Perfect Dark Zero Xbox 360 Review

"As the Xbox 360 launch titles lack that killer application, Perfect Dark Zero tried to fill the empty void left by this. RARE did a fantastic job with Kameo in my opinion bringing back some of the magical elements which Nintendo and SEGA brought to use all those years ago which until now has been hard to rekindle.

The only killer application that would be considered worthy of this name is Halo 3 and as this is yet to be announced officially in development, Halo 3 is going to be quite a way off and was certainly never going to be the killer application at launch. Fellow First Person Shooter, Perfect Dark Zero may wet our appetite enough though to allow us to escape into another futuristic world of mayhem and heroism.

Gameplay

This title oozes appeal from day one with its true next generation graphics and faithful first person shooter gameplay. There is certainly nothing new added to the FPS arena, however what it emulated from other game successes shines like a beacon of light through the power of the Xbox 360 hardware and the sheer cleverness of the game itself.

Starring a female heroin named Joanna Dark, she and her father set off to save the world another day and this creates a co-operative like feel through a good section of the game. You do not however feel any identification with the character, which I will explain in detail later on in the review. This causes Perfect Dark Zero to feel a little empty and the storyline weak. So we will have to look past this and look at the pure action side of things for now.

Luckily you cannot fault Perfect Dark Zero for its action as this has a continual effect of adding adrenaline to your Xbox 360 gaming experience. Although the computer AI is a little on the stupid side at times, the scale and design of the various levels provide a top notch experience for battle hardened fans of this genre.

One key component that always has to be covered in this type of game is of course the weaponry. There is nothing worse than playing a game that has a weak feeling weapon or doesn’t behave as you would expect. Do not worry yourself as you can use futuristic weapons with a myriad of special abilities. Not only do you have primary fire, but also a zoom (depending on the weapon) and a cunning feature unique for each item. Take for example the laptop, a powerful gun in its own right, however throw this beauty on a wall and see how it adjusts to set itself up and shoot anything other than you in it's zone that is detected. These little novel features in each of your arsenal creates a very interesting tactical twist which really comes alive when playing on Xbox Live." [more]