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Buy Perfect Dark Zero
Visuals & Physics
I have to say visuals are a mixed bag; not that I'm implying they are terrible, quite the opposite - just there are some strange designs in some areas. Before I get to that let me say there are some amazingly realistic visuals in this game, brick walls, cobble stones, and even the impurities of wood grain are clearly visible in a non-HD format TV (LOD is non existant here so every inch of the level looks perfect regardless of distance). Also there just aren't many jaggies in character designs - they're there but finding a hard edge that just doesn't seem intentional to work with the anime style characters is rare - should also mention that creepy glossy eye look from Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is used here.
Textures are very detailed, and the shader engine makes a crack in a brick wall look like it extends a foot or so deep, such a small insignificant detail blew me away at first because it looked like something a dev would create out of polygons.
Now for some strange things. I'll let the character style slide because I think they chose this style to appeal to a wider crowd, but I gotta say that some characters are VERY bright ( Jo's hair, or her dad's ). Now you have a sort of wokky physics engine, it's so clumsy its a blast to play with because you have no idea how a body is going to react. This engine uses scripted death animations combined with your standard rag doll which makes for a very interesting blend.
Weapons, Sound & Gameplay
As in the N64, weapons are great. They look incredible with the lighting engines working them over, and secondary fire features (sometimes 3 types total) can make it a strategy to bring the right gun to the fight.
The sound is a mixed bag as well. Though sound effects are very well done the voice acting is just horrible. Not only do enemies state the same idiotic facts over and over again, but they sound ridiculous while doing it. Also Jo is American now so no more Brit accent for her, and Jonathan has been turned into a whiny 20-something. The deathmatch announcer in multiplayer belongs in hell. The voice acting is my biggest gripe about this game.
The gameplay is solid in PDZ. Single player is a bit tedious but find a FPS you can't say that about. Unlike the first game, you unlock weapons by finding them in the 13 or so levels and finishing with it, then before you start a new mission you just select it from inventory. Speaking of inventory you have 2 slots for gadgets which can range from the Audioscope, minigame datathief, minigame detonator, or minigame locktopus. Each one of these is like a quick 10 second minigame that random generates the correct answer/path to trigger the desired effect which can be annoying for multiplayer but generally fun for single/co-op.
Characters have that familiar floating feeling where they move slightly slower then in reality but unlike the first game you can roll at any time which makes it very difficult to just blast a human player down at first. Also PDZ has a cover system where you can brace your back against walls or objects and wheel around the corner to pop a few shots off - with the right weapon this is deadly. The AI seems reasonably intelligent, and past agent mode they will hit you with every burst of rounds they fire off.
I haven't played online yet, but the multiplayer is very solid. It features up to 15 bots for deathmatch/team deathmatch, capture the flag, territories, and there are other modes with no bots such as onslaught. Not as customizable as the first game, but still mutliplayer is a blast.
In short Perfect Dark: Zero is a great game with some flaws, not a kill app but not a disappointment. If I were only buying one FPS this holiday season I'd choose it over CoD 2. Not the top of its class on all consoles, but certainly the 360. Four Stars.
