Perfect Dark (N64) (Images courtesy Rare)
By Andrew Liszewski

It seems only fitting that I should follow up my TGWP GoldenEye 007 post from last week with GoldenEye’s own sequel, Perfect Dark. Now after GoldenEye 007 pretty much established itself as one of the main reasons to pick up Nintendo’s last cartridge dependent console, most fans of the game, myself included, started to anticipate what Rare had planned for a sequel. Unfortunately though, it turned out that for whatever reason they were unable to secure the Bond license again, which meant GoldenEye’s successor would end up being an original creation. While this news made a few people worry that the sequel wouldn’t be as good as the original, those concerns turned out to be unfounded as Perfect Dark ended up being better than GoldenEye 007 in every aspect. Sure the catchy Bond theme was gone, and playing the game wasn’t like reliving one of the 007 movies, but improved graphics, better weapons and an amazing multiplayer mode more than made up for it.

Perfect Dark (N64) (Images courtesy Rare)

And like with GoldenEye 007, it was the multiplayer mode that made Perfect Dark a real hit. In fact, I think my friends and I usually spent more time customizing the ‘perfect’ match than actually playing it. Another thing I particularly liked was the new weapons introduced in PD which included a ridiculously fun remote controlled rocket and the Farsight gun which allowed you to snipe an opponent across an entire level even if you were inside a building. The other thing that made Perfect Dark’s multiplayer entertaining for me was the stat tracking. I can only speculate how many hours of my life were spent playing GoldenEye, but Perfect Dark not only kept track of those hours, but also the virtual miles your character ran, kills, shots fired and pretty much any bit of data you could need to prove you were a batter player than your friends. And isn’t that what was really important?

[ Wikipedia – Perfect Dark ]

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5 COMMENTS

  1. This and conker's bad fur day are the only reason I keep my n64. I played so much on thoses games that I feel like I'll loose something really important if I sell it.

    I had my stat build up for over 3 years but the unexpected and unforgetable happened. A kid came over with his parents and erased “BY MISTAKE” everything that was on the cartridge. He never played on my 64 since that day.
    -“Martin, can I play on your nintendo ?”
    -“Ho my nintendo…. I think I sold it”

    Young one have no respect for others fun… I miss my game….

  2. I remember the solo campaign of Perfect Dark fondly, what with Elvis the wacky alien and all. I was taken aback by your appraisal of the multiplayer however, as I don't recall it being much fun. Perhaps you had to have more than two people, but my brother and I felt that none of the levels were near as good as those in Goldeneye, where we would play proximity mines on Complex all day long.

  3. Perfect Dark and Goldeneye were the forerunners to all the FPS you see today. The problem is that there is so much emphasis on graphics and sound that no game since has compared to the hours of fun that Rare provided. I have played Perfect Dark multiplayer for days worth of hours. I remember not having a chance, at first, against the Dark or even Perfect Sims but after playing for so long the tables were turned. The multiplayer was so customizable, what guns you wanted, how many sims, how hard they were etc. Also at around the time of The Matrix movie, the multiplayer had the option of slow-motion and smart slow-mo which turned everyone into Neo. Having played many online multiplayer games (Halo, Rainbow 6, Call of Duty) I give all the credit of my skill to Perfect Dark. Nowadays every grade school kid can jump into a game, grab the biggest gun and without any skill or finesse, kill everyone on the screen, “owned”. I miss the Dostovei and the Cougar Magnum and the skill involved with using them. I also wish that game designers added a tool such as the Farsight to games to be rid of sniper/campers once and for all.

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