"The name is Dark...Joanna Dark"

Perfect Dark is the long awaited follow-up to Goldeneye. Rare has spent the better part of the past several years attempting to perfect the game as good as they can, and the result is absolutely stunning. Sure maybe the Nintendo 64 is entering the final months of its life, but this game is one of the prime reasons why I never got rid of my Nintendo long ago. Goldeneye could only hold me over for so long, so eventually I thought about getting rid of the system. But, when I started reading more about Perfect Dark a couple of years ago, I decided I'd definitely hold onto the system. I am definitely glad that I did.

Graphics: 10/10

One of Rare's best abilities when they produce games is to try and fully exploit the system's graphical power. They did a marvelous job with the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo. Each game they did with the Nintendo 64 did not fail to push the system's graphical abilities even farther. If you thought Goldeneye looked great, Perfect Dark manages to look even better than that game. Perfect Dark can either run in a low resolution, or a high resolution. While the lower resolution naturally is not as good looking of the high resolution, it still looks wonderful. Now running the game in high resolution makes the game look absolutely gorgeous. The frame rate seems to drop slightly, but in my opinion I think it is worth it. Everything looks quite clear. The lighting effects are superb. Especially when lights get shot out you can see the difference easily. When you shoot the enemies, there is a lot more blood. Sometimes it will stain the walls, or it might pool out on the ground when the enemy falls down dead. It looks nothing like Goldeneye did with the slight drop of blood appearing on the clothes. This time it is much more visible which earns the game an ''M'' rating. Rare has once again not failed to disappoint with the graphics in this game. It probably pushes the N64 almost to the limit, which is not a bad thing, but is in fact a good thing.

Sound: 10/10

The sound does not disappoint either. There is actual speech in the game instead of just text. Guards will curse at you, or say something as they are dying. Gunfire sounds realistic. Depending on what type of surface you shoot, you will hear different sounds. For a cartridge-based game, the music sounds great. The music usually fits the setting perfectly. At times, it sounds sort of creepy when you do not know what to expect. This is an all around great job by Rare in this department considering the limitations due to the cartridge format.

Control: 10/10

The control is this game is top notch. It is the same system as Goldeneye was. You move around using the analog stick. The ''Z'' button uses whatever item/weapon you currently are using. The ''B'' button is used to open doors, or reload your weapons. Also when you hold it down for a few seconds, it enables the secondary function of your weapon. The ''A'' button is used to cycle through your items/weapons. However, Rare has made it so if you hold down the button, a screen comes up so this way you can just highlight the weapon/item that you want to use instead of having to cycle through, which can take longer if you pass by the weapon by accident. The top and bottom ''C'' buttons are used to look up and down. The left and right buttons are used to strafe to the left and the right. The ''L'' trigger is used to aim your weapon, or to zoom in with the weapon providing it has the ability to do so. The button and analog responses are excellent. When you slightly push the analog forward, you will move at a slow pace. The more you push it forward, the faster the pace becomes. As far as I can tell, there are no problems with the controls. Since I am used to playing first person shooters on the PC, and not console systems, I am used to using the mouse and keyboard combination. Rare did a wonderful job of utilizing the N64 controller so it is not a problem for this type of game. I give big thumbs up to Rare for making the control so wonderful in this game.

Gameplay: 10/10

To say that the single player mode is good would be an understatement. The single player mode is one of the best ever I've ever played in a first person shooter, next to Half-Life for the PC. In fact the some aspects of the game seems to have borrowed off of Half-Life. Some of the levels seem to remind me of Half-Life. I don’t really mind that at all though since Half-Life was an enjoyable game to play. Anyway, Perfect Dark has 9 missions to it. These missions take you all over the place, from the streets of Chicago, Illinois to the highly secretive government military installation; Area 51. While 9 missions do not seem to be tremendous, it is. Why? Because of the fact that in each of these 9 missions, there are several levels contained within. One mission might have 3 levels contained in that mission. So do the math, and you come up with 27 levels all together. Each level has 3 difficulty settings. Each difficulty has various objectives to complete. The harder the difficulty, the more objectives you are required to meet in order to successfully complete the current level. This adds tremendously to the game’s replay value.

When you get bored of the single player missions, you can take on a friend in the multiplayer game. This brings back the awesome multiplayer mode that made Goldeneye so popular. Plus it builds on the entire multiplayer aspect for first person shooting games. A great thing that Rare put in this game was the counter-operative mode. What this mode is, is where you and a friend are put into the single player missions, but there is a catch to it. One-person plays as the heroine of the game; Joanna Dark, the other person takes the form of the various enemies in the level. The person playing as Joanna Dark must complete the objectives as normal without dying. The other person’s mission is to obviously kill Joanna Dark. Even if she kills that person, the person just takes the body of another enemy ala “The Matrix”. There are various other multiplayer modes, such as capture the flag and king of the hill to name a few. If you get bored of playing against human opponents, you have the option of playing against CPU opponents in the multiplayer format. There are 6 normal and 11 special CPU personalities to choose from in the game. Those 11 special CPU opponents have various traits to them that set them apart from others. One tries to take your weapons away, another is a kamikaze-type personality where it tries to kill you at any cost. These CPU opponents are challenging to play against. Also, you do not have to just play against them by yourself, you can have 4 humans playing as well as 8 CPU opponents playing at once. However the downside to this, is that the frame rate becomes absolutely horrid. It drops to under 5 frames per second I believe. So it is not worth it to have all the bots and humans playing at once.

Replay Value: 10/10

The replay value in this game absolutely shines as well. 3 difficulty levels in this game, each that have their own specific set of objectives on each level. This will keep you playing for weeks. If you considered Goldeneye’s replay value to be good, then you can definitely expect the replay value in this game to be good. Tons of weapons and gadgets are in this game to use. Such as night vision, as well as cloaking devices make this game all the more better. There are cheats to be unlocked as well by beating various levels in a certain amount of time. Some cheats available are invincibility, all weapons, and others. The multiplayer mode is another reason to keep playing the game. When all is said and done, this game by far destroys most other video games out there in the replay category.

Overall: 10/10

This game is one of those games that you should not pass up. It was well worth all of the various delays that it went through. Should you buy this game or rent it? I would advise renting it if you are not very familiar with first person shooters, or you just have your doubts about the game. If you were a fan of Goldeneye, then I would strongly recommend buying the game. While it does have a $60 retail price, I feel it is well worth the money easily. The only slight downside is that if you do not happen to own the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pack, then only 35% of the game is playable without it. The single player missions are not playable if you do not have the expansion pack. If you get this game and you do not have the expansion pack, make sure you purchase one. Once again Rare hits a homerun with this game.

-DANGEROUS K

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/01/00, Updated 06/01/00