Forget everything you know about Perfect Dark Zero.

Seriously. Right now.

We good?

Good.

Let’s just start with some good old fashioned hype. Perfect Dark Zero is the premier multiplayer title on the Xbox 360 and will be the most fun Live game you have ever played before. No, that isn’t a marketing tagline. That’s what I’m telling you now, having played it in an Xbox 360 preview session. While I tried out the single player mode for a bit, I primarily played the co-op mode. It was, in a word, godly.

I’ve been following Perfect Dark Zero from the beginning, through the system changes, disastrous MTV Unveiling, screenshots from hell, uninspiring X05 cam footage, and everything in-between. To be honest, I was expecting mediocrity taken to all-new highs. Fortunately, I was dead wrong. This game has quite a bit of bad buzz surrounding it. As it turns out, that buzz is just plain incorrect.

First things first. Perfect Dark Zero’s graphics will be among the best on the market come November 22nd. Characters are all painstakingly modeled with top-notch animations, creating a very fluid experience. Frame rate remained steady regardless of the action on screen. Explosions are the best I have ever seen and the lighting beats out most everything else out there. Most all lights can be shot out, or at least caused to flicker in and out, F.E.A.R. style. Everything casts its own shadow. Imagine Doom 3's lighting minus the ridiculous amount of darkness. The night maps especially have some gorgeous lighting, with billboards and neon signs lighting up their adjacent walls. Also, muzzle flashes look great against the wall, and on the ground. Water effects look as next-gen as they come, with waterfalls that you truly have to see to believe. Particle effects abound, as do the enemies, which are far more plentiful than in current-generation games. There is also quite a bit of blood. Each time you shoot someone a little spurt of blood comes out, especially when you get a headshot; the blood then accurately sticks to the walls. And stays there, even if you come back 5 minutes later. It's things like that that really set apart Xbox 360 games.


Speaking of enemies, the AI of Perfect Dark Zero is leaps and bounds ahead of what has been showcased of the title so far. Opponents in PDZ take cover, rush, fall back, and snipe at you according to what the situation necessitates. If you run into a room without thinking ahead you will be killed and earn yourself a quick trip back to the last checkpoint, your teammate’s revive kit, or the restart menu.

Co-op in Perfect Dark Zero has you playing through the regular set of missions, but many of the levels have a twist. For instance, in one mission the first player takes to the rooftops covering the second player who must fight their way down on the ground floor. There are no checkpoints in co-op, which makes the entire experience all the more tense. You must depend on your teammate for cover and for revival. If you are killed, the only way for you to come back to life is for your teammate to use their revival tool by walking next to you and pressing right on the d-pad. That takes out the revival tool and automatically begins the revival, which takes about 5 seconds. Five seconds may not seem like much, but when you have gunfire surrounding you, it’s an eternity.

Gameplay in Perfect Dark Zero is much more tactical than Halo. If you are expecting to run and gun, expect to see a “game over” screen. To succeed in PD0 you must use cover efficiently, conserve ammunition, and not run into the open and stand still. Movement seems to be about the same speed as Halo, but characters are smaller so you need to aim more carefully. Also of note is the fact that when you are in a firefight you are often taking cover behind a car, wall, or barrel. Many times you will be pinned down, which works great as long as you have ammo. However, when that ammo runs out you are forced to make some very interesting, and often amusing, calls.

For instance, on one level you fight across a large cavern/base and reach a bridge. At the end of a bridge is a door behind which a horde of enemies lurks, ready to ream you in ways you don’t want to be reamed. Unfortunately, I ran out of ammo after fighting them for a bit, and my partner in crime wasn’t doing much better weapons wise. So, like any decent super-spy, I grabbed my handy dandy katana-ish ViBlade and went to town. Rolling through the doorway I managed to slash away at the unsuspecting enemies and stunned most of them with my slashes before they were able to get a shot in. My partner then finished the rest of them off with his assault rifles. That, my friends, is a kickass game.

Speaking of the ViBlade, it was probably one of my favorite weapons in the game. It handles much the same as the swords of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, as seen in its videos. It, as is the case of the entirety of the game outside of rolling and certain action spots (zip-lines, ladders, etc), is controlled from the first person perspective. Pull on the right trigger to slash. Two hits should take down most enemies, or one hit from behind. The first hit, however, has the effect of stunning them as they reel from the blow, allowing you to get that second slash in nice and quick. Expect many a ViBlade-only deathmatch server come PD0's release.

One of the features of PD0 that has been complained about the most is rolling, and the lack of jumping. Personally, I believe this to be a brilliant design choice. Rolling creates cinematic moments just by its very existence. Rolling up in front of an enemy and blowing them away with a shotgun is just plain fun. However, it also prevents the exploits that have plagues Halo 2 online. Instead of constantly worrying about ways a player can jump themselves into a black hole level designers can spend their time crafting enjoyable and detailed levels. A worthy tradeoff indeed.


Furthermore, there are many more enemies onscreen at any given time than you would see in a current-generation title. For instance, in a Chinese snow map you are faced with infiltrating a fortress. In the courtyard in front of it are a multitude of opponents. There are a good four or five enemies on the ramparts, two enemies in each of the watch towers, and three or so patrolling the bridges. And, naturally, the entire environment comes to life to form the best snow level you have ever seen.


At the beginning of each mission you get to pick your weapon loadout. The weapons of Perfect Dark Zero tread the fine line of choice and function perfectly. There is a weapon for every situation, but not so many that there are weapons that overlap in usage. Each weapon is individually useful, and has its own specific ‘feel’. From the sniper pistol to the magnetic boomerang to the P90 with threat indicator, each weapon fills a niche. Most weapons also have a secondary fire or mode. For the sniper pistol, it’s the silencer. For the P90 it activates a vision mode in which enemies are outlined in red and allies in green, perfect for forests, dark environments, and hunting down those snipers.

In the debug version I played, all the weapons were unlocked, but in the final version you will unlock weapons as you play through the campaign. Starting with just the sniper pistol, you slowly build up an arsenal based on what you utilize. Whichever weapons you finish a level with are added to your arsenal. Want a rocket launcher? Better hang onto that sucker till the end. But what do you do when you run out of ammo for it? Do you keep on hauling it, trading 3 or the 4 inventory slots for the opportunity to use the rocket launcher in the future? Or do you throw it away and pick up that shiny AK on the ground?

I hope you realize by now how much this game rules.

One of the most maligned features of Perfect Dark Zero has been the physics. In early videos of the game death animations were very ‘floaty’, with enemies just kind of floating to their death. I’m pleased to say that that is simply not the case. Physics in PD0 in general are outstanding, with enemies gorily collapsing just as you would expect an enemy to gorily collapse. One of my favorite physics touches was related to the body armor most opponents wear. After you shoot the body armor a couple of times, the body armor will shatter. The cool thing, though, is that each individual shard of the body armor will fall to the ground and bounce along on its own. Touches like that really bring the world of Perfect Dark Zero to life. This is truly a next-generation title.


That’s not to say there are no issues with PD0. From the little bit of multiplayer I played, it seemed very, very spammy. You basically run around, rolling, shooting over and over again hoping to score a kill. Melee damage also seemed a bit off. However, I was only playing against bots, and only played multiplayer for about five minutes, so this is by no means a definitive impression of multiplayer. Looking through the options there were a myriad of interesting features, from a base assault mode to an infection mode that from the description sounds like the ever-popular Halo 2 game mode Dawn of the Dead.

In the end though, the co-op and the single player alone are worth the price of admission. Blasting enemies with your friends has never been this much fun, nor this finely tuned. Sure, Rainbow Six has had co-op on live for quite some time, but it was never this integrated into the experience. Lag is nonexistent, and every single level has been planned from the beginning with co-op in mind. Even in single player, you often have an AI teammate in tow to help you out. Many levels of PD0 are outdoors, or at least have outdoor parts, alleviating the major problem people took with Halo. Also, for all those who were dissapointed with the length of many recent FPS titles, you will be quite pleased with PD0. John Dongelmans, Product Manager for Perfect Dark Zero, estimates that the game will be 10-12 hours on easy, and 20-30 hours on the higher difficulties. Now that is replay value.

One point of contention about PD0 has been its release date. Initially everyone expected it to be a launch title. Later reports had it coming out "launch window". Microsoft's fascination with the term 'launch window' didn't help matters. Wondering about this myself, I asked Scott Henson, Director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, about whether Perfect Dark Zero would make launch. With a smile, he said that he feels very (notice the italicization signifying emphasis in speech) good about PD0; though he won't comment on specific date; though I'm of course free to speculate. And speculate I will. Perfect Dark Zero will be available at launch, count on it.

On the whole, I couldn’t be more impressed with Perfect Dark Zero. I went in expecting mediocrity, I came out amazed by what Rare has accomplished. They’ve spent almost five years on the game, and it really shows. Innovation runs through every facet of the game, and the attention to detail of this title is truly mind-boggling. If you want the best damned co-op experience to date, Perfect Dark Zero looks to be the go-to game this November.

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We can appreciate your concern in the discrepancy in the release dates.
We are pleased to inform you that our records indicate a release date of 11/11/05. If you have any other concerns of this release date please contact your local Best Buy.