Blizzardic Planet

Perfect Dark

Although I didn't praise GoldenEye too much in my review, my expectations about its semi-sequel, Perfect Dark are pretty high. Why exactly? Because the dev team behind both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark are promising something out of this world. Should you be trusting them blindly, I'd bet you shouldn't. Rare said already before GoldenEye was introduced that it would be more of a stealthy spying game, where you should sneak around silently and not getting guards too suspicious. Was it like that, no it wasn't, in fact it was quite the opposite. That's exactly the same Rare are saying about PD. There are reasons for my

Thank god there's no lens flare. The front side of the man is in shadow, spooky.

expectations, first of all, PD isn't based on a license, which gives a lot of freedom in every way. Also, there will be AI controlled bots in the multiplayer, which is just great for those who don't have four controllers. You can make up teams mixing both players and bots, ideal choice for two player games, or then you could play cooperative with your friend(s) against a team(s) of bots.

Here's a few ideas that would make PD a definite console game of the year 2000. More spying and covert missions!!! The later missions in GE were pretty disappointing, because the missions were only a mix of pure shooting action and running around. I still remember the feeling I had while playing one of the missions in Rainbow 6 (in fact there was two of them), where you had to sneak behind corners and avoid any contacts with enemy. If the enemy saw you, the mission failed. Although you could not use any weapon, the missions were more fun than most of the ordinary ones. It would certainly be cool to have such missions in PD with a bit more stealthy action with only silenced guns making almost no sound at all. Add to that, more outdoor levels, such as the "Surface" -mission in GE, especially in multiplayer. There will be a some kind of China Town -mission in the beginning of PD, according to the official N64 mag of UK. That gives an excellent playground for team battles in multiplayer. Imagine two teams fighting for the best sniping positions in a large town full of dark hiding places and tall skyscrapers. I can only wish for Rare to use it also as a multiplayer map. You could dream on for the next ten years, too bad.

Now, to the facts. You won't be playing as one of the MI5 agents, sorry. Instead you are a female spy working for the Carrington Institute, your name is Joanna Dark. The first mission unveils a couple of things about the plot. Somewhere in the next century, around year 2020, a megacorporation called dataDyne is doing something fishy. An important scientist working for

This is the escape route, looks like Chinatown. If the graphics in the game are smooth and looking this good, I'm sold.

the dataDyne has contacted the Institute, requesting that he would be resqued from the dataDyne's office building, which is a skycraper in the middle of the city. He says that dataDyne is forcing him to do something he thinks isn't morally right and threats him with "mental restructuration". In all, it sounds like the business around the dataDyne corporation isn't quite harmless. The Carrington Institute sends you to the resque mission alone, providing you with a pistol and a lift to the site. The mission takes a whole three levels to complete: Finding the way to the scientist, the second is to locate and resque him and the last one is the escape from the site. There will be around 22 levels divided in 12 or 13 missions, I'd say this is a pretty good improvement from the level system used in GoldenEye.

The controlling system is the same as is GE, the targeting/shooting system will be enhanced with some odd locking system. The system allows you to mark enemies, civilians, computers,

This is the most recent screen from Perfect Dark, may not look like much though.

anything you wan't. This is required in some of the guns and I presume it has a meaning later in the game in some missions. Graphics are enhanced by the 4 MB expansion pak, but doesn't require it. It has been said that the even without the 4MB pak PD looks remarkable, but the worst thing is that the framerates aren't that good at all, even WITH the 4MB pak. I seriously hope they'll fix the problem, one of the biggest problems in GE was ever so glitchy framerates. One other improvement is the cinematic cut-scenes, totally over an hour of it, with digitized speech and all. They're saying that the enemies will shout often in firefights to each other. Now that's a huge improvement.

There's one thing GE failed to really succeed in. That is the weaponry, of course. Writers have said that there will be about 40 new weapons in PD, including machine guns, laser pistols, a mini crossbow and the famous FarSight. I'll keep you in excitement about the FarSight, the only thing I'll tell you that it's a kind of sniper rifle enhanced by infra-red scope

Now this impresses me a big time, cool design and colors look fantastic.

and completed with high penetration bullets. What, did you say machine guns and laser pistols!!! Damn it, those two words don't promise much of the spy atmosphere that Rare are talking about all the time. Somehow, I think we'll be having just another GoldenEye-esque 3rd person shooter, not the covert operation spying game that every N64 mag (especially british ones) are promising in their world exclusive previews. Still, despite the little flaws I've told you about, Perfect Dark will be a massive hit around the world and I can't say that I won't be waiting for it eagerly for the next couple of months. I must say that the incredible storyline and the outstanding multiplayer mode sounds intriguing, in fact so much that PD is about to be one of the best games ever seen on N64 or PlayStation. Perfect Dark will be out in somewhere around Easter, in April.

Anticipation rating:

Preview by: Janne Mankila
Sources of information: UK´s Official N64 Magazine, www.ign64.com,
www.nintendojo.com, www.nintendorks.com and www.rareware.com