Quote:Where did the day go? I stepped away from PDZ's singleplayer missions to hop online against Microsoft on Xbox Live an hour ago. Now I look out my window and it's dark as night outside. In short, PDZ is a blast online. We only played free-for-all and team deathmatch, as well as capture-the-flag with a bunch of editors, testers, and bots.

What's immediately impressive about the multiplayer mode (and I imagine this stands for the game in offline, splitscreen as well) is that the bots behave mostly realistically. They hang back in groups at choke points on maps and take shots from behind cover, as well as take plenty of aggressive opportunity to rush objectives, especially if they see little in the way of defense. I've even had a bot creep up behind me while sniping and whack me on the back of the head. Since there aren't a whole lot of "real" PDZ players online at the moment, we mostly had to resort to creating large 16 player games with a mix of bots and humans. At one time, we put all player characters on the Dark team against all bots as Datadyne on the hardest difficulty, and we got a royal spanking from the A.I. From my hands-on time so far, the bots don't appear to be too cheap with their tactics or shoot with amazing accuracy.

Quote:So does it feel like Halo 2 multiplayer? Not really. It feels more like a faster, crazier version of Perfect Dark on N64, this time with near-perfect framerates and not a slowdown hiccup in sight.

Quote:While Charles and Jon teamed-up in co-op at one TV, I jumped into a four-player split-screen match. All MP matches are configurable, and we picked shotguns, rifles, pistols and rocket launchers to start. We played through the sewers and streets levels, each of which are built upon multiple stories, so you can snipe, escape, and explore a little to find better weapons. The first thing I noticed was how many hits a character can take by default. You can literally pelt the crap out of another character and they'll live through it. In that way, PDZ feels like GoldenEye. You can adjust this factor with a slider, and you'll also want to instantly switch the control sensitivity instantly. It's set at default to 50%, but you'll want to immediately change to a minimum of 75%.

Quote:Perfect Dark Zero plays and feels exactly like the N64 original; even the music is a nostalgic homage to the original's synth-rock soundtrack. This could be considered good news or bad news depending on what camp you're in. If you're expecting an all-new, revolutionary FPS experience, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you're looking to play a technically impressive evolution of the Perfect Dark series then you'll be sound as a pound.

Quote:The Weapons in the game are nothing short of amazing, BALANCE, BALANCE,BALANCE.
The Perfect Dark Balance has been preserved. You have a pistol, he has dual cmp-150's? who wins? who ever is better. Gone are the days in Halo 2 where the one with the rocket and sword dominates the match. I've only managed to kill JPK once in 2 seconds via 3 well placed head shots, most battles take a while In Perfect Dark Zero... Just like the first one, you don't got any of those completley unbalanced weapons.

It's funny, the PD0 controls arn't as jerky or fast as the halo controls, but the game is WAY WAY faster paced, Dont worry though it's just like PD. Let's just say when I picked up the controller I was a Instant pro because I played the first do death, so yes playing the original PD right now will help you gain skill in PD0. In the build we've played we where not able to dual weild two different g uns(except gernade), but that's ok if they leave that out of the final game it's obviously due to the balance issues it would pose.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Well, now I'm interested. I had my worries but this is the FPS I've been waiting for.

It's just too bad there are only two games worth getting on the 360. Amazingly enough, both from Rare. That purchase is finally paying off, and I think Bungie is going to lose a lot of fans.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Hmm, suppose that PD0 has some sort of downloadable content option? That would be pretty nice.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Hmm, suppose Bungie and Rare start working together and learn some thing from each other, in the process creating cameo character appearences in each other's games?

Dark Jaguar Wrote:That would be interesting, though I personally think Rare has a lot more to teach Bungie than the other way around. Bungie basically did one good thing, awesome multiplayer level design. They basically analyzed and realized exactly what it takes to make a fun and balanced map (namely, the key thing is ANY good firing point needs to be accessible "from behind" in order for the possibility to take out a camper, the idea of a closed space with only one entrance is something Bungie pretty much eliminated with Halo 2, which I can only agree with.

Quote:TES is an interesting series, but in the end it just isn't worth the effort...

Quote:ABF, read my post again (there seems to be a shortage of that recently...). Specifically, the part where I explain that YES, there ARE things you have to pay for to download on XBox Live as it already is. Not all of it, but then again not all of what's on this new thing needs to be payed for either.

There is no difference except for the funhouse token conversion...

Quote:ABF, you aren't hearing me! I didn't even mention the $50 yearly fee! I am SPECIFICALLY talking about PAYING for a DOWNLOAD! That is, you go to the download section of a game, and you see a list of things like levels, and next to each one is a price listing. Like, this level is awesome, it's $5. Or, this is 10 levels for the low price of $10. For Halo 2, I waited them out.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:ABF, you aren't hearing me! I didn't even mention the $50 yearly fee! I am SPECIFICALLY talking about PAYING for a DOWNLOAD! That is, you go to the download section of a game, and you see a list of things like levels, and next to each one is a price listing. Like, this level is awesome, it's $5. Or, this is 10 levels for the low price of $10. For Halo 2, I waited them out.

GR, it's not "always" like that. First games have never looked as good as later games. That's been true since Atari. What hasn't been true is first games looking just barely above last gen. Since Atari, even the very first gen games have always been able to wow us over what the previous generation looked like. Look at the Gamecube. We were DROOLING over pics of the first games released on it which blew the very best the N64 had to offer out of the water. That's not happening this time.

Quote:I actually am HOPING for this scenario. Last thing we need, as gamers, is for consoles to get as bad as the constant minor upgrading of PC video cards. Is there really a need, for example, to release about 3 or 4 new updated video cards a year? Why not wait a while (giving time perhaps for game companies to actually work with the thing you just released) and devote a lot more time and money to much bigger jumps every few years? I'm hoping the generation after next won't come out until we can do REAL TIME photorealism at max HDTV levels, on two screens with stereoscopic goggles involved. And with THAT generation, we won't need another upgrade sheerly for the sake of power.

Quote:So basically you are saying this is stuff already inside the game code they are trying to sell, rather than additional stuff? They are basically trying to sell me a car and then making me pay to turn on the already built in air conditioning? That is different, and wrong.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:I think the generation AFTER this one will need to be put off for a lot longer than usual. As you said, rising costs and learning curve mean it may take some time before games even bother making use of the full potential. That means that they may feel they have a lot of extra power to work with for some time now, meaning no real need to update. We may be looking at a situation where we'll be having these systems, in various reincarnations of slimmed down proportions, for 7, possibly 8 years. I wouldn't mind that at all really. And where do I get these numbers? I make them up of course!

Still, I'm thinking they will need to put off making the generation after next's release until it is a noticable jump from this one, something that would make the average consumer actually consider it worth it. I really don't think the average consumer sees that with the 360... I am actually wondering how well these systems are going to sell, after the initial rush that is.

I actually am HOPING for this scenario. Last thing we need, as gamers, is for consoles to get as bad as the constant minor upgrading of PC video cards. Is there really a need, for example, to release about 3 or 4 new updated video cards a year? Why not wait a while (giving time perhaps for game companies to actually work with the thing you just released) and devote a lot more time and money to much bigger jumps every few years? I'm hoping the generation after next won't come out until we can do REAL TIME photorealism at max HDTV levels, on two screens with stereoscopic goggles involved. And with THAT generation, we won't need another upgrade sheerly for the sake of power.

Great Rumbler Wrote:Kameo looks pretty good on an HDTV, but not really that much better than an XBox game with high resolution textures.

Quote:True, but HDTVs are still way to expensive. A better bet would be to get VGA Cables and connect your 360 to a PC monitor, which provides high resolutions.