E3: Perfect Dark Zero Impressions

We go in-depth after a closed-doors presentation of Rare's upcoming massive Xbox 360 prequel.

Last week, we were treated to a rare demonstration of Rare's upcoming Xbox 360 shooter, Perfect Dark Zero, and thankfully, it impressed. Senior Designer Duncan Botwood, a veteran of both the original Perfect Dark game and GoldenEye 007 - which he proudly displays on his GoldenEye 007 shirt - appears visibly tested at the task of not only living up to one of the greatest shooters ever, but working on a game that just has to sell Microsoft's new console.

The game is indeed a prequel set in 2019 - four years before the original Perfect Dark. Although Rare were very much tight-lipped regarding single player details, we know that we will get to see just how Joanna Dark became the perfect secret agent and a the game will have a story involving the Datadyne corporation and the history they have with Joanna and her father.

We were shown the game's extensive multiplayer mode which currently has two variants: your standard death match and 'Darkops', a Counter-Strike style round game where you have to buy weapons at the beginning of each round. Revealed to us were three of the six further scenarios available in the game: Killcount, Team Killcount and Capture the Flag. From the brief look we got of the game, every detail looks as extensively customisable as in the first game.

Duncan loaded up a large desert map, and the amazing graphics were at once arresting. The pistol Joanna was holding was beautifully detailed with an equally realistic looking hand holding on to the gun. The environment looks beautiful; it takes place in a small town in a desert with all kinds of little intricate details. Duncan revealed that the impressive looking cobble stones on the roads through the town were all one flat texture, the game uses a technique called 'parallax mapping' which creates the illusion of 3D objects without using any polygons, leaving them to be used on more level props or character models. The game also seemed to sport a subtle motion blur effect as the game's character looked around or turned.

Perfect Dark Zero was even more impressive when you took into consideration that the demo we saw was running on old Xbox 360 alpha kits, which has only one of the console's three core processors, and an old standard graphics card. Duncan estimated that the game was running on about a third of the system's final power, and now that Rare has just received beta kits, the game's textures will be partly overhauled and the dev team will push to support 64 players over the currently supported 50.

New additions to the game were vehicles, we saw a single seater attack vehicle, apparently the fastest in the game, which could walk on land with two legs but also transform into a jetpack and send the player sawing through the sky picking off enemies with the built on turret. Botwood noted a problem the team encountered in testing was base camping, so to combat this PD Zero features a spawn system which will let you chose which of the map's spawn points your appear at. Spawn points can be hacked in team games to turn them over to the use of either team.

A new roll move was also frequently utilised, by tapping the R shoulder button in tandem with the joystick the camera will zoom out to third person and you will roll dodge. Botwood points out that this can be an important tactic considering how lethal headshots are in the game. Also of note was the cover move, by leaning against a corner and pressing A the game will go into third person and you will lean against the wall, Metal Gear Solid style.

The game's awesome library of weapons were what impressed us the most. PD Zero uses a weapon system similar to Halo in which weapons take up 'slots' and you only have four at your disposal. Rifles like the assault rifle or plasma rifle use three slots, whilst pistols only use one slot. There are an incredible 28 different weapons in the game, every one with a secondary function and some even with a third function.

Our favourites were the Shockwave Rifle, which replaces the Farsight from the original Perfect Dark and has a very cool X-ray vision secondary function so you can see and shoot enemies through props (but not buildings) and the prototype Laptop Gun, which you can of course deploy onto walls as a turret, but now also reprogram enemy laptop gun turrets to be your ally with the new third function. Botwood revealed that the team want to move away from the alien weaponry of the first Perfect Dark.

The damage system was quite unique; as well as the standard health damage the game has new 'shock' damage that will be applied by melee attacks and falling great heights, this type of damage will recover over time but normal health damage will not. The game's armour system is now sensitive to what weapon is being used - some weapons have to get through the armour before damaging actual health, where as others could damage both at once.

Also of note was a new system to hopefully abolish team killing - the enemy team will always be red, even if an enemy player gets into a green vehicle it will turn red. A radar system on which enemies will appear if they are making a lot of noise and being un-stealthy, an Unreal Tournament style announcer, a futuristic subway level with lots of trains and vending machines, various vision modes like night vision and threat vision and still no jump button but the addition of being able to climb small ledges. What about classic Perfect Dark/GoldenEye multiplayer maps? Duncan Botwood told us that if there was enough demand they would provide classic PD/GoldenEye maps as downloadable content, although there may be legal issues with the GoldenEye maps.

According to Rare, all Perfect Dark Zero's content is complete, only enhancing the games engine and months of testing remains. Though the mentioned release date of "launch window" doesn't fill us with confidence, we're certainly very excited about Perfect Dark Zero - and you should be too.

Andy Robinson
Staff Writer, Kikizo Games

Update June 20, 2005: More new screens added here.