Perfect Dark

"Is Perfect Dark, Perfect? No."

Is Perfect Dark perfect? That is the question everyone asks themselves when they pick up the box and put it on the counter to buy, or at least they should. Actually, because of the hype, they believe that it’s the best game for Nintendo game ever, hell, it happened to me. But when asked this question now, after having it for five mouths, the answer is a big no. With a boring, go nowhere story to the crap levels in the combat simulator and a weapons line up so uninspired that it looks like they took about 10 unique weapons, copied them about 30 times and added small difference to each one. Is Perfect Dark Crap? Hell no. It’s awesome, but to say it doesn’t have obvious problems that could have been easily fixed, you would be lying.

If you’ve played GoldenEye, not much has changed, but if you haven’t, here’s what you get. You, in the most basic terms possible, run around a level, killing people in you way to finish your goals. You use different type of weapons, gadgets, and people to do this. If you don’t want to play Solo, you can grab a friend or computer and tackle the missions together in Co-op or Counter-op.
Solo Mode is your story mode. You play level by level, progressing the story as you go. The story… would you call it a story. Something about aliens and president cloning. What’s that about. But in actuality, the story is pretty lame. I won’t go into the story for people who haven’t played yet but when you are finished, you will be disappointed. About cheats. You earn cheats by complete levels or complete levels in a time limit. These are for fun and can not be used to earn other cheats and I have to say, these are the hardest cheats I have seen. I was not able get any time cheats. It’s impossible. I got so fed up with it, I popped in my GameShark and five minuets later, you get the idea. But anyway, Solo is fun, it has a bad story that wont keep you coming back, but it’s fun. And if you do enjoy Solo, try Co-op and Counter-op.
In Co-op, 1-Player is no longer 1-Player. You can fight and finish levels with a friend or computer in Story mode, but there are problems. When playing with computer, the computer will not let you have any fun playing. When you walk in to a room, the computer will kill everyone as fast as possible. No joking around, he will clear a room in seconds, leaving no one for you to kill. Don’t think about sneaking around. The computer lets his presence know when he enters a room and you can’t earn cheats in Co-op mode. If you and a friend run through it, instead of a computer, you might find the same problems in different ways. If you own the game and your friend doesn’t, you’ll have a problem. You’ll be running through the level with ease and your friend will be at the beginning, wondering what to do and where to go. But even if you both know what to do. You might not have enough to do in some level. RARE should have put more enemies to spice up game play. All of this may turn you away but if you can deal with the problems, you might find Co-op enjoyable
Counter-op is the opposite of Co-op. This, 2-Player only game, is the worst part of Perfect Dark. In this, one player tries to complete the level while the other tries to stop him. That player plays as the enemy, take control of one of the enemies and tries to kill the other player. When the player-enemy is killed, he responds into a new enemy to continue the game. Here is where the problems start. The overall problem with Counter-op mode is the framerate. It’s not that big of problem and there is no problem with the good-player or the one trying to complete the level, aspect of Counter-op. The player-enemy part is what makes the Counter-op, the worst part of Perfect Dark. Like an enemy, you have infinite bullets and a short life. Get shot one or two times and you’ll go down like any other bad guy. After a 30 second long dying animation, which is needless, one of two things will happen. You’ll respond into another enemy or you’ll respond into a new enemy, which is the most likely thing to happen. When you respond into a new enemy. You’ll have no gun, will not be able to disarm the computer player for a gun, and if your are like me, the good-player most likely has already picked up all guns drop by dead computer enemies. Now your running around, no gun, punching and trying to steal guns from a heavily armed player. If you call this fun, you’re weird.
And the Combat Simulator, the best thing ever to hit Nintendo 64. Just like GoldenEye’s multiplayer, you can customize settings for each game. Settings like special multiplayer levels, weapons, handicaps, computer controlled players called Simulants new to Nintendo 64 First-Person Shooter (FPS), and other things but what is the Combat Simulator or GoldenEye's multiplayer. It’s an all out, kill all shootout. Killing is the name of the game as you try to kill the most amount of players in the arena. No story here, just grab a gun and start shooting. Add simulants to play against when you have no friends over. But if you do, don’t worry. This has 4-player support. But when your done with just killing, add some strategy by playing King of the hill, Hacker Central, Pop and Cap, and more. Team up with friends or simulants to take on other friends and simulants to make more united forces. But with all this said, there are some things that are wrong that were never were an issue in GoldenEye.
Like multiplayer levels. Now I have to hand it to RARE. Every level is different from another. No two levels are the same. But some of them are pure crap. Like Pipes and Car Park. In all seriousness, if you like these levels, you have problems. And the three level ported over from GoldenEye. Temple, Felicity, known as Facility in GoldenEye, and Complex. Temple looks kind of like the one from GoldenEye but with small differences. I can’t name them all and I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing. But it’s not a total port from GoldenEye. Felicity is, but the major problem with this level is that if this were a woman, she’d have way too much makeup on. Same lay out but it no longer looks like a military bunker, it looks more like a doctor office. It looked better the other way. And now for Complex. Complex is the true port. Nothing has been changed. I didn’t like this level in GoldenEye. Too many corners, hideaways, and lookout for a one on one battle. But now throw in 4 or 5 simulants and this level is the bomb. And not to say that Perfect Dark did not have it’s own levels. Villa, Grid, and Ravine, my favorite. I won’t go into these levels, even though they are all great levels. I just wish they had ported Severnaya Bunker. That level was the best. This was never a problem in GoldenEye. All levels were cool and unique.
Another problem, and this effects the entire game, is the weapons. The only way to put it is the way I put it at the beginning of this review. They took 10 unique weapons, copied them about 30 times and added small difference to each one. First, let me tell you about how the guns work. Every gun fires a primary and a secondary. Secondary is usually more powerful and might use more ammo or a different type of ammo to fire. And every gun has a reload animation. Some cooler than others but still better than the gun disappearing off screen and reappearing on screen, loaded. But the guns are sooooo uninspiring. For example, the DY357 Magnum and the DY357-LX are the same thing except that the LX can kill in one shot. And the Dragon’s, SuperDragon’s, and the K7 Avenger’s primary gun is the same for all three guns. Rocket Launcher’s and the Slayer’s primary gun is the same. The RC-P120 is a rip-off of AR34 primary and the Cloaking Device. I could go on but I’m not. This is pretty poor for RARE to have this kind of line up. The only guns I found very unique was the FarSight, and the Laptop Gun. The rest are just copy with differences. Again, This was never a problem in GoldenEye. All guns are different and fun to use.
Now, I will describe Pros and Cons of computer AI, simulants, and teams and how they all are used in Combat Simulator. The computer AI in this game has had a serious facelift since GoldenEye. In solo, the computer will dodge out of the way, wait of reinforcements, and attack in-groups. If there are alarms in the level, they run for them, risking there own lives trying to warn others. Much smarter than in other games where they stand, shooting, with no regard of there own lives. But in Combat Simulator is where the AI shines and fails. In the Combat Simulator, where it’s an all kill, kill, kill shootout, is exactly what the computer does. What are simulants. Simulants are computer-controlled bots, designed for killing. But that’s the problem. Although flexible, they don’t have much intelligence. It looks like they were built for all vs. all, combat only fighting and it works very well for combat. But play something else other than combat and the computer seems distracted. Pop and cap for example. In pop and cap, one person is it, the rest go after him. You kill that person, you get a point and someone else becomes it. If you are it, then you try to stay it for as long as possible and every minute you do, you get a point. Like tag. But with sims, they seem more interested with killing each other, than going after the one that’s it and that’s no fun. And in combat teams, sims vs. player is the only way to go. Teams are fun with a friend, but with the computer, it’s impossible to get them to do what you want. They won’t kill you or people on your team, unless you are in front of the sim and there is an enemy in front of you, they will shoot through you to kill them. But again, the sims are so preoccupied killed each other, when you give them an order, they’ll fallow it out when they feel like it. Like when you tell the sim to protect you, he will go to the other side of the level to go find weapons. When he does, he will go to protect you but if he sees a enemy, he will hunt him down until he kills them, then he’ll go find you again until he sees another enemy and the pattern will continue till your team member is dead or he finds you, which can take awhile. Bottom line, you want to play teams, play with friends, not with sims. It’s no fun.
On a happier note the sound and graphics in the games are great. With the use of Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak, you see crisp, clear images on screen and with the random face generator, you won’t be shooting the same guy 15 times in a level. And voice acting has been implemented into Perfect Dark. Now, all the bad guys say things. Things like, “There’s she is.” “Warn the others.” and “Get her!” And when you kill them they say thing like “You Bitch!” “I don’t want to die.” and others. It’s not that big of deal but it’s worth mentioning. But I do have some problems with the graphics and this kind of goes along with gameplay. Biggest problem, what happens when you get punched. What the hell is that! That is thee most annoying part of Perfect Dark because it becomes hard for me to play. I get seasick very easily and that doesn’t help. You’d think RARE would have a deactivation button for that. You also understand why I hate the N-Bomb. But anyway, the other problem is the needless, pointless, annoying, 30-second long dying animation. Is that necessary? All I have to say is that in a multiplayer battle with 5 simulants, 2 friends, and in the heat of it all, do you want to sit there 30 seconds while your screen turns red, you go in all different directions while your friends are having fun… wouldn’t you just like to press start and get back in the action. Enough said.

All in all, Perfect Dark thee best FPS for any system. It went to new levels no FPS ever has. But is Perfect Dark perfect? No. I made my point in the review. Does the good outweigh bad. I really don’t know. Depends on the person. If you rent the game or play it at a friend’s house, you will be so blinded by the good, you won’t even see the bad. Please don’t think I hate Perfect Dark. Perfect Dark is my favorite game. But I am tired of reading review after review, every one saying the same thing, “There is nothing wrong with Perfect Dark.” When they have only been playing the game for a 3 or 4 weeks. You might be agreeing with them. But you wait. Wait till you’ve had it as long as I have… and I had it since the first day it came out. You’ll see the problems that I have already and whether or not they ruin parts of the game for you, the story… the weapons… the AI… is up to you.

Gameplay: 7.5
Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 10.0
Lasting Appeal: 8.5

OVERALL SCORE: 7.0

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/00, Updated 09/02/00