Halfway up his forehead, Senior Designer Duncan Botwood traces a line.

“My hairline used to be here,” he says flatly.

What’s he have to worry about? Maybe it’s the stress of making a new multimillion-dollar first-person shooter, Perfect Dark Zero. Maybe it’s the challenge of making that game for a system, the Xbox 360, that doesn’t exist yet. Maybe it’s the pressure of making that long-awaited game, for that nonexistent system, in time to debut alongside it this fall. Maybe it’s all of the above, and the widely held belief that Perfect Dark Zero can’t just be good, can’t just be great—it has to be The Killer App, a must-play title so essential that gamers will buy the Xbox 360 just to have it.

But then Botwood smiles, and another possibility crops up: Maybe he’s just kidding. Truth is, the thirty-something Brit seems completely at ease, almost eerily relaxed only a month before his game’s public debut at the E3 videogame trade show in May. “If we can just make sure we give them the best game we can make,” he says, “then I think we’ve done our job.” Cool as a cucumber in a snowstorm—hard to believe this is a guy coping with the stress of making a game this important, with a can’t-miss ship date in roughly six months.

Which flips our earlier question on its head: Why isn’t he tearing at his scalp?

The answer: Underneath that scalp is one of the big, beautiful brains at developer Rare Ltd. responsible for two of the best-selling shooters of all time—GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, both for the Nintendo 64. (The fact that Rare is housed in a plush custom-built studio in the middle of the picturesque English countryside also might account for some of the general serenity.) “I’ve been making shooters for 10 years,” Botwood says, “so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what does and doesn’t work in regards to our approach to [the genre]. That makes my job a little easier—I can focus on getting the new things working.”

Which is good, because Perfect Dark Zero brings plenty of “new things” to the crowded genre: a 50-plus player limit, maps that can expand to accommodate that huge number or shrink down small enough for a 1-on-1 fight, innovative new evasive moves like a quick roll and corner lean, and an expansive spectator mode, just to name a few. Add that to everything Zero carries over from its N64 predecessor—gadgets, computer-controlled bot opponents, at least two ways to fire every gun—and what it borrows from the other great shooters of our time—vehicles, online ranking, and matchmaking features from Halo; and modes, options, and other bits from Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six—and you’ve got a project so ambitious you’ve already read 500 words about it and we’ve barely scratched the surface. So much to learn, so much to see—how the hell will you ever take it all in?!

Relax. Deep breaths. Over the next six pages you’ll find everything we discovered during demos, interviews, and hands-on play time in our visit to Rare, all organized and broken down into bite-sized chunks from A to Z. So sit back, relax, and take it all in at your own pace. And don’t worry so much; your hair will fall out.

The A to Z of PDZ

The new Perfect Dark explained, from alternate fire to Zero

Alternate Fire

Every weapon in Perfect Dark Zero has a secondary function you can activate with the new L shoulder button (the R trigger being “shoot,” as usual). Depending on the gun, you might screw on a silencer, launch a grenade, activate stealth camouflage, or turn your weapon into a stand-alone sentry turret—and that’s just for starters. “We’ve got some really different secondary [attacks] we haven’t talked about yet that you haven’t seen in any other game,” says Director Chris Tilston with a widening grin, “which are cool as well.”

Believe it or not, some weapons even have a third ability—a special visual filter that makes enemies stand out or a beam that can reprogram those sentry turrets to work for your team, for example. And with 28 total weapons (see W), that’s one hell of a lot of options.

Bots,

Computer-controlled multiplayer combatants, with three adjustable skill levels in PDZ. Though you can use them for their typical offline purposes (to help you learn maps and practice modes or act as friends for you poor saps without broadband), bots also have more interesting uses online in Zero, as Designer Botwood explains. “You could play with your friends against a team of bots,” he says. “Or have one really, really good bot against all of you. Or have your friends hold out against a massive team of bots.” Best of all, these bots know when they aren’t wanted; you can set each so that it ducks out as soon as a real live player joins your game. Botwood also says there will be some way to give bot teammates simple orders, but he wasn’t ready to explain exactly how just yet.

Communication

As anyone who’s ever captured a flag in Halo 2 can tell you, voice chat between squadmates is what makes team games so thrilling. But, as anyone who’s ever been called a “dog-$#%^ing, #$%, @#$%-sucker” in Halo 2 (and really, who hasn’t?) can tell you, voice chat with nearby members of the other team isn’t always such a great thing. “A certain group of gamers enjoys smack-talking,” says Program Manager Richard Cousins, “but the majority of people don’t. So we decided not to do [proximity voice chat].” Besides, with teams of 25 or more players, the airwaves will be quite hectic enough already. To help, Zero allows for different chat channels within your team—separate channels for offense and defense, for example, or a channel for just your friends. Annoying players that still manage to buzz in your ear can always be muted or kicked, of course.

Deathmatch or dark ops,

Zero’s two very different multiplayer modes, each with six variants (called scenarios). Deathmatch is the relatively fast-action style we’re all most familiar with from games like GoldenEye and Halo. It includes killcount (what we all usually call deathmatch—confused yet?), team killcount, capture the flag, and a few others Rare wouldn’t talk about just yet.

All of dark ops’ six scenarios are under wraps as well, but from what we learned, the mode sounds more like Rainbow Six or Counter-Strike: Every game is broken up into rounds, with each player granted just one single life. Everyone buys equipment before each round—guns, gadgets (see G), vehicles (see V)—and sets out to kill the other team. “It’s more of a slower-paced game,” says Designer Botwood. “In deathmatch you can go in guns blazing, but if you try that in dark ops, you’ll get cut down pretty quickly.” Which leads us to....

Evasive actions,

Our term for two different tactical maneuvers that really set Zero’s multiplayer game apart: the combat roll and taking cover.

A roll is a somersault in any direction—forward, backward, or to either side—you can pull off at any time by moving the analog stick and pressing the R shoulder button. The camera pulls back to show your character flipping over on the ground, before zooming back into first person. This seemingly simple little stunt has complex gameplay implications, as Botwood explains. “Since a head shot is more powerful than a body shot, suddenly changing your head height [with the roll] is an important tactic,” he says. “Also, you can change your trajectory slightly [by pushing on the thumbstick midroll], so they won’t necessarily know where to expect you to [pop up]. And it breaks the autoaim, which is useful in long-range gunfights.” So why not just roll everywhere? “You can’t fire while you’re doing it,” responds Director Chris Tilston, “and you take more damage [if you’re hit midroll], so if you’re doing it all the time, you’ll be very, very vulnerable.”

Taking cover is similarly simple: get close to anything you could hide behind (benches, balconies, columns) or nearly any square corner and an “A” icon appears, letting you know you can press that button to duck or lean against cover. Once again, the camera moves back for a third-person view, this time allowing you to aim your reticle (a bit) over the obstacle or around the corner you’re hidden behind. Press fire and your character will pop out and start shooting, ducking back as soon as you let off the R trigger. “The cover move is great,” says Tilston.

“It allows you to see around corners. But it also ties you to a location, at least temporarily. And you’re a sitting duck for someone coming from the other direction, so you have to use it with care and know when it’s time to quit and run.”

Feedback,

The reason Rare released this art of main heroine Joanna Dark (left) years ago was to get this from fans. Since the reaction was mixed, the company decided to keep the stylized look but dial it back a bit, as you can see from Jo 2.0 (right).

Speaking of feedback, since Rare won’t have the luxury of a wide audience to test its game before release, à la Halo 2 (which was given out to about 8,000 Microsoft employees), it’ll be relying on its own experience and Microsoft’s 100-plus testers (its largest team to date) to balance and refine Zero. With so many maps, modes, vehicles, and weapons...well, we wish them luck.

Gadgets

Are pretty much exactly what they sound like—clever little James Bond–style spy doohickeys. A few examples in Zero: The data thief speeds up the hacking of objects (like turrets or spawn spots) to take them over for your team, the medkit is a one-shot instant resurrection for a dead teammate, the lockbox can hot-wire enemy vehicles, an explosives kit will destroy certain walls to open up new paths into a base or through a level.

Some of these gadgets are for the single-player game, but even more will be available in dark ops mode, which puts a whole different spin on multiplayer. “[When] you can buy gadgets,” says Designer Botwood, “you can tactically organize your team by what role they play. [Like a medical team carrying medkits, or a demolition squad toting explosives]. It puts a greater emphasis on teamwork.”

Health system

Zero’s is quite unique. Every player has health and armor; some guns take off both at once, others armor first, then health. Initially most damage (or all of it from falls or melee attacks) is “shock damage”—you’ll get it back automatically as long as you don’t take too much and provided you stay out of harm’s way for a bit. But take enough damage quickly and your health bar lowers permanently. That’s right: Armor can be replaced but not health.

The idea is to level the playing field between the average player and the superelites. Since no one can ever be fully healed, even the best players will succumb eventually, hopefully limiting the guys who never die in other games and lead everyone by 50 kills from the start.

Insults

Zero will dole them out (i.e., “EGM Shoe has died 10 times in a row without a kill!”), along with praise for special multiplayer achievements, à la Halo 2.

Jump

Wait, actually, don’t. As in GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, there’s no jump button in Zero. Run up to a short ledge and, after a brief pause, your character will simply climb up. A bit surprising in this day and age, but Rare claims the evasive actions and duck move fill the jump’s purpose (throwing off enemy aiming) just fine, without all the ridiculous bouncing about.

Kill TV

OK, now that’s what we’re talkin’ about. Rare is working on this spectator mode for Zero where players can watch whomever they choose—not just other gamers on your friends list, but almost anyone. Imagine learning tactics by finding the top dark ops player on the game’s built-in leaderboard and watching him play live. Though it seems to open some doors for cheating, the idea is one of the most exciting we’ve heard of since Halo 2’s stat tracking.

Levels

First the bad news: Only six are promised for multiplayer. But now the good news: Each level is ginormous and automatically expands or contracts depending on the number of players and game mode. For an eight-player deathmatch on the desert level, for example, the level may be closed off to just a small city and the surrounding dunes—a good size in itself. But up the count to 50-plus players and the level more than quadruples in scale, including expansive canyons, an entire upper cliff area, and scale miles of paths connecting it all. The levels get so big, in fact, that players can drop special way-point markers to show their teammates where they are on the pop-up map.

Melee,

weaponless attacks. Lose your gun, run out of ammo, or push up on the D-pad at any time to put up your dukes—in this mode, it’s the L trigger for a left-handed punch and R for a right-handed one. But even more deliciously humiliating than punching someone to death? Using your fists’ alternate fire to grab your opponent’s weapon and then killing him with it.

Nintendo GameCube,

The system that Zero originally began its life on many years ago. “We reached some barriers [developing Zero on the Cube],” says Designer Botwood, “because it wasn’t really online. We felt we’d done just about everything offline we could with the N64 Perfect Dark, so it was frustrating. Along came the Xbox,” he says, “but we couldn’t take the same game [we designed] for four-player splitscreen and make it work for 16 [online], so there was a kind of redesign there. We had it working on Xbox with 50-plus players—the networking technology was there. But the [graphics] weren’t—the machine wasn’t powerful enough.” Then the 360 rolled in and, well, you can figure out the rest.

Offline

Believe it or not, some people who enjoy multiplayer shooters don’t have broadband Internet connections. Savages! Zero has mercy on these poor souls with split- screen and local-area network (LAN) support.

Players,

One for single player, two to four for splitscreen, and 50-plus (Rare is shooting for 64) online. And although nothing is confirmed, we have a sneaking suspicion other multiplayer options are in the works. “We think the idea of co-op over Xbox Live is a very attractive one,” Designer Botwood says coyly. “We were certainly interested to hear Bungie had it planned for Halo 2...it’s something we’re very interested in.” Other sources have hinted that Zero may have new kinds of co-op play, possibly including more than two players or a mode in which one guy can play as the enemy....

Questions,

We still have a few. Like how good is the A.I. in the single-player game? Hell, how is anything in the single-player game? What are the other 20 or so weapons we haven’t seen like? Or the other four multiplayer levels, two vehicles, six dark ops scenarios, and all the gadgets? How smoothly will the final game run? Will Rare and Microsoft be able to effectively balance and bug test such a huge and wildly ambitious game?

Radar,

A little circle in the upper right of Zero’s screen that detects bad guys and gives you a rough outline of your surroundings. Well, sort of. “It’s not precisely a radar, it’s not precisely a map, it’s not precisely a threat sensor,” says Designer Botwood. “It’s all of these.” Enemies show up whenever they use a weapon, but eventually disappear based on how loud or powerful the gun they shot is (generally, the louder or more powerful the weapon, the longer they’ll stay visible). This not only makes silenced and weaker weapons more valuable but also creates another set of skills for players to master; just by “reading” this radar, seasoned Zero soldiers may tell not only where their enemy is, but what kind of weapon he is carrying.

Single player

Though we were invited to Rare to discuss Zero’s multiplayer game and nothing else, we couldn’t help but ask about the solo campaign. We knew it takes place in 2019, four years before the N64 Perfect Dark, telling the story of how Joanna Dark was recruited and became a secret agent (and something to do with her father), but in terms of gameplay, just what will set the game apart? Director Tilston’s answer is understandably vague, but interesting nonetheless. “Replayability...tapping each level any way you want to do it, sort of changing it. It’s tied into the gadgets as well, so there’s tons of replay value within a single level…it’s almost like you can play it in an entirely different way each time.”

“That’s bull#$%@!!”

1. Often exclaimed by those accidentally killed online by their teammates. Zero attempts to minimize this problem by sticking to a universal color-code: Every player, no matter which of up to four different teams they are on, sees their friends (and friendly vehicles) as green and their enemies as red. Look closer and you can still tell someone’s team by his player model.

2. Frequently heard by those killed immediately after spawning. A small chamber filled with armor and weapons before you re-enter the level will hopefully limit this expression to special occasions.

Under-whelmed

By these screenshots? Or maybe you’re impressed? Either way, Rare was quick to remind us that the version of Zero you see here is far from final; since the Xbox 360 hardware has yet to be manufactured, the game currently runs on a temporary and far less powerful development system. “This is a work in progress,” says Program Manager Richard Cousins. “This is not the final look of the game. You want to take what you see with a grain of salt.”

Vehicles

Come in three flavors: jetpacks (one man with a mounted machine-gun), motorcycles (one driver and a rear gunner), and hovercraft (one driver and “as many as can fit on the back,” with a harpoon gun in there somewhere). Vehicles can take damage and will work only for one team but can be repaired or hot-wired—taken over by another team—by standing nearby and holding down the A button.

Weapons,

28 different types, all of which take one (pistols), two (rifles), or three (rocket launcher, giant guns) of your four available inventory slots. When you create a deathmatch game, you can choose from several premade weapon sets (the group of five guns that will be available on the level) or create your own custom list. In the match, you reload by picking up generic ammo (pistol bullets, rifle bullets, grenades, etc.) that’ll work with anything in its class of weaponry. Other details: Every gun’s reticle starts off small and precise, becoming larger and less accurate as you continue to fire. Also, you need to watch your ammo count and stop shooting to reload—it’s not automatic when you run out of bullets, as in many other shooters.

Xbox Live

Rare has plans for an extensive list of online options: a refined version of Halo 2’s ranking system to more accurately pit players and teams against opponents of similar skill, letting friends form squads—like Halo 2’s parties—that can move from game to game together, both an automatic match-finding function and one that lets you choose games based on a specific list of criteria, and finally, plans for extra downloadable content down the line.

Y

Not allow players to map their own faces on their characters? After all, that was the plan with the original Perfect Dark, and the Xbox 360 will have a digital video camera peripheral. “There are issues with content, and there are issues with the whole attitude toward shooters,” says Botwood, no doubt referencing how often the genre gets mixed up into media stories about troubled youth. “Besides,” he deadpans, “I have absolutely no desire to see testicles running around.”

Zero,

The ambitious Perfect Dark first-person shooter that Rare and Microsoft are counting on to convince you that you need an Xbox 360 come this fall.

Are their hopes justified? (See A-Y.)

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly.