"I couldn't tear myself away!!!"

I couldn't tear myself away from my Nintendo the first time I booted it up with Perfect Dark. Read on to find out why. Bow down and worship Rare as the God of video game developers that they are because this game is the absolute best game on the N64!

It's so hard to know where to begin when reviewing a game this good. Let me begin by just telling you what I experienced the first time I played through the first level: ''dataDayne Central:Defection''. The opening cinema is excellently done. As I took control of Joanna, the first thing I noticed was that the background wasn't background at all, there were vehicles flying through the sky. I went through the door and met my first dataDyne baddy. As I shot him, I laughed as I watched blood splatter all over the wall behind him! It was so cool. When I finished laughing, I was a little annoyed by this light that was glaring in the camera, so I shot it and gasped as it not only went out, but the room got darker! Reading about this feature and experiencing this feature are two Very different things. The next few minutes were spent hunting out all of the lights in the first room. While you cannot make the rooms completely pitch black, it's still way cool to shoot all the lights out and walk around in the dark. Every time I found a new weapon, the first thing I would do is let loose a few rounds to hear what it sounded like and also so I could watch the reload animation. I then proceded down the stairs and happened upon some guards as I opened a door. As they started shooting at me, I instinctively moved Joanna back behind a railing just as I would have in Goldeneye 007. Imagine my surprise when I discovered: I STILL GOT SHOT!!! My first reaction was to make sure I was really behind the railing. Yep, I was...those guys can now shoot over railings and low walls! It's absolutely fantastic! You'll totally have to forget all the 'bad' habits you learned from Goldeneye because these guys are smart, and they won't wait around for you to put a bullet between their eyes. Anyway, the guards were yelling to each other so I decided to shut them all up before any reinforcments arrived. As I pumped them all full of lead, It was evident that while some of the death animations in this game were modeled after the ones used in GE, they looked better and more realistic in Perfect Dark. There were several new death animations as well. As more guards poored into the room to exterminate the threat (me), I was excited by the fact that none of the guards' faces showed through the door before they opened it like they managed to do in GE. I don't want to spoil anymore of the layout of the levels for you, but just rest assured that my experiences were mind-numbingly sweet. Now back to the review.

Graphics:

This game is so full of eye candy, You'll hardly be able to believe this game is running on your Nintendo 64. First of all, the cinemas are all fantastic. You'll enjoy each new cinema and they won't annoy you like the ones in Jet Force Gemini. These cinemas have voice acting in them, and you can skip through them if you've already seen them. The levels are extremely well drawn too, and the real time lighting doesn't hurt anything one bit. If this game ran at 60 fps instead of only 30 fps, it could be a Dreamcast game. That's how pretty it is. The Enemy death animations all look excellent. The blood adds a bit more realism too. On a side note: In multi-player, when you crouch...you can actually see the person crouching--not just sliding around on one knee!

The scenery in this game is gorgeous. Let us all get on our knees and worship Rare as they have once again delivered the visual orgasmic experience. Everything is Perfect.

Gameplay:

When you first pick up the controller, you'll feel right at home. The game controls are just as tight as they were in Goldeneye, with just a few options added. First and most importantly, is the secondary fuction of each weapon. You can switch between the primary and secondary functions of each weapon by pressing and holding the B button for just a bit longer than you normally would to reload. Another important change is this: if you hold the A button an on-screen weapon selection menu will appear. It's nice to not always have to cycle through all your weapons just to find the one you need. Another great improvement is the fact that when you pause the game, it will pause immediately instead of waiting for one second while you wait for Bond to bring his watch up to the camera. (I would have KILLED Rare if they had left that feature in the game...). Also, there are now two different heights you can crouch at. Obviously the lower you crouch, the slower you go...but the harder you are to hit. Last, but not least, you can now fall of ledges. All of the invisible walls have been banished to the beyond--Thank God.


Story:

I won't ruin any of the plot in this review, but let me just say that this game has a better storyline than most movies do. Very interesting story that manages to include a few twists too!

Replayability:

This is the last multi-player game you ever need buy. It's modestly been described as ''Goldeneye on Steroids'' and let me be the first to assure you that this is no joke. Everything that made Goldeneye's multi-player game so addictive and fun has been added upon and improved. If you're anything like me, you soon ran out of people who would play GE with you because nobody likes to get their ass kicked all the time. With Perfect Dark you won't have that problem. Rare has added the option to play the game with EIGHT(8) simulants! If that doesn't satisfy you, I don't know what will. While the framerate is pretty choppy with 12 players (4 Human, 8 Sims), it has no problem with 1 Human and 8 Sims, or a few Humans with a few Sims, and even when it get's choppy, it's still an insanely fun game! There have also been included in the game, 30 multi-player challenges(which is how you unlock multi-player arenas) that range from open combat, to King of the Hill, Capture the Case, and Hacker Central. The first 18 or so are really simple and you'll have no problem beating them, but the higher challenge levels are just that, challenging. You'll have your hands full trying to beat all of these. Me and three of my buddies got together yesterday to play and spent 2 hours just trying to beat the expert sims in the villa scenario--(challenge 18, I think). Although we didn't beat that level (yet...), we managed to waste a good 7 hours just playing the other ones. The only reason we stopped was because we all had to study for our calculus test this morning. Believe me, this game has all the multi-player options you need.

In addition to including 3 battle arenas from Goldeneye (they have been re-textured, but it's still the same level), Perfect Dark has TONS more arenas that are all well designed and beautiful to play in. No gripes here.

Overall:

This game completely lives up to all of it's hype! I'm sure you've read countless other reviews, so just believe what everybody is saying and get your own copy of this game. You're only hurting yourself by not owning this game. This game won't take long to hit gamer's choice status, because it's the best game ever! It's a classic in the making. Bottom line: If you don't own this game, you don't know what a pleasure gaming can be.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/05/00, Updated 06/05/00