The Answer To Your FPS Prayers (Nintendo Write-Off)

When I was first offered up the chance to be part of a write-off about the best or worst made by Nintendo I only had one game in my mind. Perfect Dark which is made by Rareware which I do believe is a owned or is a property of Nintendo. If not then I'm sorry cause I'm going to classify Perfect Dark as a game made by Nintendo anyway.

I'll tell you right now that I hate most first person shooters, but Perfect Dark is a completely different story. It succeeds at everything it attempts. With great graphics, control, sound, single player gameplay, and multiplayer gameplay.

Single Player

I'm not what you would call a big fan of single-player first person shooter games. Actually I despise most of them, and would rather take a good nap than play a FPS by myself. Then there's Perfect Dark, which offers a single player experience that rivals the exceptional one player game of Medal of Honor. The gameplay is kept fun by having a variety of different situations thrown at you. Like you first have to sneak past guards then you have to steal a uniform and infiltrate the base, after your cover is blown you have to blast your way out. Ah much more refreshing than "you are the lone survivor on an alien planet/hell/someplace and you must kill everything as you try to get out."

Two Player

Okay so two player would usually be thrown into "Multi Player" that isn't the case with Perfect Dark. To my surprise the two player game is the best thing in the whole game. While you could go with the standard Deathmatch play with two players, I don't recommend it (boring). What is really the stand out is the Cooperative mode. In the Cooperative you and your friend take on the same thing as the single player game. As well as having the extra firepower that two players offers it also will naturally throw in the use of real teamwork, which is rarely used very well in video game, with most sports games turning into individual performances. Then again its also pretty useful when you are stumped and can't figure out what to do, to have two people stumbling around looking for the answer.

Multi Player

Ah yes the meat and potatoes of FPS's, in Perfect Dark you get the joy of killing up to three of your friends at a time (that'll teach'em for making fun of your suspenders), as well as some computer drones that you can set up. The drones themselves are very deep and can add some variety and challenge to the whole deathmatch thing. But you will soon find that they're only really useful when you are practicing by yourself. I always got "Who the hell are these guys that are killing?!" from my friends. Most of the multiplayer environments lend themselves well to four people repeatedly killing each other, they aren't too big that you can't find anyone, nor are they so small that you're constantly in combat (you need a little recoup time).

Everything Else

The graphics in Perfect Dark may not be up to what I'm getting spoiled with on the PS2, but they are top of the line for the N64. It has excellent textures and large clean environments. There is no pop-in or fogging to hide flaws.

The sound is rather exceptional. The voice acting is done very well, including some of the shocking statements you may hear when you shoot a bad guy in the crotch (if kids are around you may want to turn on the language filter). The music fits the mood well, and the sound effects are right on.

The control in Perfect Dark are as good as they get for a console FPS. With the trigger button on the N64 controller being perfect for FPS's. The default control scheme is set up like Goldeneye 007 (which was made by the same team), but you can also configure it to control much like Turok, or you could be daring and set it up so that you have to use 2 controllers to control one character.

Well everything seems to be perfect in this game, but I do have one gripe. It's not even really Perfect Dark's fault, its the fact that you need a N64 Expansion Pak to play the mass majority of the game. I don't like having to buy a peripheral in order to play a game, I own the system and the controllers that should be enough. This is only compounded by the fact that this is the only game I have that uses the Expansion Pak, upping the expense I spent on this one game way up (then a week later I find that I could have gotten Donkey Kong 64 for just $10 more than I had already spent *grumble*).

Overall I'd say this is one of the best things you can get for your N64. Trust me your N64 will thank you for it.
This is my part of a write-off for NINTENDO, check out all (or some, or none, I don't really care I've already got my cent (whoopie)) of these excellent writers. Here is a list of all the participants.

~Kenshin-Guy
~Sephiroth2000
~Chris_Billings
~Gerper
~LaughingTarget
~Cartman_2k
~Goldentoe
~JuiceJW
~Xeno3998
~Rock_On