Perfect Dark Zero for Xbox 360 is my favorite game that no one seems to love.
Perfect Dark Zero is a first-person shooter that plays more like a slower '90s FPS rather than fully-modernizing (at the time), with a story that admittedly will get you lost here and there. The voice acting is a little cheesy, and there's some voice lines that are more laughable than serious. However, the music is AMAZING with some BUMPIN'' TUNES, baby! The Rooftops Escape theme is my favorite, especially with how that drum beat kicks you in, and beats you up with its hard rock and sexy smooth violins for Joanna Dark herself. The guns are really powerful... like HOLY CRAP POWERFUL. Basically, my tip goes as follows. The best guns are:
- The Shotgun
- The Ak-47 with a separate bayonet
- The Falcon
- The Magnum
- The Superdragon
- The Plasma Gun
- The Vi-Blade
- The Laptop
- ANY GUN THAT SHOOTS GRENADES AS A SECONDARY
The guns aren't as alien or super-duper creative as the original Perfect Dark, but this is a prequel, so that's alright with me. (Oh, and if you don't have any ammo or guns, you can punch the enemies or use the right bumper to slap their weapon away from them, throwing them into this funny little stumble. )
And the game really provides a good challenge once you get used to its semi-archaic mechanics. Missions are not as freeform as Perfect Dark 1, but they allow you to complete certain missions in certain ways the further you get in each level. You have FOUR DIFFICULTIES. Agent (Easy), Secret Agent (Medium), Perfect Agent (Hard), and the best of them all, DARK AGENT (The Hardest Difficulty). You can play each of these difficulties, with DARK AGENT being unlockable once you beat PERFECT AGENT. Each difficulty changes the game differently, with some having checkpoints, easier versions of each mission, and enemy AI either getting tougher, or more likely to group and gang up on you. Trust me, some levels might get real rough. But a second player can lessen the blow
Take it from me, every line in the game (even when you shoot the bad guys) gets a kick out of me so much, that I still memorize and quote them to this day! And as a bonus, the DISC copies of the game have bugs and glitches that just enhance the fun factor of the game. You can kill an enemy, then use your melee attacks to push him around the levels, get them in corners, or just throw them off bridges. But if you just want the core experience, just get the digital download (but that one's not as fun. Good thing Rare Replay gave us the DISC version instead, much like how they gave us Conker N64 rather than the XBOX remake). And the multiplayer is TOP NOTCH. Deathmatch, capture the flag, DarkOps (which has modes like Onslaught, Eradication, Sabatoge, and Infection), AND you can play the single-player campaign with a friend! To top it off, you can play all of the multiplayer modes online, AND LOCALLY WITH FRIENDS! (Or do that crazy System Link that was cool in the 2000s). This game had so much that it pains me when I learn of all the cut content that would have been added as DLC later on but would later be scrapped before the game could barely even reach its peak. Heck, its playable both offline and online on Xbox One and no one's given it a chance.... They're missing out, I tell ya'!
Although the series did get remastered on the Xbox One's Rare Replay compilation, I still have my fingers crossed tightly for them to finally say that a NEW Perfect Dark is on the way. Please, Microsoft, please.....
Play Perfect Dark Zero! Play Perfect Dark CLASSIC! Please, let's bring back Joanna Dark!