The homemade Perfect Dark Zero robot!

Another story stolen from Kotaku (although they stole it from MAKE:blog).

In true Joanna Dark fashion a gentleman named David Harr has built the automated Xbox 360 button masher, specifically to get Perfect Dark Zero's "two most tedious achievements: 1000 Death Match Games and 1000 Dark Ops Games worth 30 gamer points each (60 total)".

David had this to say -

"Both of these Achievements were successfully obtained by the xBot without having to sit there and push buttons for 40-50 some-odd hours. While it's running its course, nothing needs to be touched. Except for the occasional checking if I got my points.

Why, you may ask, did I build such a thing? Because I can!"

Pretty cool as these achievements are hard as hell to get, but I intend to get them without a robot cheat, even if it takes me years! Any excuse to keep playing Perfect Dark Zero!

Perfect Dark, Old and New

Have I ever mentioned that I love the Perfect Dark games? Check out this classic Nintendo 64 commercial for one of the greatest first person shooters ever created (suck it Halo!).



Also here is a developer walkthrough for the Half-Life 2 mod "Perfect Dark Source" -

Perfect Dark - Source

I should have the latest comic online tonight. But meanwhile -

I'm sure I have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of Perfect Dark. Both the original and Zero hold a place in my best of list. So after I recently snagged myself a Nintendo 64 with the original Perfect Dark (for $30 on eBay) I came across this fantastic looking Half-Life (another favourite of mine) mod for Perfect Dark.

Check out a preview video here.

The playable beta is out now and from the looks of it, it's well worth checking out. I know I will as soon as I have my laptop (my current PC would run this like shit).

Again I'll use my usual lazy trick of copy/pasting more detail directly from the site in question -

[Perfect Dark : Source] is the result of a common passion... Player yesterday, creator tomorrow... The concept of this game is the dream of all fanatic players... We are making this MOD for our pleasure... And undoubtedly for yours! !

I know some fans of Perfect Dark were disappointed with the sequel (blind fools all of them). For them Perfect Dark : Source may be just what the doctor ordered. I look forward to checking thos out but I personally feel that Perfect Dark Zero is pretty close to being perfect (a few minor bugs aside).

Head over to the site for more info!

Unreleased Perfect Dark Zero and more

Despite the lukewarm reception from critics, I was and remain a big fan of Perfect Dark Zero. In fact I think it is probably my favourite first-person-shooter (with Dues Ex: Invisible War right behind it). So getting a chance to see the game in some of it's beta stages is exciting to me. I think the above image is gorgeous, in fact I think Joanna looks even cooler in that shot than she did in the final version. More unseen Perfect Dark here. And here.

And for all of you that thought PDZ was bad, well let me just say that I hate you and every fiber of your being. But no hard feelings, OK?

Unseen64 is a foreign website (don't worry it's easy to navigate) that collects a variety of screenshots for unreleased games and released games looking very different from the final versions. Want to see Metal Gear Solid on the Saturn? Or The abandoned Resident Evil 1.5? Or even the Gamecube version of Too Human! They have these and many more over at Unseen64.

I'm going to credit Kotaku for directing me there this morning although I have come across this site in the past. But since Kotaku rocks I'm happy to plug them.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go start a letter writing campaign for Perfect Dark Zero 2.