Perfect Dark

Be afraid...

Be VERY afraid.

Not because the game is BAD... It's really not. It's just that if I am reviewing a first person shooter you can bet your ass you can't count on me, my opinion will be tainted by how much I suck at them.

I am TERRIBLE at these games! I keep forgetting that you don't turn with the same stick you move with, and than a guy 2 feet behind me flicks pebbles at me as I merrily sidestep around the terrorist compound.

So when I say that I like THIS kind of shooter better that things like Halo or Call of Duty it means absolutely nothing, just that THIS games plot and atmosphere got me past that particular mental defect.

Now, I know this game originally came for the N64, but it has been rereleased for the XBox Live Arcade, so I'm counting it as a modern generation game, which brings me to my first criticism. Boy this current generation game has terrible graphics! What do they think this is the N64?!

This is the kind of shooter where there are 65 BILLION TRILLION guns, all of them completely loopy. There are guns that shoot bullets, guns that shoot lasers, guns that shoot explosives, guns that shoot a missile with a little camera in it that can be guided into an enemies nostril.....

And one gun that has a whirring grinder on the front and fires 65 billion tiny pellets of condensed DIE, while you can run up and hack people to death with the Grinder.

In game it is called, "The Reaper". I call it "Sweetness" or "My fiancée."

The plot is as if a James Bond film had lost all sense of control. You play as sexy secret agent Joanna Dark, who I like a lot better than Samus. Mostly because Joanna Dark has a character. It's Pierce Brosnan's James Bond, but it's still a likable character.

There's more than that to her though. She always gives off the impression that she honestly can't believe she's survived this long. She's also usually seems slightly irritated by everything, but just enough to make it funny and not grindingly annoying.

When I say "Bond Movie that lost all sense of control" I mean you start off infiltrating an evil Corporation, in that office building you rescue a computer that's learned how to love, and six missions later you are infiltrating Area 51 to save an alien informant. Then you find out that the Evil corporation is working for killer space lizards.

I swear to god, it NEVER jumps the shark. I am DEAD serious. It all flows together. You never feel the flow break. Area 51, Space Lizards and all.

I resolve to find a flaw in every game I review, so let me take you back to the guns for a moment. This game has the very worst sniper rifle in all of shooters. I want a slight zoom to better hit my target not to be able to count all the skin cells on the bridge of my targets nose. Because at that point I'm usually a great threat to a patch of sand while the guards kill the person I'm supposed protect.

It's about $15 on the XBLA and it's definitely worth the price. I mentioned last time it was an old favorite of my brother's and I can see why. It's fun, exciting and has a female protagonist who is well developed and REALLY likable. Pick it up if you've got a chance.

Next time we take a break from the sane world of Area 51, a female James Bond, and hostile Space Lizards, and dive back into the howler monkey cage that is JRPG territory.