Jonny gets down and dirty with Joanna in the Xbox 360's most-hyped launch title

There is one crucial element of a game's difficulty that developers rarely get right. When something in life is hard, you go about overcoming it in two ways. You can do what makes us human, and you can adapt, evolve, and improve. Or you can just keep trying exactly the same thing until you luck out... or perish.

Sure, it's all very well ramping up the health of the bad guys, the numbers of bad guys and to give your protagonist armour less effective than the average lacy negligee. But that doesn't encourage improvement in the player.

This is one of the many reasons GoldenEye 007 on N64 was such a classic. It was undoubtedly capable of being the toughest game in the world, but in the best possible sense. It was a game that it was possible to get ridiculously good at, and the harder the challenge was, the more fun and rewarding the experience became.

Dunno about you, but I wasn't any better at playing first-person shooters when I'd conquered Half-Life 2. Quicksaves turn any challenge into mere attrition. But GoldenEye, like Viewtiful Joe or Ninja Gaiden, was a title that made you good, or made you dead - in the best tradition of old-school gaming.

The reason I'm droning on about a seven-year-old N64 game, is that Perfect Dark Zero, for arguments sake, is GoldenEye's sequel. Well, it's the prequel to GoldenEye's sequel. And the reason it's worth looking into is much the same - it's every bit as brilliantly unforgiving.

Firstly though, the disappointments. Few of the things which made Halo or Half-Life so good are present here. The storyline is rubbish, the game world lacks coherence and is riddled with inconsistencies, which stop you being able to immerse yourself enough to care, and the game's NPC chatter - including mincing comments among the lines of "Watch my ass! / Looks good to me!" and "Aaarrghh, she's got a gun!" - is insulting and irksome, and sounds like what would happen if you employ a particularly sad 12 year-old work experience lad to write your dialogue.

How many more high-camp spy-spoofs does this planet really need anyway?

Then you've got the questionable AI. Whereas AI programming has advanced in leaps and bounds, Rare seem to have decided that the basic level AI routines from GoldenEye are good enough to use again. If you can see an enemy, the enemy can see you. And so can every enemy in the level. And if you move, or hide, they know exactly where you are, even when it's not possible that they could know. If you want intelligent, believable foes you won't find them here.

But once you play it enough to realise that you need to forget real-world common-sense, and take the game on by accepting its bizarre and flawed internal logic as a given, then things start to get much, much better. Like GoldenEye before it, the more you play it and the harder the difficulty level, the more you begin to instinctively know the game's considerable nuances, and the better it gets.

There aren't that many games that give you the opportunity to take on a dozen or more heavily-armed assailants in close combat at one time, especially without the action slowing down. And much like GoldenEye, these enemies do not go down easily. It takes a surprisingly large number of rounds to put an opponent away, so headshots are the order of the day, and even then the first shot is not guaranteed to do any more than send the bad guy's helmet skittering along the floor.

Thankfully the weapons are pretty great, feeling meaty and suitably destructive. There are some cool new guns while old favourites from GoldenEye (most notably the RCP 90) make a comeback. It's now possible to dual wield your guns independently, while other facets borrowed from Halo include a similar health / recharge system and the ability to carry only 2-3 guns at any one time.

There is an effective "cover" mechanic, but it often won't keep you safe for long - maybe long enough to reload, which takes an age, adding to the tension - and protagonist Joanna Dark can now perform a rolling dive to get her out of tight spots.

It's interesting in that there is very little deviation between types of bad guy. Every enemy is exactly the same as you - they take the same number of shots to go down, they move at the same speed, have the same techniques available to them and also spend a hefty amount of time reloading. This makes learning to read them, and fighting them, a lot of fun, and gives it a kind of constant deathmatch-style feeling.

It's in the heat of the action where the game feels desperate that it really blossoms, as it takes only a tiny amount of punishment to meet your end. The game gives you the ability to fight more intensely for the right to survive than any other, and it's this heart-pounding excitement that you get from clinging on by the merest thread that makes it so special.

Perfect Dark Zero is not about getting through the game. It's not about seeing what happens next. It's about getting caught up in, and surviving, the moments. And most of all it's about taking a tough game and feeling the achievement of spanking it to within an inch of its life. Which kind of sums up my attitude towards the protagonist too, really.

Is Perfect Dark a great FPS offering something unique? Heck yes. Does it offer the kind of depth that few shooters, if any, since GoldenEye itself, have provided, and some moments of inventive genius? Yup. Is Perfect Dark guaranteed to bring you plenty of enjoyment, both with its expansive multiplayer mode and its tough-as-nails single-player assignments? Sure it is.

But is it the next page in the book of videogaming? Does it represent a new dawn of next-generation power with the swagger, confidence and style that Super Mario 64, or GTA 3 did? Does it nuke its genre's stereotypes and provide an experience as new and powerful as Halo did? Is it that elusive "Killer App" every new console needs?

Nah.

GAME's Verdict

• Intense combat precipitates moments of true "zen" gaming.
• There are some moments of true genius in the design.
• The co-operative and multiplayer modes are excellent.

• Childish NPC chatter destroys any illusion of gravitas.
• The AI is dodgy.
• Shouldn't next-gen titles look a little better?

Review by: Jon Austin
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Review Published: 08.12.05

Mark turns down the lights and gets dark with Joanna...

Perfect Dark Zero isn't the best looking title in the Xbox 360's launch line-up. Nor is it the greatest shooter ever made. This much was made clear to us during our initial hands-on with the title. It may be the obvious Great White Hope at the system's inception, but on first impression the most major IP on Microsoft's next-gen machine falls some way short of the standard-setting excellence that Halo lent the first Xbox launch.

So few words, so much negativity. Things really are nowhere near the catastrophe that first paragraph makes out. In truth, Perfect Dark Zero was always going to have the unfair task of being directly compared to Bungie's system shifter. It's simply the only shooter releasing alongside the new console with a gaming heritage to equal the Halo brand.

For those not in-the-know, the original Perfect Dark was one of the N64's last great games, and the unofficial sequel to the seminal Goldeneye 007; a game that elevated British developer Rare to godlike status. When Rare lost the James Bond licence to EA, Perfect Dark was the IP invented to fill the supers-spy's sizable shoes. As the second sequel to one of the finest first-person shooters ever made, PDZ was always a major high profile title - and even more so when Microsoft splashed the cash and swiped Rare from under the watchful nose of Nintendo.

To say there has been a hype-swell surrounding Perfect Dark Zero, then, would be an understatement. For Joanna Dark not to outright outgun the Master Chief may leave some disillusioned, but discerning gamers should take this with neither shock nor a disappointment. Simply put, very few games will ever get near the pitch-perfect gameplay of the Xbox icon. And while PDZ isn't the classic it could have been, by no means is Rare's premier 360 offering a bad game.

Claiming there's anything stonewall "wrong" with PDZ would be unfair, though there are some elements that feel slightly out of place in a modern day shooter. The lack of a jump button is one such anomaly, putting the emphasis less on freedom of control and more on the game's pacing and level design. However, this idiosyncrasy also keeps in line with the series' way of doing things: the N64 original didn't have a jump button, and nor does this. Instead, it offers a quick roll function, and a new cover move that allows you to sidle up against the corner of a wall and peer round to shoot enemies.

Both new moves cause the camera to switch to a third person perspective, and both have their drawbacks. For instance, the quick roll allows you to evade hostile fire, but is to be used sparingly as being shot during causes extra damage. Cover on the other hand is designed to be used plentifully, and works a treat - when you're in the right place to take advantage of it. The main problem is that on occasion it won't allow you to, instead demanding you stand in the exact context-sensitive area before pressing A. However, when you get used to the limitations, at their best both options perpetuate some slick, duck-and-cover gameplay, so despite some iffy implementation there's little doubt that Perfect Dark Zero is better with them than without.

The game's major successes seem to lie in its sheer sense of scale. Levels are at-times ingeniously designed, vast and vibrantly coloured affairs with fantastically detailed textures, and it's an honest joy just to explore such large-scale surroundings. With its stylish Americ-anime approach and an endless draw distance, PDZ emphasises thoughtful play to a degree few shooters have previously been able. Scoping several miles across a spellbindingly swaying river to spot a guard on patrol gives recon an immersive edge, and a plain cool factor that even a top-spec PC would be hard pushed to emulate. Going bigger and better than before is what next-gen hardware is set to offer gamers, and in this respect PDZ looks set to usurp Halo as the new genre standard bearer.

In terms of gunplay, however, PDZ is an altogether different style of Xbox shooter. Linear, mission based and with enemies that rely on over-running you with sheer numbers, rather than outsmarting you with advanced squad-based AI, it's less Halo and more Timesplitters in its approach. In many ways, that influence should be hardly surprising - the Timesplitters team is, after all, made up of many ex-Rare Goldeneye veterans - but Perfect Dark Zero also retains the well-scripted stealth sections, genuinely clever gadgets and plethora of powerful death-bringing implements that permeated its forebear, setting it apart from the competition as the first shooter of its type in six years.

If this looks set to be the one-player experience hardcore fans have longed for, it might also be the 360's premier online title. Despite only offering six initial levels, each is enormous and all work well in the title's multitude of multiplayer gametypes, from your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes (labelled 'Killcount') to Capture the flag, Territories, and the Counter-Strike inspired Dark Ops mode. It was Goldeneye that famously revolutionised the multiplayer console shooter, and Perfect Dark that refined it - and the sequel continues the trend in style.

On top of this, you can take on the game's missions in online co-operative mode - the one element removed from Xbox Halo 2 due to system limitations. You will need a Gold Live Account of course, but the sheer fact that 360's premier shooter delivers this right out of the box holds a definite novelty value. Indeed, for Microsoft to kick-start a console generation and lead the way online with such a high-profile shooter is undoubtedly something of a coup.

In conclusion, a word of warning with a glimmer of hope: Perfect Dark Zero may not be the next-generation leap in first-person shooters many had hoped, nor the undeniable killer app the Microsoft hype machine would warrant. However, to say we're entirely disappointed with our first-play wouldn't be doing it justice either. Joanna Dark's second assignment may be a visually prettier continuation of a six-year-old series, and gaming has undoubtedly evolved since then, but Rare's classic template is yet to fully fall out of fashion.

Review by: Mark Scott
Preview Published: 29.11.05