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4.56 out of 5 Jaded Reviews: Perfect Dark Many people recognize Halo: Combat Evolved on the Xbox as the game that revolutionized First-Person Shooters on consoles. However, way back in the day of antiquity, Goldeneye was actually the game that did this. Proving that console shooters can actually be playable and offering a perfectly mastered style of gameplay blending in all your traditional James Bond gun play with spy espionage action. This isn't that game, though. This is the Spiritual Successor to that game. Perfect Dark was made by the same studio that made Goldeneye, Rareware, and it literally did include everything that Goldeneye did plus the kitchen sink. The only thing truly different is the sci-fi setting following the antics of Joanna Dark instead of James Bond. But a change of scenery is good. I mean, how many times did the British spy use a sniper rifle that can automatically lock onto targets through walls? And I still consider Perfect Dark to include many features that the Halo franchise still doesn't. The game was so good it only had one spelling error too. So while the controls were a little clunky for the time, being on an N64 and all, having cute little nuances and so much polish just made the game perfect.Make no mistake, Perfect Dark did one thing better than anything else. It was perfect. This is a review of the updated Perfect Dark that was released on the Xbox LIVE Arcade. It offers many new features, as well as some removed features that it really shouldn't have, but does still retain the absolute quintessential Perfect Dark experience we all know and love on the N64. Ported by 4J Studios for Microsoft Game Studios, things are mostly intact and improved. It's truly a challenge not to just slap 5 across the board in reviewing Perfect Dark because at the time it was originally released, it did earn every single one of those perfect scores. And if you look up any review of the N64 version, you will clearly see the same trend. That's because Perfect Dark has always been ahead of its time. But that was ten years ago. And unfortunately some parts of the game haven't held up perfectly. Then again, so much simply has held up compared to games released in this generation. Please take note, this is easily my favorite console shooter of all time. So if y'all thought my reviews were winded before... When you start Perfect Dark, you're treated to Rare's logo. Microsoft's logo. And then the epic introduction cinematic of the campaign with the ominous words “Press Start.” Once you do, you get the first of many menus with the options: Play Game, Leaderboards, Achievements, Help & Options, and Exit game. This, of course, was not included in the N64 version but it is also brought up when you pause the game. Leaderboards have all your typical leaderboard options. Compare with friends. Compare with other people near your score. Compare to the best people of all time. You know the drill. But Perfect Dark has so many features to choose from that the Leaderboards expand through a lot of categories. Such as Awards, Nationality, Score, Percent Completed, Accuracy, Difficulty, that sort of thing. Achievements is as you would expect, it just brings up the list of Perfect Dark's 20 Achievements. That's 8 more than your typical Xbox LIVE Arcade game. And the Achievements are pretty good. Most are so easy to get. But some, like Crowning Glory, will require only the utmost masters, and game breakers, of Perfect Dark to acquire. Being an old game, yes there are some glitches and exploits but I'll hit on that later. Exit game should be self explanatory. You get ripped out of perfection back to your Xbox 360 Dashboard. Options. Lots and lots of options. First up, How to Play. In here are things like controls, multiplayer, weapons, personnel, and background. These are basically the written version of the Carrington Institute and act as the game's virtual instruction manual. Very useful for people who need a refresher or have been newly sucked in to Perfect Dark's XBLA debut. The controls are limited compared to the original game. You have three control styles that mimic one of the original control styles Perfect Dark had, Halo's default controls, and Call of Duty's default controls respectively. The original game had four controls using one controller. And four more using two controls to create a dual-analog style of play. Just like in Halo, kids! So it's a real shame this version includes so few options but it's expected since you do have dual analog on one controller instead of the C-Buttons. At least an update allows you to adjust your sensitivity and whether you are left handed or want Legacy controls just like the Perfect Dark default control setup. It also added an option for if you want your secondary fire to reset to the primary function when you die or if it stays to what you set it when you started the match like it originally did on the N64. You can also lock your crosshair, making it more static like in Halo and removing the idle sway. Audio adjusts sound and music as well as a language filter. You can change the 2-player screen orientation and the gamma in the video menu. And further control options customize in game features like look centering, having your screen sway a little to add to realism, having auto-aim, and if you want to hold or toggle manual aiming. Take note, back on the N64, the Auto-Aim was ridiculous and was required to hit anything. It's no longer mandated but still useful for new players. A real challenge is to play it like a pro with Auto-Aim off. What I mean by ridiculous is with Auto-Aim on, your weapon would actually point to them if they're near the center of your screen and would track their movement. It's far more forgiving than what you've come to expect for recent releases. The display adjusts your HUD options. Like what gets shown such as ammo count, crosshair, zoom range, gun function, crouch, subtitles, mission time, and the Goldeneye favorite of Paintball bullet holes. Lots of options indeed. You can also view the credits in the options menu, reinstall any extras you've unlocked such as a theme or two Avatar Awards. And you may also view your Awards. To talk a little about aiming, it's far easier to aim with dual analog sticks but Perfect Dark allowed you to manually aim by holding or toggling one of the triggers. This causes you to stay stationary, but you can “lean” by strafing side to side. This causes you to have a free crosshair that you can manually move anywhere on the screen but it's a little too sensitive in the XBLA version. This was ideal for shooting around cover or precisely sniping people with your weapon. With practice, it works just as well here but I've found that the dual analogs allow you to hit accurately without aiming with practice. What are Awards? They are a gift for fans. While the Achievements are easy for anyone who plays the game to get, Awards are there for professionals. People who know exactly how to push themselves beyond the game's functionality. Able to break the game. Perform inhuman feats of pure awesome. There are Awards for each mission. And some for other things like completing the game on a certain difficulty in under a certain amount of time. And there's even some for the Combat Simulator. These are by no means easy. And some even require a friend to do right. Let us selection the play game option. Now you see the classic Perfect Menu. With an option to go to the Carrington Institute, Solo Missions, Combat Simulator, Co-Operative, or even Counter-Operative. What are these? The Institute is kind of like a tutorial training area. It's your headquarters for the company Joanna works for. It has a device training area, a movement training area, a firing range, an information center which contains backstroy and character dossiers, and a hanger which contains a Hover Crate and Hover Bike you can interact with, and information on locations and vehicles in the game. This in itself is basically a fun, free-roam mission. You can achieve different awards for using weapons in the Firing Range and you gain more weapons to use there as you play. It's a great tutorial as well as a minor personal challenge area. Like how fast can you knock out all the stimulants in the movement training room? The atmosphere here is amazing. There are lab techs, your boss in his office, and the whole place, while blocky and bare, does give you the sense of being in a real location. Too bad you can only take the elevators to the second floor... Solo Missions is the single player campaign. There are three difficulties to choose from for each of the nine missions, each of which may only contain one segment or up to three segments. So the duration of the campaign is quite good. It keeps track of the time you've taken to complete the mission on the respective difficulty. Difficulties usually add mission objectives and make the enemies more competent at slaughtering you. There's also no in-mission checkpoints or saves. It's do it all or restart when you screw up. So the challenge is real despite the dated mission layouts and AI. Which are amazing, I might add. They might not be Legendary Elites on Halo but they certainly still are great enemies to face and places to explore. To top that off, there's a few unlockable bonus missions too which shift the focus from Joanna to other characters. And there's that unlockable Perfect Dark difficulty that doesn't keep track of anything but allows you to adjust enemy health, accuracy, and damage. Upping that can challenge even a DarkSim. The story itself is quite amazing. Most might find it cliché but I always loved the sci-fi, corporation espionage setting. The voice acting is quite amazing and gives you a sense of who the characters are and has a lot of subtle humor to it. Despite this, the game has a very serious and dark tone. It's just a masterfully crafted story through and through. Co-Operative is just like Solo Missions but allows you to play with a friend or with CPU allies. They're generally worthless but playing with a friend definitely has it's perks on the higher difficulties. The XBLA allows you to play splitscreen or over Xbox LIVE. A huge plus by allowing you to have your own screen now. Counter-Operative is like Co-Operative only player 1 is Joanna Dark trying to complete the missions regularly and player 2 is a typical unloved lackey. Player 2 randomly starts somewhere and has to blend in with the other guards or surprise Joanna to take her out. While Joanna is obviously more awesome than a random guard, the addition of a human mind controlling that guard really ups the challenge for player 1. The guard only has whatever weapon he spawned with and a suicide pill which kills him and allows him to spawn somewhere possibly closer to Joanna to get right into the action. Pretty revolutionary stuff back then considering how Left 4 Dead's versus mode is now. So what's that there thingy calling itself Combat Simulator? That is multiplayer. Originally just offline, either by yourself or with three buddies, Xbox LIVE now allows you to take the fight over the Internet with either 4 players and 8 Sims for a total of 12, just like on the N64, or 8 players and 4 Sims for a total of 12 also. Featuring pimp menu music, the Combat Simulator is the heart of Perfect Dark and is where you find the most options the game provides. In the Combat Sim, you get to chose Local Multiplayer, Xbox LIVE Private Match, or Xbox LIVE Quick Match. Quick Match is similar to Optimatch from Xbox of old. You choose what type of game you want to join and it finds it. There are some game party issues and obviously some glitches to contend with. But it's far more robust now than it was on the N64. And some glitches have been fixed while some new ones were added due to the port. Some liberties were taken, like making explosions longer to simulate how they were on the N64. Which I don't understand since they only lasted that long because the game's framerate died and made everything slow. But, that's digression and the experience feels exactly as good as it was if not better. In Quick Match, you can customize your player, choose solo or team games, the max players, and your match preference like straight up combat, a mix, classic, or hardcore. Each with varying gametypes and settings. I unfortunately have not played Quick Match because people tend to exploit every possible glitch to the death just so they get a good leaderboard rating. But Perfect Dark always was about playing with friends and it shines perfectly right there. Just like the old Perfect Dark. In HD glory and 60 frames per second. On a local system, you get some game settings like Challenges, Preset and Saved gametypes, a Quick Setup, and an Advanced Setup. Challenges can be tackled alone or with up to three friends and allow you to unlock everything there is to unlock. There's 30 of them and they start off easy but become extremely difficult as enemies get more intelligent and more numerous. Until finally you rage quit when you come across the DarkSim. How we all loathe the DarkSim... Let's customize our character and then I'll get into the specific settings for a match. You can choose from a plethora of bodies, just like before, but now you can't mix any head with any body. So no more Oddjob like characters with small bodies and small heads unless you find a way to glitch it. The updated characters are amazingly beautiful despite the limitations of the old blocky models they are based from. While some are drastically different, they all fit the Perfect Dark universe just as well as they did on the N64. The faces are obviously different, using the new staff faces and Microsoft's counterparts to Nintendo's staff. But what can really be done about that? Controls are as explained earlier as are the advanced options. But now you get new options like highlighting pickups, players, teams, and whether you have Radar. But some of these can be overruled in the game's settings. There's also statistics for how your character has performed. Damage dealt, taken, accuracy, kills, deaths, headshots, ammo used, games played, won, lost, total play time, and distance traveled, four award categories (accuracy, headshot, killmaster, and survivor) and how many times you've gotten each one, and an overall rank title that you climb depending on how long you play and how good you get. All from the original Perfect Dark. Epic for a 2000 game, is it not? Quick Setup allows you to pick Players Only, Players and Simulants, Player Teams, Players vs. Sims, or Player-Sim teams. Followed by a few changeable settings like match limits, weapon, and scenario options. Then it jumps you right into the action. There are quite a few presets but you can save several of your own gametypes and customization is the name of this game so let's finally get right to it. The Advanced Settings allow you to customize a Scenario (Combat, Hold the Briefcase which is like one person picks up the case and everyone tries to kill them to keep him or her from getting points, Hacker Central which has a computer and a device which can hack it and the point is to hack the computer with the device for points, Pop a Cap which consists of someone being it and everyone else killing or protecting it, King of the Hill which y'all should know, and Capture the Case which is essentially CTF), choosing what options to have like how much time it takes to get a point in the hill or if Radar is off, if there's slow motion, if there's one hit kills, no player highlighting, that sort of thing. What arena to play on, what weapon sets to use, what the match time and point limits are, if anyone gets a handicap (is easier or harder to kill), how many and what types of Simulants to include, and what teams are. There's quite a few interesting and different arenas. 13 Dark and 3 Classics from Goldeneye. All fun and interesting. There are quite a few weapon presets but you can customize what weapons you want to include. They lay on the arena and you pick them and the ammo for them up to use simply by walking over them. You start with only your fists but can disarm enemies or bust them up to make their vision blurry which are great and fun mechanics. There's six weapon slots and you can even choose not to include anything in them if you'd like. You can also customize what music you want to play during the match and what you want team names to be. The Combat Sim is where all the action is. There are quite a few devices to choice from for the campaign but the weapons available to you in the Combat Simulator is staggering. There is only one Shotgun. But so many pistols, a couple SMGs, some Assault Rifles, two types of Sniper Rifles, lots of explosives, and some completely funky stuff in there. All with alternate firing modes that can drastically change how they even function. The ingenuity here is unmatched and everyone has a favorite gun and some are just symbolic of the franchise. Counting them including Nothing, Disabled, Grenades, Tranquilizers, X-Ray Goggles, Combat Boosts, Shields, Cloaking Devices, Wrist Lasers, Mines, Throwing Knives, and the classic weapons from Goldeneye that Perfect Dark includes leaves you with 47 options to choose from! All unique and simply fun to use. That's unprecedented these days! And while the Farsight might be a bit overpowered because it can shoot through walls, Perfect Dark always had just as much realistic randomness as it did skill. And they are all fully customizable so you can create a competitive match if you want. This game was meant for fun with friends and nothing is more fun than a Neutron Bomb fest with your buddies. So. Audio. Graphics. All that jazz. Well, graphics are surprisingly awesome now. There was so much detail given to characters and level textures that the N64 couldn't have. But back in the day, seeing flying cars out an office window was pretty sweet even if the framerate was bad and the textures were blurred. The graphics do hold up nicely despite its age and the updates to them are simply gorgeous if blocky. You can shoot out lights that affect the brightness of an area. And darkness does play a role in stealth with this game. So little things like that and the amount of detail put into level design is superb. The voice overs are still top notch and the noise each weapon makes is just so distinctive and suiting. Little ambiance like rain or a guard screaming “She's over here! Get her!” just immerses you, especially when guards actually do storm into the room to kill you when you hear it. Or when you shoot a guard in the leg and he limps away only to surrender his weapon when you catch up to him. And the music is absolutely amazing as well. With so many ambiance themes, moody themes, for both stealth and action packed moments in the campaign. The music really sets the stage perfectly and both feeds off of and enhances the level you're in. The music in Perfect Dark is just as good as the music in any other game. It feels right at home in the futuristic sci-fi corporate espionage theme. And there's quite a few tracks for it too so everyone should find a favorite track if they somehow don't like them all. So despite the many, many flaws of Perfect Dark being dated and ported. It's still the same beloved game it always was with so many more features that allows it to run with games of this age. Truly. Perfect Dark on the Xbox LIVE Arcade is just as good as any retail purchase. The AI is a little easy to outsmart. The controls are a little weird if you're not used to the old game's control style. But overall, it is superb and a well worth value for its price. Just as it has always been. The only thing that I can say in closing is... This is Perfect Dark. It is perfect. And it is beloved. <3 |