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GameDAILY News Wrap-up:

Perfect Dark Online

Despite the fact that the online arena is always freshly stocked with opponents, I'm really not much into multiplayer games, mostly because I just can't deal with the morons who love talking trash even when they're losing. But I recently spent five hours playing Perfect Dark Zero™ with a few friends and man, am I hooked. Similar to Halo® 2, the game not only runs smoothly but the lobbies are excellent.

It's easy to match up with friends and hop into games, and the combat's just a trip. I really like how it sometimes takes a lot of effort to kill someone—in stark contrast to Call of Duty® 2, where a few well-placed bullets, even to the chest, usually results in death.

We started out with simple death match and that was fun to a degree, but things really picked up when we dove headfirst into team-based play. Most of the levels in PDZ are fairly large, so two-on-two battles are terrifying affairs. You just don't know where your opponents are coming from, and even worse, what strategies they're cooking up.

My teammate and I did pretty well, yet we also played a bit sloppy. Several times during matches we would be camping in some very dangerous area and one of us would say, "We should really get the hell out of here", yet for some reason we stayed put, allowing the other team to chuck some grenades or lap top guns into our hideout and storm the place while we were frazzled. That happened numerous times, but we also employed some tricky maneuvers that enabled us to get the jump on our clueless foes.

Old Town Standoff
The one decision that I am most proud of occurred in the map called Old Town. My partner and I were pinned down not only by the opposition but the lap top guns that they placed at each exit. He kept poking his head out and popping off a few rounds, and this continued for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I was in a safe location trying to devise a plan that would end this ridiculous stand-off and I came up with just the trick. See, the lap top guns, as useful as they are, eventually time out. Now my opponents were really focused on my teammate, and because of that they forgot to place a new lap top gun at our second exit ... so I left and instructed my partner to meet up with me, but not before firing some warning shots that would remind them that he was still around that corner.

Once we joined up we took the high ground, and then all we did was wait. Sure enough, the other team planned to rush us from both sides, and as luck would have it, one of them walked right into plain view and went into cover mode. I slowly crept out across a ledge, whipped out my shotgun and pasted him right in his face. Head shot. One hit kill.

We wound up losing that match by a score of 24 to 25, which is as close as you can possibly get. All of the matches were like that, and we took our fair share of games. But damn, was that fun. I usually stay away from team-based play because I prefer to just kill everyone, but Xbox Live® is a lot better when you're just playing with your friends and this was the perfect reason why. It was just cool devising strategies with someone that I was on the same page with.

What this all means is you need to go out and pick up Perfect Dark Zero. And if you have it already, what are you waiting for? Get online! This is my newest addiction and damnit, it should be yours as well!

Other News
At the end of January, 2K Sports is chiming in with both College Hoops® 2K6 and the highly anticipated Top Spin™ 2. Looking ahead to February, Full Auto™, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter™, and Frame City Killer™ should all be worth picking up, so at least I know what to buy with my holiday money.

Article by Chris Bufffa, GameDAILY Senior Editor