"Why such a belated review? ...I dunno..."

Ah, Perfect Dark. One of the best games for the N64. If only you'd come out earlier...

Anyways.

I'm writing this review as of 2006. Quite a lot has advanced in the Console FPS field since PD made its debut six years ago. That the game is still a lot of fun to pick up and play is a testament to its greatness.

The Nintendo 64 was never the best console for First Person Shooters in terms of control (I DID find myself longing for the dual-analog setup when I booted up PD a few days ago), yet it was home to two of the greatest console FPS titles ever. PD's control scheme, for the most part, gets the job done. Actually, it does all it can with the limitations of the N64 pad. The scheme is awkward by today's standards, but in terms of the N64 pad it's very elegant and efficient. Actions are done with B, shootin' done with Z, forward and backward movement with the stick, and so on. Yadda yadda yadda. Everyone's played it before, you all know how the controls work.

The graphics are gorgeous. They really do push the N64 to its very limit. The framerate can get chopperiffic at times, and it tends to average in the high teens/low twenties (it's a little smoother if Hi-res is off, but the obvious tradeoff is a much blurrier graphic experience). For the N64, textures are amazing. Character models are great and well animated (they used Mo-cap!). The detail is astounding. I'm kind of a whore for little details in a game, and PD has a lot of them for its console generation. Little things stick out all over the place. Each weapon is highly detailed and has its own plausible, highly detailed, painstakingly animated reloading sequence. Just watch some of these in slow-mo (either activated as a cheat or taken as the "Combat Boost" item) and you'll see how detailed it is for an N64 game. They animated Jo's individual FINGERS for crying out loud! Another neat little touch I like is actually the idle sequence. As you run more and more throughout a level, your aim becomes shakier when you stand still because the guys at Rare wanted to simulate someone breathing harder and harder. Your screen wobbles slightly more and more the more you run around. I don't know why I pay attention to these things, but I do. And I like them.

The gameplay is fantastic (unless the framerate starts dipping). Agent mode is almost insultingly easy, but Special Agent and Perfect Agent can be quite challenging. More objectives are added on, baddies are smarter, and it's generally more fun.

I'm a Sci-fi nerd through and through, and PD's story, although a little cliched at times (it's not like we've never heard of a government cover-up of aliens before...and it's not like we've never seen a little green (well...more like bluish gray) man before), didn't disappoint. It did keep me riveted thoughout, and there were a few nifty little turns and twists that ended up very interesting.

The music is amazing. It's some of my favorite music ever in a video game. Its thumping techno beats fit its universe and atmosphere perfectly (no pun intended), and they're extremely catchy.

And then we get into the multiplayer...it's like a whole new game. Perfect Dark already has a very compelling single-player mode. Multiplayer is just amazing (for the time). Even nowadays it's still hard to find a game that can top PD's sheer multitude of multiplayer options. Games are almost infinitely customizeable. Not only can you have bots (and you can even have them when you also have 4 players plugged in!), you have a ton of different types of bots to choose from. I've spent many hours in my younger days in the Combat Simulator with my friends, playing endlessly and experimenting rigorously with everything we could do. Now that I look back on it, the only thing really keeping multiplayer from being perfect (well, two things) are the framerate, which can be absolutely abysmal at times (but understandable, given the limitations of the N64 hardware) , and the lack of online play (which really never came about for the N64 anyways, so I can't hold it accountable for that.). But it's still loads of fun today.

So, there ya have it. And extremely late and untimely review of a six-year-old game. But it's still a good 'un. Sure, it may have been topped by Halo in terms of multiplayer madness, and it may be outshone by Half-life and Half-Life 2 in the single-player department, but it's still a very compelling single player game, and an absolute riot with three of your friends around. A few things can definitely show this game's age (like the framerate...somehow) and it definitely shows a lot of the very limit of the N64, but it's also one of the greatest games ever for the system. In my opinion, it's topped only by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Used N64s are pretty cheap nowadays ($40 or so at your local game store, possibly cheaper on Amazon.com or eBay) and I got my PD cart used for 7 bucks. It's more than worth your while.

DO IT! DO IT NOW!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/17/06