A thoroughly-middling FPS that feels like it's eternally caught between the generation of shooters that came before it and those that came after. It has very little of an identity of its own and certainly a far cry from the vibe of its predecessor. Its mechanics are clunky, its levels are uninteresting, and its overall pace is far more sluggish than it should be. There's nothing I particularly hated about it but I almost wish there had been, if only to have something I could hang my hat on as being memorable about my time with it.

My feelings afterward are pretty close to my initial feelings which was surprisingly decent, yes it does operate like a launch title BUT Rare knew the formula to make a good FPS for the system. I like the setting, and the practice mission to start it all off. They did reuse some assets for Mission 7 & 8. There are some missing mechanics that I’m used to like jumping, and the next checkpoint can be very unclear at times. I think the developer knew this because if you get lost enough the game gives you a form of guiding arrows to get to the next part. It’s hard to believe this game is 18 years old already. I still enjoyed this game but Mission 4 almost lost me, I had to lower my gameplay down a level to get through it, and it was merciless on the lack of a checkpoint. The checkpoint system was hit and miss. And for a spy espionage story it got a little supernatural at the end there. I did have to chuckle because the switch in the middle was like how Haze played out. Still though compared to Haze this is Mozart and without comparing it I still found it to be competent but lacking in some finer details.

Ao contrário do primeiro game que apresenta uma história envolvente, a história de Perfect Dark Zero é simplesmente um enredo irrelevante: basta que o jogador se preocupe em matar os adversários e cumprir os objetivos para que as missões sejam bem sucedidas (literalmente é só sair matando todo mundo de qualquer jeito que você passa, diferentemente do primeiro jogo que você tinha que pensar em algumas estratégias em determinados momentos).
A mira foi melhorada mas a qualidade gráfica e sonora é literalmente o que se espera de um dos primeiros títulos do Xbox 360. Ainda assim, é um título que faz justiça ao original Perfect Dark, por manter muitas características do antecessor, além de oferecer uma jogabilidade fluida e uma boa IA.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to have played PD on N64, and heard there was a new one coming on a brand new HD console as a launch title, and playing this.

Rare fell hard and fast, because as much as the gap seems bigger, there's only 5 years between this and the actual PD.

Perfect Dark Zero has less details than its n64 counter part, enemies dont limp when you shoot their kneecaps, blood effects are worse, there's no weight behind the guns.

And comparing it to the original shouldnt even be the standards used. Microsoft made its name by having the FPS king on the market, Halo, which had 2 very solid games by that point, and they dare release this.

Fuck this game.

One thing I can say about myself is that I'm someone who is pretty susceptible to hype...in a negative way. If you tell me something is amazing, the best thing of all time, a must-play/watch/listen, I'll probably walk away from it disappointed. Contrariwise, tell me to avoid something like the plague because it's bad, I'll probably walk away from it feeling pretty happy, having had a good time.

Unfortunately for this game, that wasn't the case this time.

Where do I even begin? Perfect Dark Zero is the prequel to Perfect Dark, a N64 game. This immediately creates a somewhat puzzling paradox, as a lot of Perfect Dark Zero actually feels more advanced than Perfect Dark (the locales maybe being the sole exception) yet the gameplay feels more dated than the original's. Joanna in this game is treated more like an actual secret agent; the game wants you to be somewhat stealthy, take out cameras, and gives you objectives that follow in this trend, like killing a guard to take his radio to signal the enemies to turn off their communication.

While this sounds like a neat enough idea, there are zero gameplay systems that support stealth. Like in the previous example, if you kill said enemy, once his corpse is spotted by another enemy, they omnisciently target you, even if you are nowhere in sight. Hide the body you say? That's just not possible. You essentially need to know exactly what you're doing to get anything done. There's also no help from the HUD either; in the first mission you're supposed to not engage any of the enemies and just take pictures of two specific guards; these guards are not marked on a map or in-game, and the second of these guards in a different area from where you find the first one, but it makes that you aren't exactly sure if you can or should go that way because of enemy placements and the lack of direction given. In the original Perfect Dark, all the weapons also had a pretty clear indication of having a secondary-fire feature, and swapping to it generally gave the name and thus an indication of what it actually did. No such thing exists in PDZ; if you remember weapons having two modes of fire, enjoy some trial-and-error to figure it out.

This makes the gameplay in general very frustrating, because aside from 'stealth' missions, there's also some escort and timed missions sprinkled in to really annoy you. And the worst part? There's two missions in the game where you are unshackled and allowed to play it like an actual FPS, and they're far and away the most fun you'll have in this game. That's actually saying a lot, considering some of the gun controls are less than ideal (honestly, zooming into the scope is generally more of a nightmare than anything else).

On a technical level, the game is a mixed bag; the graphics are pretty good for a 2005 game, but they're marred by some shocking character design; Joanna and Mai Hem especially are your typical early noughties sexpots. I wasn't too impressed by the soundtrack, but the main (menu) theme did get stuck in my head easily, and not in annoying way.

The less said about the story, the better. Honestly, it jumps all over the places and characters take decisions to drive the plot forward, rather than things happening because it fits the characters and the world.

The plot is cliche and the writing is cringe enough without the bland voice acting, but I do like a good b-grade movie and I actually had fun with this despite it's flaws. The gameplay was a bit too stiff and sluggish for my liking and I forgot that most older titles failed to include a sprint function. The music is super-repetitive and becomes grating at times. Also, the pause menu theme sounds like it’s from a porno-flick and looking at the female characters, it isn’t far off. Some of the attire choices are just plain wack. Why does the main character wear baggy cargo pants and jangly bracelets on a covert-op? Speaking of sneakiness, the stealth mechanics leave more to be desired, but I did mange to kill a guy by punching him in the butt. Once I gave up on hiding and went for a run’n’gun second half, I shot a guy in the upper torso and he yelled “not my chest!”. How was I supposed to know not to shoot him there?!

Overall, there were enough unintentionally funny moments and choices on display that I didn’t actually have a bad time, but if you’re going to give it a go, I suggest playing co-op and downing a couple beers with a mate.

(Chosen from backlog using a random number generator)