Undoubtedly The Quintessential Nintendo 64 Shooter

You probably wouldn't know it if you'd just gotten into video games within the last five years, but there was a time when the Nintendo 64 was a fierce competitor to Sony's venerable Playstation. Of course, today the Playstation is seen as perhaps the greatest video game system of all time, and the N64 is largely looked down on by the industry (see: http://www1.epinions.com/content_392898252420). But back in 1998, opinions of which system was better were a lot more evenly split, both with fans and with game journalists.

One of the key titles for the Nintendo 64 that was intended to give Sony a run for their money was Perfect Dark. As the spiritual successor to Rare's surprise hit Goldeneye 007, PD was supposed to give Nintendo 64 owners both the "mature" game they've been wanting ever since the system's launch and one more exclusive game to make the system worth owning. While Perfect Dark did little to save Nintendo from being ultimately defeated by Sony that generation (it was released in May of 2000, a mere months before Sony would release the Playstation 2 in America), it still became one of the most critically acclaimed games of that generation. Even snagging several "Game Of The Year" awards. So despite the hype surrounding the PS2 and Nintendo not releasing their next major system for another year and a half, N64 owners had every reason to be happy.

But is the game still worth tracking down and playing today, a whole eight years later?

Read on...

In Perfect Dark, you play as Carrington Institute agent Joanna Dark, investigating an alien conspiracy setup by the mysterious DataDyne corporation. Unlike in Goldeneye, where the storyline was limited to occasional NPC interaction and left up to the player to interpret, Perfect Dark's storyline unfolds through numerous cutscenes usually placed at the beginning and end of each level. While these cinema scenes may not look like much compared to those of more recent games like Halo and Call Of Duty, they were actually quite impressive back in 2000. Particularly considering the way they pushed the cartridge-based N64's storage capacity to the limits. Each cinema scene seemlessly blended in with PD's gameplay, giving interesting insight into the storyline without breaking up the flow of the game. Plain and simple, the cinematics of games like Halo may not have been possible if it weren't for Perfect Dark.

More importantly, Perfect Dark had loads of personality. Joanna Dark was basically everything Lara Croft should've been by then: stylish, sophisticated, but always on the side of the "good guys." Similarly, the game had a dislikable-but-amusing cast of villains, and an at the time surprisingly deep story for an FPS. Again, today this may not seem very special. But back in 2000, pretty much any FPS with a half-decent story was a big deal.

Gameplay

As Joanna Dark, you traverse through a plethora of unique locations, ranging from skyscrapers to deserts to government installations. The game's mission structure is similar to that of Goldeneye, as you're presented with several different objectives during your mission briefings. And, in order to advance to the next mission, you must complete every objective. In a way, Perfect Dark's single player gameplay is deeper than that of many modern FPS games as the mission objectives are quite varied even by today's standards. Joanna does everything from disarming bombs to rescuing hostages to even partaking in Metal Gear Solid-like stealth missions. In many cases with some kind of "great escape" at the very end - James Bond style.

Perfect Dark controls almost exactly as Goldeneye did, but but there are several significant differences. Weapon-changing has been modified so that you can now automatically choose your weapon or item via a popup menu without having to cycle through your weapons or go into the Pause menu to switch weapons. While this new feature takes some getting used to, it proves to be quite useful particularly in the more gadget-intensive missions where you have several different gadgets to fiddle with and need an easy way to switch between them. Another change is that many of your weapons now have alternative firing methods. With some weapons, you can alternate between firing bullets and using them as melee weapons. With some, you can alternate between firing bullets and firing grenades. And so on. The remaining play controls are, of course, intuitive and perfectly responsive. And while there are some occasional framerate drops, they don't at all detract from the experience.

Of course, what would any review of Perfect Dark be without mentioning its multiplayer capabilities? In 1997, Goldeneye set a standard for multiplayer gaming that almost every first person shooter since has imitated. And Perfect Dark raised the bar even higher three years later with an impressive level of customization (really, there are countless ways you can modify your deathmatch experience), along with a plethora of brilliantly designed multiplayer maps and fast/furious action.

Finally, Perfect Dark continues Goldeneye's trend of allowing the player to unlock fun "cheat codes" after completing certain missions in an X amount of time. While most of these cheat codes are more for novelty value than anything else, they serve as a nice incentive to keep playing the game even after beating it at every difficulty.

Graphics

Perfect Dark is running on an enhanced version of the Goldeneye 007 graphics engine. So the graphics are similar to Goldeneye's, but with many significant improvements. PD allows you to run the graphics in both low and high resolution mode. The textures are more detailed, the colors are even more vibrant, real time lighting effects are now used, and (most importantly) every play area is loaded with style and personality. The lone flaw in PD's graphics is that sometimes they're a little too bright for their own good, causing some occasional eyestrain for this reviewer.

Sound/Music

The music in Perfect Dark is a bit more low-key and ambient than it was in Goldeneye, which isn't to say it's worse. But most of the songs probably won't stick in your mind the way the Goldeneye songs did. The sound effects are every bit as realistic and just-plain-cool as they were in Goldeneye, but the most notable aspect of PD's sound design is its use of voice acting both in-game and during the cutscenes. Of course, this is before hiring real-life Hollywood actors became standard in video games. But most of the generic actors in PD do a surprisingly good job of portraying their respective characters. Actually, the weakest vocal performance probably comes from Joanna herself, who often sounds too tense and unnatural.

Overall

Often games like Perfect Dark just come and go, losing almost all of their value four or five years after release. Fortunately, PD is well worth playing even today. If you own an N64 and haven't played the game yet, there are plenty of EBay and Half.com sellers auctioning it, so you definitely owe it to yourself to pick up a copy. Particularly after the game's inferior X-Box 360 prequel, Perfect Dark will take you back to a time where games were still less about Hollywood-style attitude and production values, and more about simple yet fun and innovative gameplay.