialogues I’ve heard since Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance; for example “Shut up before I drop you like a bad conversation”

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But what this game lacks in these two departments, it makes up for in leaps and bounds with its OST. In all honesty, it is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time. It can be described as a mix between techno and something from a Bond movie; it suits the game perfectly and it totally rocks.

But you can’t judge a game only by its OST or voice acting or plot right? PDZ offers a healthy mix of diverse and fast-paced gameplay and for some reason, (which I still can’t figure out by the way) the game reminded me a lot of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (which can never be a bad thing). The game’s story based missions are all broken down into various levels that can be accessed from the main menu. Before each level, you’ll be greeted with a load-out menu where you can review your objectives and choose the appropriate tools for the job. The only problem here is that the game does not have mid-level saves, so be prepared to play the entire level if you die.