2/5 ★ – DirtyMidnighter's review of Perfect Dark Zero.

I can think of a very few video games more disappointing than Perfect Dark Zero. The original Perfect Dark, essentially the sequel to GoldenEye on the N64, was a terrific cutting-edge shooter that traded in 007's vintage MI-6 aesthetic for a sleek, sexy future-spy veneer. After taking the 6th generation off completely, the series returned for the launch of the Xbox 360. It was not the same. Not by a long shot. It didn't help that the first-person-shooter genre had changed fundamentally since the last Perfect Dark, but it appeared that Rare didn't get the memo. Everything about Zero feels two steps behind everything else released in the era. It controls like steering a boat. It's a visually weird game, straddling some line between Xbox 360 showpiece and comic-book, and like many early 7th generation games it has not held up favorably. Overuse of bloom effects, shiny textures and motion blur are rampant. The game features a dodging mechanic that takes you (rather jarringly) from a 1st person perspective to 3rd person and then back to 1st. The multiplayer was just people rolling around on the ground because it basically made you impossible to hit. And yet, my friends and I still managed to have a bit of fun going through the co-op campaign, which admittedly had some fun bits. Just like, such a disappointment though. This was all the evidence we ever needed that the Rare era had come to an end.