N64, Perfect Dark (2000) game
Why now? Why replay this particular game at this particular time? Three reasons: it's one of the only big games on the N64 that I hadn't revisited in recent years (along with 'Ocarina of Time' - I may make that right at Christmas), I really enjoyed playing N64 games in early Summer the last couple of years ('Goldeneye' and 'TWINE' last year, 'Body Harvest' in 2021), and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, 2023 was the year in which this 'futuristic' shooter was set, so I'd been holding off for a few years waiting to play it in the time it's supposedly happening. What I didn't realise is it's not just set in 2023, it's actually set in June, so that was a coincidence. Strangely, I found it quite difficult to find any reference to the exact time period, I would have thought it had been made obvious since I always had in mind it was supposed to be either 2023 or '24, but the only reference I can remember finding was in an internal dataDyne email, perhaps from something in your inventory, that gave a date in June 2023. That's the thing about this game, it's really quite full, whether that be of the kind of tiny secrets as the date, or the fun little unofficial side mission to spot a piece of cheese in every level (failed on that one, but I did spot quite a few), or the huge variety of options for both single and multiplayer. I was just now flicking through the manual and I found a reference to something I'd never even knew existed all the years I played it (and that was many in the 2000s!): the option to set a lock on who chooses the next multiplayer setup, so you can have it be the last winner, last loser, randomly selected player, specific player, or no lock at all.
That is the kind of attention to detail that is truly mind-blowing in its minutiae, which is of course the reason we never used it: it took long enough to set up a match in the Advanced Setup for an experienced player so you wouldn't want to be leaving it to just anyone! But the key is that the option was there. That goes for so much in this game, not that it wasn't worth using, but that the options were open, so it's almost hard to point out any flaws in such a polished product, but since I brought it up I might as well get it out of the way: the worst thing in this game is the confused blur on your screen which happens when you've been slapped, shot with a tranquilliser gun or fallen victim to an N-bomb. Everything in your vision warps and twists unless you stand stock still, and while one slap is bad enough it gets worse with each attack (or if you're in the heart of the N-bomb's blast), coupled with the shrieking or grunting of your character (depending whom you play as - 'yaddagay, yaddagay,' or 'pattacake, pattacake' as we used to interpret the Maian aliens' gibbering cries), and a reddening screen as if the game was putting into physical form an empathy for the embarrassment it felt at your mistake in being caught. This was all bad enough, but the real crime, and a heinous one at that, was the fact that even after you'd died and reappeared (or 'respawned' to use suitable gaming parlance), YOU WERE STILL AFFECTED! An absolute outrage, an egregious choice that negatively affected the experience.
It was mainly the experience of multiplayer because in single games (other than the Combat Simulator), you would either be warded off by a quick blow and would take your medicine before running off to hide in a corner and recover, or you'd be killed, and since you had to start the level over again from the beginning there were no lingering blur effects. I only mention this and the multiplayer for balance because this time around I wasn't playing that, it was purely a single-player experience, but I had to mention it because the multiplayer was what kept this game alive for many hours, potentially the most played game ever in that regard, not just on N64. The real meat, and what I'm concentrating this review on, are the missions. Even there you have the incredible option to play them teamed up with a second player, either human or computer-controlled, impressive enough as it is, though what little I remember of playing it back in the day was a bit jerky with framerate issues, something that can sometimes be a problem even in the main game when there are lots of enemies on screen or explosions, something that showed this game was pushing the hardware to its limits, even with the required Expansion Pak. There was even the option to play against another player who would take on the role of all the guards one at a time until they were all killed, a more inventive idea I can hardly imagine in an N64 title!
That was far from the only inventiveness in this game, it was chock full of further development from the already terrifically accomplished 'Goldeneye,' the engine upon which this was based and the unofficial sequel to that platform- and even genre-defining production. The best you could hope for in interaction from those silent soldiers was stumbling upon one in a level who audibly sneezed, but here you have guards saying all kinds of things to a greater or lesser frequency (I much appreciated the language filter which weeded out the swearwords, although this did have the odd side effect that a portion of the President himself's dialogue at the start of the Air Force One mission, is left out when all he says is the most minor swearword, but at least it shows they were taking it seriously!). Even footsteps can be heard and used to work out how close an enemy is - sure you have to turn off the music to get the full experience, but in real life you wouldn't be running around with music blaring in your ears, you'd be listening carefully to every sound. I wouldn't say the soundtrack is weak, but that is perhaps another area where it isn't as accomplished as every other department (sorry Grant Kirkhope and co.). Grant was well known for his superb 'Banjo-Kazooie' music in both of those games and worked on other top Rare titles, too, but that meant with the relatively limited sound set available for the N64, you could hear sounds and styles from other games, and since they were all much more cartoony it didn't always fit with the serious business at hand. It's only a small complaint, after all they didn't have the James Bond theme and a specific film to base everything on as they had with 'Goldeneye,' but I found I wasn't drawn to many of the level's themes. That derivativeness also extended to some of the visuals, with 'Jet Force Gemini' in particular coming up as a visual or sound effects link a little too much (the yellow and black hazard strips, the architecture of certain areas, the alarm or door lock sounds).
It's perhaps churlish to complain since as I say, this came fairly late in the system's lifespan so they couldn't have done much better, but if it had come from another development company I suspect it would have been more original from that standpoint of not having so many readymade sounds to draw from. Of course it wouldn't have been anywhere near as accomplished, so I can take a few riffs on previous games when the meat of this one works so well. Would I have preferred a setting of contemporary times? Probably, seeing as how exciting it was to explore the realistic levels of 'Goldeneye,' but then it would have been harder to work in the many great ideas that are bursting out of this game, such as the sci-fi weapons and gadgets (there is a lot of crossover with the earlier game, some of the guns are quite reminiscent of the ones in that, which were in themselves based on real weapons). And sometimes you don't even get to fully appreciate the varied options (that word again), in the main game, multiplayer the place to run free with the many ways to kill. Of course that is also open to hardworking players of the main missions as you can unlock various cheats that enable different guns to be used in levels where they were never found, and various other, yes, options! When I replayed 'Goldeneye' I didn't play to time trial, I was using my original file so if anything I didn't want to overwrite my original times for each level (though it happened on occasion by accident - I just don't know my own skill, obviously!), but on 'PD,' as I had with 'TWINE,' I was able to start a new file and could come to the game completely fresh.
I don't think it was quite the revelation it might have been if I'd come to it fresh with little foreknowledge, but I'd been fed a steady diet of hype and details, pored over the screenshots and anticipated it for so long that by the time I was finally playing it in 2002, nothing could live up to such a buildup. It still made a jolly good go of it however, and thanks to the multiplayer, remained a stalwart and one of my absolute top games of the N64. But it was also a time when the time of the machine was coming to an end and Dolphin, soon to be GameCube, was just around the corner, and I had spent many, many hours playing around in 'Goldeneye' having completed everything, just mucking about, experimenting, so I had used up that kind of patience over the years and with 'PD' being so similar I didn't have the appetite to so thoroughly munch on every facet of the game, hence why I never got around to playing repeatedly until every last cheat was unlocked. On the positive side, that gave me the fresh challenge now of doing things I'd never done before, closing the circle on the game and gaining great satisfaction in doing so. But it wasn't easy, there were levels I had to play and play, honing every last bit of the level before I could beat some really tough time trials. The final level (proper), the Skedar Ruins, was possibly the toughest of the lot in that regard, and actually was the hardest mission in the game (though I'm finding Maian SOS, the second bonus mission, as tough on Perfect difficulty!), in keeping with the idea throughout (and before, and after), the N64's life that a final level must be hair-tearingly, painfully challenging to the extent it's probably not going to be much fun to get through!
That was certainly the case with 'PD,' they didn't win any originality awards for the standard approach of difficulty curve, but in its defence I will say the curve was pretty well implemented, however the fun curve started to dip with some of those later levels. The main thing is they slowly begin to incorporate the alien enemies, the Skedar, beginning with what I call the mini-Skedars, pipsqueak-size versions of the big daddies that are nonetheless a pain to aim at since they stand less than a foot off the floor and have the annoying habit of launching themselves right in your face from a distance, but at least you can take a few nips from them, whereas when you meet the full-sized variety a couple of slaps (on Perfect Agent, at least), is enough to finish you off. And they don't just slap, they can also carry guns, and they run for you, and once again they're more difficult to hit than humans since their centre of gravity is much lower so your automatic straight ahead aim will be slightly over their heads. And they don't react to the first few bullets, unlike humans, whom, once you get a bullet into them, unless they have body armour on, will react and give you time to adjust your aim for more deadly shots. The levels where they appear are also much more constrained or constricted, whatever the word is: claustrophobic might suit, especially for those tight corridors of the Attack Ship, the penultimate mission, but the Ruins, with their high walls and jutting masonry which is easy to get caught on as you run about, is full of dead ends which lead to a dead end for you.
Success in the last levels is that much sweeter due to the toughness of what you have to overcome, but shooting Skedar can never replace the satisfaction of pitting yourself against fellow humans, even computer-controlled facsimiles, because humans just have that unique way of moving and operating and it's a pleasure to defeat enemies that think and move like that: leaping to the side (as they used to do in 'Goldeneye'), rolling, running away, running for you, walking towards you as they let loose their entire clip... There was more intelligence in their behaviour as befitting a game made with the preparation they'd had from the earlier game. I don't know whether the feature in N64 Magazine of reader suggestions was ever seen or acted upon by the makers, but the majority of ideas made it into the game, whether it was great minds thinking alike or they really did act on what they saw, it doesn't matter. But guards that give up? That plead for their lives and stand there with hands in the air at your mercy (be kind, let them live). Guns that can be shot out of the enemies' hands so they have to run back and pick them up? These were masterstroke additions to the already winning 'Goldeneye' style. I will say that perhaps, sometimes the guns and enemies aren't quite as indefinably 'meaty' as in the original game, though it's close. Precision has more to do with things this time - take the fact that now, not only can you duck down, you can go even lower with a secondary crouch. Maybe they could have made that an option to lie on the floor, but I just take it as a superb addition, and a sometimes necessary move when under fire.
Such options added new levels of detail and precision that bring you into this world and this role even more. The fact that you're playing some twenty-three year old girl (see, she was born the year the game came out - clever, eh?), rather than James Bond, doesn't matter because it's a first person shooting game so you only see yourself in the cutscenes, which are also nicely done and lightyears ahead of the basic and short examples from the earlier game. They showed how dramatically advanced games on the N64 could be. There are plenty of improvements that could have been made, but not the ones which would make it less taxing for the player as I like a challenge - I listened to a review on podcast Ultra 64 and was amazed to hear how much complaining went on: it's too difficult, there's no mini-map, you're not told exactly what to do and where and when... It sounded so weak to me, maybe it's just a different generation raised on games that are designed in the decades since to be ever more accessible, perhaps even ever easier so as not to put off more casual players. Well I wasn't put off, I saw the toughest parts as a great challenge, one I was willing to work at over and over and over again until I'd cracked it. Some of that is knowledge: the game is part exploration, things aren't supposed to be given to you, and you should be penalised by restarting at the beginning of the level again ('there're no checkpoints to save your progress,' they whined), but you learn and develop, everything isn't handed to you on a plate, that's what makes it enjoyable and where the satisfaction comes from.
Is the idea of earning things in games disappearing? I don't know, not being a player of anything more recent than a Wii, but the voices on Ultra 64 seemed to suggest that modern players are spoiled and not used to having to battle through. I fully accept that the same could be said for 'PD' in light of earlier systems: I began on the Commodore 64 and I think there was only one game on that computer I actually completed ('Yogi Bear' on cassette tape!), because the idea in those days was to make the game as hard as possible in order to lengthen the lifespan, but then they were dealing with players raised on the arcades where you had to pay financial penalties for losing or dying! By the N64's time players were expecting to finish games (or at least I was, but then I had been a child in the C64 days so I had less chance than my later, experienced gaming self), but still, only the most dedicated would take the time to unlock everything. I have to admit there were parts of the Combat Simulator Challenges that were beyond my capabilities, and that's an area I haven't attempted for this review, though I may try to win as many as I can, it's just that fighting Sims in those levels doesn't appeal on the level of the missions. I gained great pleasure from working out how to succeed at certain tasks, and then again at learning to do them at the optimum speed (such as realising you could chuck one of the target amplifiers over a wall in the Ruins to avoid having to trek round to that big pillar).
My desire to beat every single one of the times I originally achieved was born from the same challenge playing 'TWINE' last year where sometimes I could only knock one second off, but I'm glad to say (other than the bonus missions I still have to complete), I succeeded on that mission, too, often by some margin, though there is one level I don't think is possible to knock even a single second off, and that was The Duel since the first round can't be done quicker than four seconds as far as I can tell. Perhaps the best levels aren't as good as the best on 'Goldeneye' (I think of Facility, Archives, Bunkers, Frigate, etc), but they managed to avoid the mid-game slump of some of those dull, brown levels such as Depot. There's a nice variety in length, you have some quite compact areas like the G5 Building or Chicago before it (and dataDyne is really only four floors, including the roof, despite the impression of a vast office block within a skyscraper), while others can be vast outdoor locations (Crash Site), or labyrinthine (Area 51 - that would have been terrific as a multiplayer arena, I feel, but perhaps it would have put too big a strain on the system). DataDyne doesn't have the same wonder and impressive start to the game that the Dam had, but that would have been hard to follow up - as much as having 'Goldeneye' as a template must have been an advantage, it was such a great game that it must also have been a major challenge to equal or surpass. It's not as simple as adding more technical improvements, the game design and story have to succeed as well.
The voice acting is one area that looks rather amateurish in most cases, which is unsurprising as we were still in an era when getting the office bods to do voices wasn't farfetched as this relatively new technology was incorporated into games (according to Ultra 64 Joanna Dark was played by a girl who worked on the sound design). The Playstation had an advantage in that area since CD could pack on a lot more sound easily, which is only more impressive when you see how much a part of 'PD's cartridge it is. And I quite like the slightly ropey acting skills, there's a sort of charm that makes you smile, and some of it is quite fun in and of itself: I'm thinking of Elvis who is often quite amusing in his offbeat, familiar style with use of Earth slang ("...Plus it's got no style, you know what I'm saying?"). Animation is superb, the way people move works really well and takes the work of 'Goldeneye' further, and while I didn't enjoy taking on the Skedar as much, it's hard to argue with how well they moved and their design (reminding me of Species 8472 from 'Voyager'). Going through the levels in my mind I can sometimes think of ways they could have been improved (take the Carrington Institute for an example - I'd have much preferred a scenario where the place was already taken and you had to creep round both lower and upper levels to rescue hostages like in the Bunker or Frigate, rather than the emphasis on quick action and dashing about like a mad march hare!), but on the whole they were very good, varied and gave you many different tasks to accomplish beyond merely shooting foes.
I haven't even mentioned some of the revolutionary aspects of the game aside from copious speech: the real-time lighting was a magnificent addition, allowing you to shoot out lights and plunge an area into darkness (though sadly it didn't have an effect on how well the enemy could come after you, except in specific instances such as dataDyne Extraction where you have a certain amount of time with the lights off and enemies don't shoot unless you're near them). The blood was a controversial choice, splattering on walls or floor, but not over the top like 'Turok,' and could even be useful if you'd injured a guard who left a trail of bloodspots to follow - and they were careful to include a paintball mode to turn the blood into multicoloured paint and make it much more tasteful. Then there are the Simulants, a major new addition to the multiplayer, also enabling a single player to play in it, too, which can't be underestimated, though of course it's better with human minds to pit yourself against. I first encountered these in 'TWINE' having bought that before I ever got to play 'PD,' but they were much simpler compared with the level of... options... for the bots in this game, and at varying skill levels. The downside is that they always honed in on you through their own internal radar, they didn't simply run around and have strong enough AI to be able to compete that way, but they were a huge step up for the time, especially as they didn't exist in 'Goldeneye.' Maybe, maybe the single-player isn't quite as much fun as that game's: I mentioned the real world nature of that, and its weapons, but there is something undefinably solid about it I can't put my finger on. But when it comes to the complete package 'PD' is the overall winner, simply because it does everything so well and has so many, many... options.
One option was to have an onscreen timer which was a great help in times of trial (time trials), giving you a good idea of where you needed to be to win, and was very unobtrusive, too - perhaps a little too much so since it was a tiny counter on the bottom left of the screen which would even get covered by notifications that would appear where I felt it should always be 100% visible at all times (though I will say the game never looked better than through VGA, even the little digits of timer or scope magnification sharp and clear). There were moments when it seemed impossible to be able to accomplish the target time, but gradually, by whittling away at the level, finding new ways to shave seconds off or in some cases whole chunks of time, you would plot a path through the level that allowed you to achieve what was at first a mystery. My favourite 'trick' was in the G5 level where you're given a target of one minute and forty seconds, and yet the bit with the safe-cracking where you come under attack has the decoder alone taking a minute to work its magic, so how can it be even remotely possible? Ah, you had to leave the CamSpy just outside the meeting, then head up to the safe, activate the decoder, then switch back to the gadget and watch the meeting as the decoder did its work. It was easier since you didn't have to fight off the guards and a clever trick that showed Rare expected you to think laterally, not just run and gun the whole time. There were other little facets of brain work like that which elevated the game and promoted great satisfaction, and that's probably the aspect that most impressed me returning all these years later.
Even more: unlike the older game they gave you a hub to explore in which players new to the genre could learn the necessary skills of movement, combat, weaponry and gadgets, a kind of optional training level, and yet if you chose you could just jump right into the first mission. Rare at this time, and indeed, Nintendo, were great at allowing for the growth of players that had been with the machine for a while: 'Majora's Mask' was a more complex experience than 'Ocarina of Time,' while 'Banjo-Tooie' assumed you'd played 'Banjo-Kazooie' and obviously this was an enhancement on 'Goldeneye,' so you never felt like you had to regress in your abilities in order to fit into a new game, and that's something I always appreciate because it can be very hard to make something accessible to the less developed while still a challenge for the experienced (in the same way as 'DS9' took and ran with so many ideas from 'TOS' and 'TNG' in the 'Star Trek' world, making it the most satisfying series of all). At the Institute there were plenty of places to gather information, a firing range to try out and win medals for every gun you'd discovered in the game, combat training and gadget testing. But not only was it an impressively large hub from which to explore how the game worked, it also served the purpose of preparing you for a future mission when it was attacked, so all that exploring and knowledge could be put to good use later on. In one sense you could say it was lazy to reuse the level (a case of the Bunkers maybe?), but they could just as well have had no hub and this would have still been a level later on, but I like the fact you were given the chance to get your bearings.
One thing I really do miss from 'Goldeneye' is the death animation where you see yourself die in third person from various angles. I'm sure the idea back then was merely to have a snazzy, shock moment to rub in the fact you'd failed, but it also had the unexpected boon of being able to see how and why you'd been killed so you could make adjustments on your next attempt: perhaps it was a guard behind you where you hadn't expected one to be, or maybe a railgun on the ceiling, but either way it gave you an advantage, but sadly 'PD' takes that away, as while you sink to the floor and can sometimes see what's going on in your vicinity it's by no means guaranteed, a rare example of an oversight. It would also have been handy to have the later 'Goldeneye 007' Wii remake's ability to whack people with your weapon when up close (just as the guards do to you in this game, busting out all kinds of martial arts moves in great form!), while as it stands here you have to actively change to Punch or Disarm, but then games are always going to find new little enhancements to improve your options, and as I may have noted before, 'PD' certainly had options. One major improvement to its predecessor is that you could access your inventory instantly rather than being shot to pieces as Bond leisurely lifted his wrist to look into his watch face. That was a big help, but you can also switch weapons and items using a 'wheel' that appears on screen at your bidding. In time trial it was always preferable to pause the game to access the inventory for the quickest weapons change, but it's good to have that... choice.
I often complain about games that require trial and error to progress, so it may seem hypocritical that I seem so positive towards a game that requires just that kind of approach to succeed at the mission objectives and is so unforgiving if you kill the wrong person or use an item in the wrong way. For once the options are closed down - take the target amplifiers you have to attach to the pillars in the Skedar Ruins (it being fresh in my mind). Would it have hurt to be able to pick up any amplifier you'd misplaced instead of instantly failing the objective! It's only a small thing, but I had to mention it, to be objective about the objectives... It's true that sometimes you're left baffled because you did something wrong and it's not explicitly explained how in the objective briefing in fine detail, but that's part of the experience to explore and experiment until you work it out for yourself and gain experience and a sense of progress, rather than rushing from set-piece to set-piece, constantly being stimulated (like in 'Goldeneye' Wii to some degree), progress being achieved by thought and by experimentation - there are so many times when that was evident in the game and yes, sometimes you'd get it wrong and have to start again, but it was encouraging more than discouraging, I found, and the process of repetition itself was enjoyable because the game was so well put together, unlike some games where it's a trudge. The controls were so perfectly formed to the Controller, that 'look around with the Analogue Stick, sidestep and adjust your view up and down with the C-Buttons' ideal for a shooting game, and of course having a trigger to pull.
Another little area I can imagine the game being improved was in dealing with the arbitrarily imposed inventory for each level. It makes some sense if it's a separate mission, but when it follows on directly, like dadaDyne or Area 51 why would you suddenly have a piece of equipment or a weapon removed? They could even have had a reason to make it understandable if the game required that setup: my idea would be to have the ability to choose what to carry for a limited number of slots, with the catch being items you 'should' be using would have no trouble being resupplied with ammo, while those not designed for that level would come only with the ammo in the clip, that way it wouldn't unbalance the difficulty of the mission. Or you could auto-select the recommended inventory the game recommended. Either way you'd feel like you had more control and it wouldn't seem unfair when your silenced pistol is replaced by a scope or whatever. Asking for more options in a game heavy with them? Maybe, but just a suggestion, especially as I hear a new game in the series (the fourth after the Game Boy Color and XBox versions), is being made for the current XBox, whatever they call that (must be up to XBox 1080 by now...).
I think at this stage it's fair to say the game has OPTIONS. It's undeniable, unarguable and right there in front of you, and yet it doesn't swallow you up, you don't have to click through menu after menu to get started, the layout is nicely designed. If you want to play an Advanced game of Combat Simulator you have a cornucopia of delights to toy with, from what the Sims look like to what you call yourself, not to mention a comprehensive stats list that I forgot to mention and makes playing the Simulator more desirable because it actually means something since you move up your ranking as you improve (and if you don't want to play a 'meaningful' game you don't have to load your player). Pretty much everything that could be included, is included, other than the famed Game Boy Camera option which would have give you an editor to map faces onto characters for that ultimate personalised touch - even the three-dimensional nature of the faces is a big improvement on the flat ones of 'Goldeneye.' What else is there to say? I could go through every level and talk about the highs and lows, or review every weapon (I haven't even discussed the brilliant idea of every one having a secondary function - the ability to pilot a missile around a level is unbelievably good fun, especially chasing someone down in multiplayer!), discuss the story (which is so-so, but does have its twists and turns), and go on and on about those endless options. But I think you get the idea that this is one of the absolute top-tier releases on the system. I'm giving you the excuse, or should I say option, to stop reading... now.
*****
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