Perfect Dark (Nintendo 64) review "Have you ever had those parties where you try to kill your friends with various weapons and it seems they same people always dominate and you always have those same bumpkins on the bottom. Well Perfect Dark continues the era. I, Donnie, still remains as the bottom even though I own the game, however being a bottom feeder is not that bad when you are playing Perfect Dark. There are tons of different ways to play it, and there is always the event modes incase you want some fun. Did I say I suck at..."

Have you ever had those parties where you try to kill your friends with various weapons and it seems they same people always dominate and you always have those same bumpkins on the bottom. Well Perfect Dark continues the era. I, Donnie, still remains as the bottom even though I own the game, however being a bottom feeder is not that bad when you are playing Perfect Dark. There are tons of different ways to play it, and there is always the event modes incase you want some fun. Did I say I suck at shooters? For I do, however I still enjoy Perfect Dark nonetheless.

STORY (8/10): I have heard Perfect Dark has a strong story. I am no where good enough to move past Chicago in the 1 player mode, however I can tell that the story would develop even farther than it already had, and so it will be strong in the end.

GRAPHICS (20/20): Wow... These graphics are crisp and clean, and look at those guns. I wish I had one of them the next time a salesman came over. I mean, the guns look pretty damn sweet. All of the AI look fairly different, like the Turtle Sim is fat, and the actual in game characters all look very slick. The backgrounds are either detailed with the sky and scenery, or the darkness of very tunnels. These graphics are unbelievabaly slick and smooth. There is a reason why you basically need the Expansion pack to play the game.

SOUND (8/10): Perfect Dark is not a game you are going to remember because of the SoundTrack, for it is nothing great, and yet it is not that bad either. It fits the mood of the game, and the music will not hurt too much. However the sound effects are slick. The groans when you are shot, and the nice sound of the bullets shooting from whatever gun you are using. Did I say some of the bullets even sound different?

GAMEPLAY (30/30): I am no fan of first person shooters, and for me to give one a perfect in the gameplay department must mean it is one of the best, and well Perfect Dark is the best. First of all there is the 1 player mode in which you go through a storyline, and stage by stage you have to do daring feats and free some people, or well computers. There are three difficulties for each of the stages, and well even the first mode is tough. Now from there you have CounterOp and CoOp which I will go into more detail in multiplayer. Then what puts this game above and beyond GoldenEye is the Event mode. There are like 30 or so events, in which you can do with 1,2,3, or 4 players, and to perfect it you have to do it with all those combinations (Who plays with 3 people?) And these events get tougher as they go along, however they are entertaining, especially when you first buy it. And how many games is it fun to play the multiplayer mode, by yourself. I think I do that more than anything else, for I can win at that. You can go against various Sims of your choice with your favorite weapon, in your favorite room. Prey on the already weak, or go after the best. That is your decision. Now to the actual gameplay. There is a great variety of guns and they all have their entertainment value. You can run around, and strafe and do what you best seem fit to kill your enemies. And maybe you don't want to play a simple shoot and kill game. There is capture the flag, and this other game in which you hold out in a room, and earn points for how many people are in it. You cannot complain with the variety of things to do in Perfect Dark, and it will keep you far from bored.

CONTROLS (10/10): A shooter can be made needlessly hard if the controls cannot hold their own, right. Well you do not have to worry about that in Perfect Dark, for the controls will do as you command, and they will respond when the button assigned to them is pressed. The aim is all dependant on you, and if you aim correctly you will get them perfectly. The Sniper in this game is a little weak on the control side, but I will not penalize the game for one gun.

MULTIPLAYER (11/10): The Multiplayer is what makes Perfect Dark better than Golden Eye, better than Unreal Tournament, and puts it on the top of the mountain. The amount of fun it is to run around brandishing your personal favorite gun, looking for the friendly bumpkin to shoot in the back. And if you are not into friend against friend, you can always team up in either the Events or just in regular matches, against a cast of AI called Sims, and you can pick the type you want each Sim to be. And if you suck at 1st person like me, well there is Co-op in which you team up to travel through the 1 player modes, and Counter-Op when one of you is on the badguy team, and is out to kill you. Did I tell you that this game has much to offer??

REPLAYABILITY (5/5): Seeing I have already accounted for Multiplayer, what about single player replayability. It is definitely still a strength with the multiple difficulty levels you can do in each stage, and there are the events. Some of them will take skill and brains to pass through, for the Sims will go out and try to get you. It is more fun with friends around, but single player is a ball nonetheless.

DIFFICULTY (2/5): This is the only game I have reviewed that's biggest level is the difficulty. Perfect Dark is made for the masters of First Person Shooters. It is made for the people that can beat Golden Eye, and is not made for the nobodies. I have serious problems in this game, because it is too damn hard. Unreal Tournament I can play, but in truth Perfect Dark I can't. If you are not good at first person shooters, this is definitely a risky purchase. However there are still some areas which are fun no matter how bad you are.

OVERALL (94/100): Now Perfect Dark fans here me out, a 94 is a respectable score, for I have an unfair prejudice against first person shooter. This could as easily be a 97 or more if I could actually play through it, but see the problem is some people like me do not have a shot of surviving. Unreal Tournament showed me that a great First Person shooter can be made, in which I can actaully look good in. However Perfect Dark surpasses Unreal Tournament and every other shooter in every other category. Perfect Dark is what all shooters should strive to become, and in my mind this is easily the best game to ever come out of the company Rare, and well Rare is a pretty major company. Pick up Perfect Dark, and no matter how much you struggle you will still have fun. This game teaches you, that you can still have fun when you lose.

Community review by ratking (July 02, 2002) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.