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Perfect Dark N64

T

Truelize

Steroid Distributor
I picked this up today on the cheap due to PDZ coming out (hopefully) later this year and I wanted to know what the first game played like and what the story was like.
It's amazing what everyone thought was a great looking game back then. This game is so ugly. And I understand the comments about the framerate, I was getting sick after about an hour.
I really like the game so far though. It seems to be put together really well and now that I've gotten used to the aiming I'm really liking the combat.

It's just so dated looking. I think FPS show their age more than any other type of game.
 
Yeah, I never understood the praise for this game. Ugly graphics, terrible framerate, boring levels (until the second half anyway). And Elvis.

"I have a headache -- and with a head this big, that's no joke!" :P
 
I thought it was a horrible looking and horrible playing game when it first game out. ugh.


15 frames per second is totally, totally unacceptable. even for N64.
 
No, it most definitely was not a horrible looking game when it came out. In a crowd with guns blazing, yes, but it was pretty great graphically.

Damn shame about how aged it looks.
 
I loved PD when it released, but multi was never as fun as Goldeneye, to me. The inconsistent framerate and the latter half of the game are the bad parts of the game. Aside from that, it was ahead of its time in many ways.
 
Perfect Dark was great, but I didn't like it as much as Goldeneye. I think they went for a more PC style FPS with it, and that was what I didn't like (and generally I don't really dig futuristic settings). The multiplayer maps were just much more generic than those in Goldeneye. However, bots were a great inclusion, and the weapons were fantastic. Slayer on temple with four players and a heap of bots was genius. And let's not forget the level of customisation either. The challenges were also loads of fun. A few months ago myself and a few friends played it again and it was still very entertaining, once we got used to the controls again.

Hell, I think if both perfect Dark and Goldeneye were remade for next gen consoles with Halo controls they'd still hold their own against current FPS', although that may be nostalgia (and 37387393903 hours of multiplayer goodness) talking.
 
Mike Works said:
The game had amazing graphics for it's time, calling it ugly (back then) is dumb.
Click to expand...

Not entirely fair. Both PD and Halo 2 are games with early versions (GE [in a sense] and Halo 1) that I loved but then went on to push the hardware a little too far. Both games are considered by many to be gorgeous but there are others such as myself who cannot stand the choppy/blurry “je ne sais quoi” that they both sport and actually get headaches or a bit nauseous when playing/watching them.
 
Single player was good.

Multi wasn't half as fun as GE even with the buttload of additions including bots.

Co-Op was unplayable. *shudder*

I expect the same out of PDZ.
 
Prince of Space said:
"I have a headache -- and with a head this big, that's no joke!" :P
Click to expand...

:lol I loved that.

It was a polished game with some neat ideas throughout however the missions were never as replayable, or clever, as the ones in Goldeneye. The level design and maps in Multiplayer were also disappointing. My friends and I kept returning to the classic Complex, Facility and Temple maps....
Grid was fun though.
 
Multiplayer was much better than GE imo. Complex was all you needed on either game, and Complex with turrets, bots, and remote controlled rockets > GE Complex.

But yea, the game was amazing back then. It's also the game that taught me the meaning of the term framerate.

Oh, and I think it'll run better with the expansion pack if you don't have one of those.
 
ZombieSupaStar said:
wasnt PD basically unplayable without a ram pack if I remember correctly?


talk about dooming your sales
Click to expand...

It was playable, but certain modes and features weren't accessible without the Expansion Pack.

I'm with those who'd be satisfied with a graphically updated version of the game for next gen and nothing more (well, online play would be a must too). The gameplay, environments, and level design are already great -- only thing hold it back are its graphics.
 
I actually played it recently and thought the graphics held up pretty good. Definately looks better today than almost every other n64 game.

And at the time it was released I was totally blown away by it. Everything in it was so ahead of it's time so that when the same things are in PDZ, everyone will call them revolutionary.
 
Hell no this game was not ugly when it released. Now the frame rate I'll grant you was eveywhere,but then again I loved Turok 2 so I could and still can handle so-so frames in a game.

Anyways-Perfect Dark was nice looking for its time. Call it the art direction,stage settigs,wahetevr,it just looked pretty damn good for a console game in the late 90's.

This one stage I clearly remember was one that looked like it was inspired from the film-Blade Runner. The setting looked like it was based on a futuristic Neo Tokyo,it looked really great. I remember there being alot of game detail that was pretty impressive for a console game of that time. Like the sewer trenches that had steam rising below your feet as you slowly made your way past the patrolling police within the streets,police sirens in the background blaring also. The game looked great and had one hell of an atmosphere to it.

I've always liked the look to Rares games. JetForce Gemini is another favorite of mine as well.

Once I buy myself a better PC I'll be sure to play the game emulated.
 
Perfect Dark's strength lies in its replayability. If you just blaze through this game on easy then you are really missing out.

The harder dificulty levels give much more mission objectives and unlock more levels. Completing the game on the hardest diffuclty is a great challenge and kept me hooked to the game.

Im not the sort of person who likes to replay games or even complete them most of the time but PD is an exception.

You need the 4meg expansion pack to see the graphics in hirez mode. The graphics were excellent at the time it was released.
 
You needed the expansion pak to play the single player mode AT ALL.
Without the pak, you just had a couple of multiplayer modes.

I tried playing PD on Project 64 recently, and the difference is night and day. 640x480 sharp graphics, steady framerate - it's like a different game.
Wonder how the Revolution emulation will work with it. Accurate slowdown or enhanced?
 
Dr Zhivago said:
You needed the expansion pak to play the single player mode AT ALL.
Without the pak, you just had a couple of multiplayer modes.

I tried playing PD on Project 64 recently, and the difference is night and day. 640x480 sharp graphics, steady framerate - it's like a different game.
Wonder how the Revolution emulation will work with it. Accurate slowdown or enhanced?
Click to expand...


ha! i knew it
 
It takes about an hour to get used used to the sub 30fps nad blurryness of N64 games.
But after a while you dont even notice it. And concentrate on the gameplay.
 
the main thing that made GE better in Multi was the vest in GE wasn't anywhere near as strong as the Shield in PD, making Shield camping a much bigger strategical factor...

well, for the group of people i played with anyway...

that and the FarSight/Laptop Gun combo should be illegal...
 
Agisthos said:
Perfect Dark's strength lies in its replayability. If you just blaze through this game on easy then you are really missing out.

The harder dificulty levels give much more mission objectives and unlock more levels. Completing the game on the hardest diffuclty is a great challenge and kept me hooked to the game.

Im not the sort of person who likes to replay games or even complete them most of the time but PD is an exception.

You need the 4meg expansion pack to see the graphics in hirez mode. The graphics were excellent at the time it was released.
Click to expand...
there are also several story changes in the hardest difficulty
 
Dr Zhivago said:
You needed the expansion pak to play the single player mode AT ALL.
Without the pak, you just had a couple of multiplayer modes.

I tried playing PD on Project 64 recently, and the difference is night and day. 640x480 sharp graphics, steady framerate - it's like a different game.
Wonder how the Revolution emulation will work with it. Accurate slowdown or enhanced?
Click to expand...
Try it out with 1600x1200, that looked still pretty good to me. Do that and take a screenie plz :)
 
Mike Works said:
The game had amazing graphics for it's time, calling it ugly (back then) is dumb.
Click to expand...

Agreed. In hi-res it's the better looking N64 game although the framerate sucks.
 
The game looked great, but the framerate was shit. The story was boring (too much stuff going on... People compared DataDYNE to Microsoft, even thought I never really think of an obvious connection) and the game to me was a deception...
 
I paid like 80 bucks for this game PLUS the memory cart you needed to play it. I knew I made a big fucking mistake as soon as I saw the intro running at like 5-10 fps. :lol This game is just plain shit. The framerate lowers quite frequently into unplayable levels, even worse in multiplayer. It's just unadultered ass. Sold this piece of shit without finishing it, but kept the memory cart for Majora's Mask. :)
 
I completely dug it. Didn't even notice the framerate (maybe because it was PAL?). Played it like 90 hours with some friends.
 
The game's been cheap for awhile now, it has nothing to do with the new Perfect Dark coming. I saw it between 5-10 bucks for a year now.
 
CabbageRed said:
Not entirely fair. Both PD and Halo 2 are games with early versions (GE [in a sense] and Halo 1) that I loved but then went on to push the hardware a little too far. Both games are considered by many to be gorgeous but there are others such as myself who cannot stand the choppy/blurry “je ne sais quoi” that they both sport and actually get headaches or a bit nauseous when playing/watching them.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed the single player of Halo more, but the technical assessment is inaccurate and silly.

I agree that PD doesn't hold up to well graphically, but it was pretty great at the time. Minus the framerate problems. Goldeneye is pretty ugly now too.
 
Perfect Dark was a good game for its time... but IMO it wasn't as good as GoldenEye in a number of ways.

Levels were either awesome (Villa, Air Force One) or crap (Cetan Ship, Pelagic, etc). GoldenEye had tight and focused maps, while some stages in PD were gigantic sprawling messes. The Cetan Ship is a total nightmare -- tons of samey corridors and some dumb teleporter shite to wade through.

Weapon selection wasn't as good. Each gun in GoldenEye had very specific properties in terms of accuracy, firing rate and damage, and thus specific strengths and weaknesses. PD throws in a whole bunch of generic machine guns with gimmicky secondary functions. Don't get me wrong, some of them were neat, but a lot weren't -- and that still left you with a bunch of guns that had fairly similar primary functions.

The storyline was pure crap. I'm only annoyed about this because Rare made such a big fuss about keeping the storyline secret and how great it was for them to have creative freedom to do what they want away from the Bond license. And with all that freedom, the best they could come up with was to follow the most clichéd sci-fi story imaginable? Ugh.

I had a couple more, but I haven't actually played PD in about a year so :-P
 
Musashi Wins! said:
I enjoyed the single player of Halo more, but the technical assessment is inaccurate and silly.

I agree that PD doesn't hold up to well graphically, but it was pretty great at the time. Minus the framerate problems. Goldeneye is pretty ugly now too.
Click to expand...

“Inaccurate and silly?” :-/ I wasn't stating an opinion but rather my eyes' reaction to the games. As you mentioned, PD had frame rate problems. Halo 2 was also hardly a champ in the fps department, the texture loading “feature” was an eye sore for some, and I – along with others – find Halo 2's graphics to be less “clean” than those found in Halo 1.

If the things I mentioned didn't bother you, that is great. As I mentioned, many people thought the game was gorgeous and you may very well be one of them. :) I, however, was bothered by these rough edges in a way that left me physically distracted.
 
Fowler said:
Perfect Dark was a good game for its time... but IMO it wasn't as good as GoldenEye in a number of ways.

Levels were either awesome (Villa, Air Force One) or crap (Cetan Ship, Pelagic, etc). GoldenEye had tight and focused maps, while some stages in PD were gigantic sprawling messes. The Cetan Ship is a total nightmare -- tons of samey corridors and some dumb teleporter shite to wade through.

Weapon selection wasn't as good. Each gun in GoldenEye had very specific properties in terms of accuracy, firing rate and damage, and thus specific strengths and weaknesses. PD throws in a whole bunch of generic machine guns with gimmicky secondary functions. Don't get me wrong, some of them were neat, but a lot weren't -- and that still left you with a bunch of guns that had fairly similar primary functions.

The storyline was pure crap. I'm only annoyed about this because Rare made such a big fuss about keeping the storyline secret and how great it was for them to have creative freedom to do what they want away from the Bond license. And with all that freedom, the best they could come up with was to follow the most clichéd sci-fi story imaginable? Ugh.

I had a couple more, but I haven't actually played PD in about a year so :-P
Click to expand...
I completely agree with this post. Perfect Dark was just so spotty...sometimes it was sheer brilliance, and other times I was asking myself why I was still even playing. I think I beat it on normal, started a few levels on hard, and then went on to other games. Even the multiplayer didn't have the same value as Goldeneye's, although all the different Sims were a very cool idea.
 
The single player wasn't very good, not compared to Goldeneye anyway, but I think the multiplayer blew it away. The sheer amount of options you can have, bots, classic maps and a few of the good new ones made it great. The multiplayer mode feels a lot tighter than the one in Goldeneye. I logged in hundreds and hundreds of hours playing it, even more than I did Goldeneye. The shields that were talked about above never bothered me since my friends and I play One Hit Kills almost exclusively.
 
human5892 said:
I completely agree with this post. Perfect Dark was just so spotty...sometimes it was sheer brilliance, and other times I was asking myself why I was still even playing.
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to agree as well. They had some great ideas, but it all boiled down to execution. Some worked, some didn't. That said

human5892 said:
Even the multiplayer didn't have the same value as Goldeneye's, although all the different Sims were a very cool idea.
Click to expand...
Heh, aside from the framerate issues if you were dumb enough to throw in 8 sims or whatever, I rather enjoyed multiplayer. I especially enjoyed the mass amounts of customization given to you. I'd say the only thing lacking was total-sim-customization. I wanted to make my sims and give them specific attributes (aim, speed, etc.).

Favourite Multi Setup:
Level = Complex
Weapons = 3 pistols (falcons), 3 cloaks
Players = 6 max (bots included)
Conditions = License to kill, no radar, unlimited time, 20 kills

The cloaks were great, because there was always enough to keep you cloaked long enough and the one-shot-kills scenario always made it interesting. Particularily because when you shot, the cloak went away. Patience was key.
 
Hyperballad said:
The game's been cheap for awhile now, it has nothing to do with the new Perfect Dark coming. I saw it between 5-10 bucks for a year now.
Click to expand...

Where I'm from all the big N64 games have really kept their value. I still see Banjo, Goldeneye, Mario and the Zeldas all for like $25. At $10 this was cheap.


I think the game is still playable. I was just really shocked to see how poorly done this game is especially due to all the trolls that come into Halo threads and shout off about how Perfect Dark was way better. Ridiculous. (I do not want to start a Halo vs PD talk though now. Step away from the controls.)
 
Truelize said:
I picked this up today on the cheap due to PDZ coming out (hopefully) later this year and I wanted to know what the first game played like and what the story was like.
It's amazing what everyone thought was a great looking game back then. This game is so ugly. And I understand the comments about the framerate, I was getting sick after about an hour.
I really like the game so far though. It seems to be put together really well and now that I've gotten used to the aiming I'm really liking the combat.

It's just so dated looking. I think FPS show their age more than any other type of game.
Click to expand...

It's dated looking because it IS dated. It's on a 10 year old system.
 
The only thing I remember about the game was the cool blurred vision effect after you got punched in multiplayer. That was cool!
 
TheDiave said:
The only thing I remember about the game was the cool blurred vision effect after you got punched in multiplayer. That was cool!
Click to expand...

Yeah I still remember the bug that was left in the NTSC version that if you were punched / tranqulized and died it would still be blurry for like 20 seconds after you respawn. That was so annoying :(
 
Mike Works said:
The game had amazing graphics for it's time, calling it ugly (back then) is dumb.
Click to expand...

Quake 3 came out in december of 1999. Perfect Dark was like summer 2000. It looked HORRIBLE
 
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