Way back in ye olde times of yore - also known as 2005 - a console known as the Xbox 360 was unleashed upon the populace via the local town crier. 'HERE YE, HERE YE!' he would shout, 'YE XBOX 360 BE RELEASING THIS YEAR!' and there was much rejoicing. Particularly in my household. Back then, when I was but the tender age 15, I was amazed by the super shiny new console that I found that Santa had left me that Christmas day. He also happened to give me Perfect Dark Zero, a launch title for the console. At the time, I thought it was absolutely the bestest thing ever. The shiny new graphics and wonderment at the new controller kept me enthralled for ages, but I was very naive. Perfect Dark Zero was a very bad game and - after going back and replaying the superior originally on N64 - was an extremely poor attempt at revitalising a franchise. Protagonist Joanna Dark, with her flaming red hair and general witticisms, has such faded into obscurity and can be found right at the back of the cupboard of forgotten gaming characters, coated thoroughly in dust. She's currently hanging out there with Crash Bandicoot, who is currently actually buried under said pile of dust and won't be resurfacing anytime soon. Of course the same is nearly always true of launch titles. The best games always come out after years of a platform being released and Perfect Dark Zero was never going to be amazing. It could have been a new franchise for the Xbox 360, but alas, such things were not to be.
Dan Curtis is approximately one-half videogame knowledge, and the other half inexplicable Geordie accent. He's also one quarter of the Factory Sealed Retro Gaming podcast.
