Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3815 in Video Games
• Released on: 2000-05-22
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Nintendo 64

Editorial Review
A first-person shooter that mixes spy and sci-fi, Perfect Dark is both a thoroughly engrossing one-player experience and a riotously fun multiplayer romp. Easily one of the best games of its genre on any video game console, this long-awaited follow-up to GoldenEye 007 is a must-have for Nintendo 64 owners--and a damn good reason to be one if you're not.

The futuristic Perfect Dark casts players as Joanna Dark, a secret agent who becomes embroiled in a sinister conspiracy involving aliens and an evil corporation. Gameplay is broken down into missions, each with objectives that must be unerringly completed before progressing to the next mission. This is not your typical kill-anything-that-moves game: putting a bullet in the wrong person, not keeping the right one alive, or perforating a seemingly unimportant inanimate object can often result in mission failure.

While Perfect Dark's solo missions play out much like those in GoldenEye 007, the game's fantastic multiplayer options are another matter entirely. Cooperative and counteroperative simultaneous-play modes allow for another player to join in on a mission as, respectively, a teammate or the enemy. However, the real fun here is in the highly customizable Combat Simulator, a one-to-four-player simultaneous-play mode that features both free-for-alls and team-based challenges and can include up to eight Simulants, computer-controlled combatants of varying behavior.

Although Simulants make for decent adversaries or teammates, you'll want to grab a friend--and an Expansion Pak, as only 35 percent of the game is available without one--to fully enjoy Perfect Dark. --Joe Hon

Pros:

• One of the best first-person shooters on any video game console
• Outstanding multiplayer game with huge replay value
• Bevy of game options, cheats, and secret features
• Excellent training mode with challenges all of its own

• Graphics get ugly when playing with more than two players

Amazon.com Preview
This is the game Nintendo 64 fans have waited for. Nearly three years after the uncloaking of super spy action-adventure GoldenEye 007, developer extraordinaire Rare introduces futuristic special operative Joanna Dark, a.k.a. Perfect. In Perfect Dark, players are sent on a fast-paced adventure from downtown Chicago skyscrapers to underground labs to undersea wrecks of otherworldly origins. Naturally, the storyline weaves a complex web of conspiracy, hidden agendas, and megalomaniac corporate leaders with deep underground (and off-world) ties. As spy-game fans expect, unraveling the plot and disposing of the baddies require a grab bag of hi-tech gadgets and special weapons--especially given the game's tougher and smarter enemies.

Perfect Dark features Dolby surround sound, widescreen compatibility, and--as expected--stunning special effects, including dynamic lighting, chest-thumping explosions and realistic smoke, dust and steam clouds. Characters are lifelike thanks to motion-captured animations and beautifully rendered 3-D models.

Perfect Dark's multiplayer features are impressive. As in GoldenEye 007, up to four players can deathmatch in up to 20 different arenas. But that's just the start of the fun. The inclusion of up to eight computer-controlled opponents ("bots") adds an original component to the frag-fest. Humans can team with or against bots and even command a bot teammate to target specific opponents. Numerous original games, such as King of the Hill, offer so many variations that you just might forget that an engrossing single-player experience lies at the heart of the game.

Special note: The gameplay and graphics are greatly enhanced with the extra memory boost provided by the N64 Expansion Pak. The main single- player missions and multiplayer enhancements (three- or four-player games, as opposed to two-player games without the Pak, and other options) are only available with the N64 Expansion Pak (not included). If you own Donkey Kong 64, you received a Pak bundled in with the game. Others must purchase an expansion RAM Pak separately, a highly recommended option. --Eric Twelker

Manufacturer Description
Meet Joanna Dark: gamings newest superstar in this highly anticipated "sequel" to GoldenEye. Battle super-smart enemies with laser targeting\drug darts\X-ray vision! Another blockbuster-to-be from Rare.

Customer Reviews

If you only buy one game for your N64, make it this one...
If only *half* of the goodies Rare (the developers of this game) have dropped on us wind up being in here, it still warrants five stars. But knowing them, they've only told us half of all the new stuff!

Based on Rare's extremely-popular Goldeneye engine, this is the "semi-sequel"... follow Joanna Dark as she infiltrates the dataDyne corporation to uncover a deep, sci-fi-based plot, with loads of weapons, strategy, and multiplayer fun!

Confirmed features include:
-- At least two multiplayer levels from Goldeneye
-- All of Goldeneye's weapons, and more
-- Much improved AI, where teams of enemies can interact, function as a group and assess threats
-- A weapon that slowly let's you target through, then shoot through walls (no, that's not a typo... bye-bye, campers!)
-- An intricate, deep plot (with numerous twists)
-- The ability to introduce "bots" to your multiplayer gaming... i.e., play by yourself against a few computer-controlled bots, or have a 4-player game and assign each player a bot to help them out, etc. The bots can also be set to specific modes, including Revenge (hunting whoever killed it--or it's human teammate, I'm not sure--last), Target (going after only one person the whole game), Pacifist (guess...), and more
-- More levels, some specifically designed for multiplayer
-- Real-time lighting effects, and other graphical goodies that I can't remember at the minute
-- The ability to take a snapshot of your face (yes, you being the person who holds the controller) and paste it onto your character in the game (this will be done via a Game Boy Camera...)
-- ... What are you waiting for? Pre-order it already! :-)

Perfect Dark is just plain Perfect
Its not an easy task to follow-up 1997's shootem up masterpiece Goldeneye. One of the bestselling games of all-time and a fan favorite, the game had something for everyone. But Rare, the original maker, has outdone themeselves with Perfect Dark. You play as Joanna Dark, a government agent on earth in 2029. As Joanna, its your job to stop the evil company DataDyne from taking control of the earth. This is a rapid first person shooter that gives you amazing weapons in awesome levels. You walking through futuristic Chicago, with an alien weapon shooting down bad guys, is one the coolest parts of the game, and all the parts are like this. The multiplayer was something Goldeney was hailed for, and PD's is leaps and bounds better. You can add extra bots, computer players, to your deathmatches, waste all your friends with over 44 weapons. And best of all, you can play the 1 player game, as a bad guy! The game requires the 4mb Expansion pack for the other half of the game and multi-player and is rated M for a lot of blood, as well as swearing that include s**t and b**ch, so its not a game for the kiddies. All in all, the game is a little Dark, but even more Perfect.

What a Pleasant and Bloody Surprise!
Being a fan of the Goldeneye game (which allowed for hours of death match fun for up to 4 people) my anticipation for Perfect Dark was high. I was, however, prepared for a letdown. Nor did I expect a superior gaming experience to Perfect Dark's infamous classic predecessor. What a pleasant and bloody surprise to find the action, gameplay, and the ever important graphics to be so dazzling and all immersing as to make my friends and I almost giveup playing Goldeneye completely!

A very Bond-like scenario, a secret agent (Joanna Dark) must save the world from nasty covert agencies and aliens! Ok, the aliens part isn't the least bit Bond-like but that's about the only difference. The single player story mode is very cinematic and interesting and fun enough, but what makes this game standout, like a strangely beautiful sore thumb, is the multiplayer gaming options. King of the hill (which gives you the option of stationary or mobile hill) forces you to defend a certain position from up to 4 computer simulants, of which you can change the level of intensity and intelligence, thus giving control of the difficulty numerous variables. There's the combat simulator (my favorite) which is just basically running around shooting either your friends or computer simulants until you achieve a certain point level (again this option is adjustable for ever changing gameplay). The realistic "deaths" and the amount of blood is what earned Perfect Dark its Mature rating, and considering in first player mode the computer enemies will literally beg you not to kill them and cry out to God as they die I think the rating is appropriate. And speaking of killing, the huge arsenal of weapons is another in a long list of plusses that make Perfect Dark, to date, the best game for the N64.

Bottom line if you loved Goldeneye and are seeking a newer and better gaming experience in which you and 3 other friends can sit around and play at killing each other in realistic (but not actual) fashion picking up Perfect Dark would be a pretty good idea.

Only drawback is that if you don't already own a controller pack, memory pack, and rumble pack you will need to invest in each to experience Perfect Dark in all its glory. ... So casual gamers might actually want to wait for the inevitable price drop (N64 will have to do this eventually, considering the release of PS2), but die hard gamers that are finding Goldeneye merely nostalgic ought to seriously consider making the investment. A solid and always fun gaming experience.