Ah, the first person shooter.  The genre that started this whole debate.  But, where would the gaming industry be without these games?  After all, these helped the industry realize that violence can be fun.  Plus, violence=money.  These people are the alchemists of the 21st century.  But enough about the genre, lets stick to the game at hand.

    Perfect Dark is another venture into the deep heart of espionage.  You play Joanna Dark, top agent, but with little field experience.  You go on your first mission, and for some reason everybody wants to kill you.  What's up with that?  So you pull out your trusty hand gun, and start shooting everything that moves.  Of course, the guards aren't the bravest of the bunch, so they start pleading for their life.  I wonder why it's rated M?

    Walk around, pick up some guns and ammo, and kill everything in sight.  Sounds fun, doesn't it?  Well, it is, but I'm not going to talk about its fun value.  This game is rated M for good reasons.  Blood, gore, mild language, and life pleading abound in this game.  Pull out the biggest gun you can find, walk up to an enemy, and see what they do.  Most likely they will get down on their knees and plead for their life.  Go ahead, shoot them.  That's what your mission is to do.  But does that send a good message across?  If someone pleads for their life, are you going to kill them anyway in real life?  The programmers made a great game, but should have left that detail out of the final product.

    The plot is this:  You are caught up in a large alien conspiracy.  The problem is, the aliens are real.  So, while minding your own business, snooping around other countries' files, you are suddenly in the middle of an intergalactic war.  Whoa, talk about bad days.  Very deep and involving.

Steve's Bottom Line:

Fun, but violent.  Try the multiplayer mode.