"Best n64 game ever"

I first played this game in summer of 2000 at a friends house. Around this time I did not have n64. Only a playstation. My friend had rented the game and invited me over to play its multiplayer. He said its better than goldenye. I found this hard to believe since goldeneye was my favorite game for the console. Once I got to his house and started playing he had proven he was right. The game blew me away. Not only was it better than goldeneye, but also it had things I had never seen in a shooter before. The first thing that we played were the challenges, and then the coop. Counter operative was new to me. And so were the simulants in combat simulater. The game was so much fun that it became the only reason I wanted a nintendo 64. So in christmas 2000 I got one.

The graphics are awsome. The enviroments are well detailed, and no areas in a level look the same. This makes it easy to find where you must go. Also the character models look incredable. The enemies have the heads of the people who worked on the game. And the animations are pretty good. The only problem is the framerate, which does get pretty choppy every now and then. This problem can be fixed by playing on low res. Although the framerate can get choppy its never bad enough to ruin the game.

The controls are just like goldeneyes, only with a few extra funtions. There is a secondary fire function now. If you hold the reload button you can switch between normal or alternate fire. You also get a weapon wheel by holding the next weapon button.

The AI is pretty smart. Enemies cover, roll, throw grenades, and yell orders. They will sometimes even take cover.

The single player is similar to goldeneyes. Each mission has objectives that must be completed in order to proceed to the next level. There are different objectives, like escort, sabotage, and stealth. Just like goldeneye. If you get tired of playing by yourself, the story mode can be played in coop with a friend or AI. There is also another way to play the story missions. Counter operative is something I have only seen in this game. This is a mode where one person plays as joanna, and tries to complete the mission objectives, while the other player plays as a soldier or guard and tries to kill the other player before they complete the mission. The person playing as joanna gets more health, while the person playing as a guard gets less health. Also guards get suicide pills. When a player uses a suicide pill the character they are controlling dies, allowing the player to jump into the body of another guard that is closer to joanna. This makes for smoother gameplay. Perfect Dark is the only game that I can name that has a mode like counter operatve.

If you are fed up with the missions, you can play the combat simulator, that has challeges, and setup options for multiplayer. Playing the challenges unlocks things for multiplayer, like levels, and extra simulants. The simulants are bots, that can be used as practice. They act like real players. There are six difficulties for these bots. Meatsim is the easyiest, easysim is a bit better at aiming than the meatsim. Normalsim is average, while hardsim is a bit more difficult. Perfectsim can be really hard, while darksim is the most diffucult. Bots can also be given behaviors. Bot types like peacesim will only take weapons from the player by disarming, while bots like vengesim will try to kill the player that killed them. You can also save your multiplayer states. Things like number of kills, deaths, headshot kills, ammo used, accuracy, games won, games lost, and awards are recorded. This game goes up to four players, and eight bots. The multiplayer modes are combat, hold the brief case, hacker, pop a cap, king of the hill, and capture the briefcase. Combat is normal deathmatch that can also be played with teams. Hold the briefcase is a mode where the player who grabs the briefcase gets points for holding it without getting killed. Hacker central is a mode where players must grab a uplink and hack a computer in random spots of the level. This mode is best played with teams. Pop a cap is a mode thats kinda like tag. The player that is it must stay alive, and kill to get points, while whoever is not it must hunt down the player who is, to get extra points. King of the hill is a team only mode where players must hold random peaces of a level to score while the opposing team tries to kill the other players and steal the area they were guarding. Capture the briefcase is where teams try to steal each other briefcase, and bring it back to there base to score. All these modes can be played with bots, players, or both. The combat simulator is my favorite part of Perfect Dark.

The single player and coop are awsome, but counter operative and combat simulator are the main reasons you should get this game. Perfect Dark is a game with endless replay value. Dont be surprised if you are still playing it six years later. This is my favoret nintendo 64 game. Been playing it since I got it six years ago, and still am having a blast now. If you do not get this game, you are missing out big time.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/17/06