I’m one of the lucky ones. I still have the original cartridge of Perfect Dark AND an N64 with one of those Expansion Pack things forced into the top like it was essential life force to allow it to continue breathing. The only problem is nowadays you can’t get away with looking at a quarter of a 14 inch (or 16 inch if you were SPOILT) TV along with 3 of your friends as you all clamber for top spot on the kill table on Felicity. It’s all big LCD and Plasma sets and High Definition gaming now, so Rare’s second best shooter has had to up its game to contend on the Marketplace. Can it truly be perfect, or will it leave us in the dark, wondering what could have been?
The story hasn’t changed a single jot, mind you neither has any of the major workings of Perfect Dark. The story still follows Joanna and her “I’m not really a fat Sean Connery, honest.” boss, Mr Carrington, as they embark on a mission to track down an alien life form and investigate the Datadyne Corporation and all their fresh technology. The story was always a little far fetched, but it’s only now when you have all the money in the world to spend on big productions that you can appreciate, in some levels anyway, how far we’ve come.
By this I’m COMPLETELY casting my eyes, well, ears in this case, over the truly cringe-worthy dialogue. Time really hasn’t been kind to it; and even though there has been some clearing up of the actual sound quality, the chosen words and voice acting is down there with the worst of them. There is a definite split here, as the older generation will undoubtedly use it to have a quick fix of nostalgia, blinded by the rose tinted glassed as they lament on those choice cuts of speech. You know that the more Modern Warfare among us will just point and laugh, but that’s just the great age barrier creaking into life. What is really does show though is how behind the N64 sound tech was. All the other consoles of that particular time had switched to CD’s and had higher quality to offer, but the cartridge based systems didn’t stand a chance against them. Having said that, the music is still decent enough when you consider where it came from, so it’s not all bad.
The visuals have had a decent revamp to bring it up to the standard we all use and love nowadays. Ok, so everyone still looks like they’ve had their hands stuck shut by the phantom glue assassin, but you can forgive it considering how long it’s been since we originally played PD (it’s nearly a decade old already, don’t you know?). The faces were always nicely rendered and some of the results were just incredibly funny as the in-game heads would range from very believable to Halloween masks in one movement of the stick, but that was what made the game enjoyable, not to mention some of the most hilarious death motion capture ever seen on TV. From an older gamer’s point of view, it’s really nice to see everything that little bit sharper and shinier considering what it used to be like. The floors are good enough to eat your dinner off of and some of the external areas have a nicer ambience than before, all thanks to the clean up job.
The biggest improvement though is what’s been happening under the hood, with frame rates noticeably increased and that unintentional slow-mo shooting option eradicated (although when playing in some extreme circumstances, I have seen the occasional frame drop, but it is nowhere NEAR as much as before).
Online is where you really notice the smooth running more with a nicely maintained 8 player multiplayer sitting proudly atop the mass of options open to you through the medium of broadband internet. Two player co-op is there, as well as having the same amount of players going through each mission to see who the better agent is. Maybe even you and a mate against some Simulants takes your fancy? Fire away; and if you still need to kill stuff once your friends have gone onto something else, there are still plenty of challenges available for you to polish off, with an achievement for nailing at least 29 of them.
As far as the actual gameplay goes, the fluidity is still there, as well as the well met level design. The only thing (and I do mean ONLY thing) that hasn’t really ported over quite as well as everything else is the weapon zoom. Nowadays we’re all used to the viewpoint moving when we try and target a specific individual or waypoint. With Perfect Dark it was the crosshair that moved, rather than your head, so it can be very disorientating if you’re not used to it. There is an auto aim, but it could move some people between the game being too hard to use and too easy. If anything, it shows that the N64 pad wasn’t as bad as people remember it, either that or as we’ve gotten a decade older our co-ordination has gotten worse.
I don’t really think there was any question that Perfect Dark was going to be a hit on Arcade, to be honest. The wealth of stuff on offer, not to mention it’s the closest thing to GoldenEye we’re ever likely to see, make it a very tantalising purchase. 800 points for what some would say is one of Rare’s finest hours isn’t too bad at all. It might lose some precision on the control side through it’s translation (which 4J Studios did pretty well) but it’s a lot better than the 360 specific Zero follow up and it still has a solid enough structure to show some of the lesser known kids on the block how it should be done. At the end of the day, it’s the old school shooter we wanted and loved as kids (who were over 18 mind – Ed.) with a fresh lick of paint and an online mode; and considering how much stuff you get for your money, it isn’t a bad thing at all.
VideogameUK verdict: 8/10
