Finally, my Perfect Dark: Zero review (revised)

Warning: This one's a long one. Don't click if you don't want to read a long, geeky review of a new video game.

After a half-day of gameplay, I can safely say that Prefect Dark: Zero has a lot to offer, but your experience may vary, depending on what you're looking for from it. On the one hand, its got vast improvements in graphics and AI over the original. They've added vehicles and a (somewhat) destructible environment. Instead of being a walking armory, Joanna's inventory is managed similarly to that in Deus Ex, in that you've got 4 "blocks" in which to hold weapons. Pistols, melee weapons, and throwables/grenades take up one block, so you can carry a maximum of 4. SMGs take up 2 spaces, MGs and Rifles typically are 3, and there are a couple of weapons that take up 4 blocks.

The story line is pretty interesting thus far (I'm still working on beating it). As before, you play Joanna Dark. As this game is a prequel to the original, you're a younger Joanna (~20 years old), and work as a "bail bond agent" (bounty hunter) for her father Jack Dark (head of Dark Bail Bonds), and tech-savvy mission coordinator Chandra Sekhar. At least up to the point that I've gotten to, you play through your missions fighting against dataDyne, developers of the DeathMatch system--imagine playing your current DeathMatch games in a virtual reality booth, and losing the match means you forfeit your life).

As far as playing the campaign is concerned, I have to give Rare to big thumbs up on their implementation of difficulty settings. Its nothing too complicated, just four options: Agent, Special Agent, Perfect Agent, and Dark Agent. However, each difficulty level will spawn different elements of the levels in different places (like security cameras, for instance), which will require you to rethink your strategy for each level. You can start off on any difficulty setting, but each new level you start can only be played at the difficulty level at which you played the previous mission, or easier. There will be no more playing through the game on the easiest setting and then replaying the last mission on the hardest setting, like with the Halo games. If you want to beat the game in the hardest difficulty, you get to play through it completely in the hardest difficulty.

One of the coolest features I've seen so far is the ability to respond to enemy taunts, etc, during combat. For instance, I was facing off against a guy in a ship, and he taunted me, and suddenly on-screen it gives you a selection of ways to respond (taunt, charm, threaten). The amount of detail that went into the combat system is fairly remarkable, too; if you're firing at an armored enemy, his armor gets blown off in chunks (yours does, too, as you take damage from combat). If they have a helmet on, a head shot will simply blow the helmet off--a second head shot is then required to make the kill. The coolest facet of this attention to detail really shows later in the game when you start facing guys who use a riot shield for protection. Its hard to notice in the heat of battle, but once you take out one of these troops, you can pick up his riot shield. Any damage you did to the shield will show as you're carrying it, and is even zone-accurate (damage to the bottom or top half, left or right side, for instance). If an enemy fires 3 rounds at you, his gun will be missing those three rounds if you pick it up for ammo or swap it into your inventory. It adds another level of gameplay dynamics that just helps draw you in and keep you there.

Speaking of weapons and ammo, all of the weapons have a secondary mode, and many have tertiary options (at least using a mounted flashlight, sometimes jamming radar or mimicking enemy radar signatures, etc). Several of the weapons can be used as alternatives to be swapped into and out of mounted gun emplacements, and when a weapon is mounted to a fixed emplacement, it receives the benefit of unlimited ammo (while being restricted to a fixed position and a 180° aiming/viewing arc). Also, players are finally able to duck, dodge, do diving rolls, use the environment as cover, etc, just like enemy AI has been able to do for quite some time.

One thing I found interesting was the way Rare designed the health/armor/damage system. As you play through the game, there are two forms of damage you can take: "shock" damage (which includes falling damage, environmental damage such as burns, and even some combat damage), and then your typical permanent damage. Because there are two forms of damage that Joanna can take, the health bar reacts differently to each one. If you take shock damage, your health bar drops, but it leaves a white line as an indicator of what is basically your "maximum" health. If you can avoid taking more damage in this state, your health will quickly regenerate back up to that white indicator line (kind of similar to your energy shield in Halo 2). If you fail to take cover and protect yourself, further damage will begin to drop that white line. When your health recovers, it won't exceed past that white line. Playing through the game in the easiest difficulty setting showed that you very seldom drop that white line unless you just stop moving and shooting, at which point you'll be turned to Swiss cheese anyway. What's more, different weapons will affect your health/armor in different ways; armor-piercing weapons will affect your health and leave your armor mostly intact, while weaker weapons will have to destroy your armor before they can really harm you.

The multiplayer aspect of PD:Z (Or "P-dizzle" as I have come to call my limited edition copy of the game--PD:Z-LE) is pretty typical in many regards. There are your standard versions of Free-For-All deathmatch, Team deathmatch, a territory-grab mode similar to UT2k4's "Onslaught", CTF... you get it. The normal spread. However, Rare also added in what they call DarkOps, which is very reminiscent of Counterstrike, in that its round-based, and if you die during the match, you stay dead until the next match begins. Aside from that, the weapons are the same and the gameplay's the same. I had originally only played it with three other people locally on my 360, but I eventually decided to really see what the game could do when unleashed on Xbox Live. The game was virtually lag-free (to the point I could snipe some head shots on moving targets). There are a lot of mundane things that we take for granted when gaming, so I'm not sure what all I can easily point at as being contributing factors, but playing online with PD:Z was just down-right pleasurable. There's not much else I can say to describe it.

One of the most exciting features in PD:Z has to be its Co-op campaign. Its all the same missions as the single-player campaign, but your objectives are definitely more focused on player cooperation. Example: In the SP campaign, your first mission is to monitor the perimeter of a weapons dealer's nightclub base of operations. The first thing you're supposed to do is ID one of three or four "enforcers" who are overseeing guard duty at the club. No big deal; just avoid a firefight and use your visor on everyone you see. However, in the co-op version of the same mission, each player has to ID an enforcer before you can progress. Another example: in the SP campaign, you frequently have to use your hacking tool to bypass security and get through a locked door. In co-op, you'll find two security terminals instead of one. The only way to get through that door is for both players to activate a console at the same time. And again, some details of the levels change between single-player and co-op mode; things like security cameras may be in different places, or there may be more of them to contend with. Most importantly (I can't believe I forgot to mention this before "publication"--This should be news of epic proportions for any avid gamer.), PD:Z's co-op campaign can be played between two players on the same Xbox360, over two consoles linked via a network, or over Xbox Live! That's right, kiddies, the 360 is heralding a new age of co-op gaming, and its finally internet-capable!

To be fair, I have to say this though: as far as the core gameplay, its essentially just like playing the original, be that for good or bad. You're moving around, shooting. You have fairly specific objectives, some required, some optional, that you need to complete in a fairly linear manner to progress. The maps aren't as linear as the mission objectives, though, which is a breath of fresh air and a curse at the same time; in one of the most recent levels I played, I drove around in my hovercraft for a good half hour before realizing that I had gone past my current objective several times.

The pace is slower than a lot of games currently out; in this regard, its less like Unreal Tournament 2004 and more like the Halo games. Inventory handling was similar to Halo 2 in that you could only carry a few weapons, and the buttons used to switch guns, drop/swap weapons on the ground, meleeing your enemies, etc were all almost identical to the control scheme in Halo 2. You can't jump, but I've yet to find a circumstance where I really needed it. There were times when it would've been really nice to just jump over a barricade or box and go where I wanted how I wanted, but sometimes you're just not meant to climb up on a crate to give yourself a better vantage point to snipe out your foes.

So to sum things up, Perfect Dark: Zero gets my vote as "Strongest Launch Title" for the 360. I don't think it will do as much for the console as Halo did for the original Xbox, but its definitely the best thing going for the 360 at this time, beating out its FPS counterpart Call of Duty 2 both in ingenuity and in gameplay mechanics. Zero is not just a reheated Perfect Dark; its a whole new generation.

My full Xbox360 review is coming soon. Be ready.