My love/hate relationship with Jonna Dark

Now that the dust has settled from the Xbox 360 launch I’ve finally been able to give Jonna Dark the attention a hot young secret agent deserves. As with most “exciting” females – Jonna comes with her fair share of baggage and psychosis. Perhaps it is due to its incredibly long development history that Jonna’s growing pains pain me so much. Perfect Dark Zero is unfortunately… less than perfect. That’s not to say that it is a bad title – just… well, it’s like a psycho girlfriend: when it’s good – Holy Mother of God it’s good! But when it’s bad…

The first thing I’d like to tell you is – hang in there! Yeah, I know the first 4 levels are kind of boring and very 1996. Scanning generic thugs with an identity scanner and busting up crates. But really – hang in there, it does get much better.

My guess is that Microsoft must have purchased Rare about 4 levels into development. For here is where the game really begins to take shape. Up until now you are playing a fancy version of Goldeneye.

The presentation is top notch throughout. The load menus and options screens do a good job of keeping you involved in the experience.

Additionally, there is some great in-game techo music that manages to not be annoying.

Now, I understand the desire to keep their original fan base happy, but do we really need ultra-crappy 1996 animations of bad guy armor popping off their body? It reminded me of the Nintendo DS Goldeneye I was playing a few months back – not kidding. This is in the middle of some of the most beautifully rendered locations. But, not all locations are as beautiful as others – in a dramatic way. You’ll go from a bland generic cement compound to a fantastic lush green jungle and wonder why the whole game doesn’t look that good. Rare made a weird decision to make the character profiles during the pre-mission briefings look super cartoony – like the character cards in the board game Clue. Totally out of place.

One thing that stood out was that the frame rate varies greatly from level to level. Sometimes it is unbelievably smooth while other times it drags. Even the rendered cut scenes are inconsistent with regards to frame rate. I guess I’d rather have some really great frame rates than none. Not that it ever seriously stutters, but the contrast is very noticeable.

As far as game play goes, there were some real problems for me during the off-line missions. The first and most annoying is the wacky-land levels of difficulty offered. You can either casually stroll through the levels in novice mode – maybe achieve objectives – maybe not if you are not feeling up to it. Don’t worry about blowing things up with explosives – they are not available at this difficulty. Be sure and brew some coffee though to keep you awake. The alternative is the hard difficulty which has some great challenges (and is the only real choice that generates a fun experience off-line) but makes the fatal decision to eliminate desperately needed checkpoints in the longer levels. It wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t escorting your Dad who has not mastered the ability to fire from cover. He just walks up to groups of generic bad guys and takes it all with a smile. You’ll end up throwing your new wireless 360 controller into that HDTV. Each time he dies you have to start all the way back at the beginning of the level!!!! This WILL make you crazy. Perhaps I am spoiled by PC FPS, but I’d like to save anywhere.

Another game play flaw is the inconsistent accuracy of weapons. The selection of weapons and secondary fire modes are great, but aiming and actually hitting your target is a crap-shoot. There were times that I zoomed in on enemies at close range and shot them clean between the eyes just to see their armor pop off in 1996 fashion. Other times I would aim at a spot at least a foot away from someone’s head and get a perfect head shot?

One thing they got right was adding slight objective marker arrows on the ground if you mill around not knowing where to go for too long – and trust me, you’ll be wondering where to go plenty of times. This is an excellent feature and is well balanced. You don’t see the arrows until you are really on the wrong track and they go away once you are heading in the right direction.

As you could expect – Online is a blast and a VERY different experience. I won’t bore you with the details here; you can read about it just about anywhere.

I’d like to note that the Special Limited Collectors Edition is WELL worth the extra 10 bucks. Pick that version up if you can.

Even with its flaws, the off-line campaign keeps me coming back for more which is not something many games can do. This is no Halo but it is a pretty good way to pass the time until Halo3 comes out.