Over the past few years, first person shooter games on consoles have slowly started to become accepted as another legitimate way to play the beloved PC genre. Console FPS games like Halo and Golden Eye have added new features to them to help them stand out from the PC crowd but the next generation of console FPS games will need to surpass anything attempted before and not be a run of the mill Halo or Counter Strike clone. After seeing Perfect Dark Zero in action behind closed doors, it obvious they have reached that goal and kept on going. First thing you notice is the incredible graphics that the Xbox 360 pushes out. Even though the game we saw running was on an Alpha Kit only using 1 of the 3 CPU’s, running on 33 percent of the Xbox 360’s power, there were no slow downs, frame rate loss or skipping at all.

The Parallax mapping technique used for textures, which is similar to bump mapping only more stunning, gives every surface in the game a feeling of depth and realism. When you move your view side to side the viewable area blurs as it flashes past from side to side. It may sound a little odd, but the effect is smooth and beautiful and adds a feeling of speed and quickness. The player models themselves are as detailed as any game out there and even little things like the model looking to the side as it runs backwards gives it that extra detail. The player models have armor and helmets that can be shot of in pieces with the more damage they take. Once the helmet is shot off, head shots become one hit kills. The player also has a few clever moves to his disposal that he can use to avoid enemy fire.

One move is a dodge roll that he can use to dive side to side or back and forth. With this move, the view zooms out to third person view and quickly zooms back in to first person view when you complete the roll. When you are performing the maneuver however, you are very difficult to hit but if you do get shot whole rolling, you will take more damage. Also you are unable to shoot while dodging. One of the other moves the player has is to take cover behind objects. When you perform this move, the view again switches to third person and gives a view of what lies around the corner of the wall or object so you can see what and where the action is. It also gives you the ability to aim while hidden and the opportunity to quickly pop out and fire instead of the old fashion, strafe left and right and fire method. Although keep in mind, while you are in cover mode, you are viewing yourself and what is around the corner and leaves you very open to attacks from any other direction.

What would a FPS game be without the weapons that make the mayhem so much fun? Not much but Perfect Dark zero has some pretty ingenious weapons for you to get your greedy little paws on. There are 28 weapons in total but only a few were shown to us. Each weapon has an alternate fire and some are more then just being a weapon. For example, the plasma gun, while deadly in itself has the alternate option of giving you a cloaked appearance. Think of the Predator and how it could vanish on a whim but was still barely visible if you looked close enough. Although you can move around while cloaked, you can’t fire a weapon or else you will lose your disguise. Moving around the map while cloaked to creep up on an enemy is just about as sneaky as you can get, but you can still be seen with smoke from explosions from things such as the grenade launcher. Another awesome alternate weapon is found on the sniper rifle. When the alt fire is engaged, it gives you an x-ray view. You are able to see through walls and objects to see the skeletons of the enemies and where they are hiding.

Although each of the alt fires shown were limited in the time they could be used and need to charge up afterwards, they are some of the most useful that have been seen in awhile. You will only have 4 slots in your inventory for weapons and each weapon will take up a certain amount of spaces depending on its size. Pistols for example take one, while a machine gun will take three. You will need to drop and pick up weapons as you see fit for each situation, but you can also return to pick them up after you drop them, so you could have a little stash hidden somewhere if you wanted to. Another unique addition to the multiplayer game is that the teams are not red and blue like most games. As we all know in many multiplayer games, you either join the red or blue team and you hunt the opposite color. In Perfect Dark, you will always be on the green team and you will always be fighting against the red team. It is a great feature for new players and even old vets who, unfortunately like me, have a bad habit of not remembering what color team I am shooting at after playing 10 games and switching colors back and forth.

Vehicles are another feature in FPS games that have become more and more prominent in the recent past. Perfect Dark Zero satisfies with a few vehicles but doesn’t go overboard with it. There are three vehicles that can be used; a personal jetpack with a mounted chaingun, a two man motorbike and a hovercraft that can be loaded up with team members. The maps themselves, 6 in total, can be divided up and played either in small sections for less players, or all the sections together for one large map. When the player limit is, at the time of the showing, 50 plus players at one time, a map that can be resized is an impressive option. There is also a spawn room that you will start in before each match which will allow you to get prepared for the battle without having to worry about the enemy team immediately running up to you and killing you while you are still dealing with the options. With 2 modes of Multiplayer, the regular Deathmatch and a mode called Dark Ops that is stealthier, slower and requires you to purchase weapons. Each of these two modes has 6 types of game play which range from run and gun deathmatch to Capture the Flag among others. Although the team wouldn’t say whether or not Perfect Dark Zero would be ready as a launch title for when the Xbox 360 does hit the shelves, the multiplayer aspect of the game is more than enough of a reason to get your hands on this game when it does arrive.