Perfect Dark

The Good
Back in 1998 a game called Goldeneye 64 came out, produced by the company Rare (Donkey Kong trilogy, Killer Instinct, Dk64) it chagned the way we played FPS in both PC and Console worlds. Great graphics lots of weapons and a stealth style mode made Goldeneye a hit.

Rare declined making Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not enough due to Perfect dark, they did not want to be constrained by a licence and have limited room to work with. Perfect Dark at that time was turning from a Goldeneye style game to what it is now. You are Joanna Dark, or as your code name states: Perfect Dark. You are fresh out of training, scoring A+++. Your first mission is to rescue a Dr. Carol from DataDyne's H.Q. DataDyne have been getting some very large boosts in technology research and you have to find out what this is about.

Graphics: VERY GOOD, better than Goldeneye. In fact the game won't run right without the expansion pack. There is now glare from lights, floors that reflect and shine, better glass, sun glare and rays. The people in the game are better rendered, they have more rounded heads and move better than before. Animation is well done with most of the animation being motion captured beforehand. Bullet holes change with different wall surfaces, like metal or plastic, and elevators are now intoduced.

Sound: Better than ever, full voiced cutscenes, men now scream out for the alarm to be raised, and make rather crass comments when dying "Gasp!...I'm dying1". Weapon sounds are more improved and are more meaty.

Gameplay: The single player game is good, hard levels, VERY smart guards who dodge by alerting other guards and hiding behind any obstical. Some even cloak, then there are the Skedar, large very detailed lizards who take a lot of lead to kill. The missions range from getting from A-B, saving your base by turning on drone guns to escaping on hover bikes. Very varied. Multiplayer is a blast, with lots of new game modes to use, like capture the breifcase (flag) or king of the hill where you have to guard a part of the level. An interesting one is Hacker Central, where you have to guard your mates who are trying to hack into a computer outlet. Bots are also inculded with many personalityies to choose from, like rocket launcer experts to peace lovers who disarm you. There are around 40 weapons, each with a secondary fire making them new weapons all together, this making it around 80. From knives to Lazers, cloaking devices to hacking tools bullets are a girls best friend.

The Bad
The storyline has lots of holes in it. Some things are left very unanswered, this is kinda fixed up in a story summary at the end in the comms room. The single player game gets very hard at times with some of the enemy being very unfair in their actions. The annoying blur you get when hit can be ok but this does not refresh in multiplayer when you die, so you gain a very large advantage being unable to see anyone properly.

The Bottom Line
Very good, lots of fun buy it.