Genre: First Person Shooter
Year: 2000
Developed by: Rare
Published by: Rare
Platforms: N64
#54
Feeling Like: Farsighted
Perfect Dark came out on May 22, 2000 and the timing could not have been worse. Exams for Grade 10 were coming in just a few weeks, a fact my parents were irritatingly aware of. You’d think my grades were good enough (they weren’t) to get the benefit of the doubt, so a negotiation was required. I could have used a mediator, or I could have just done the mature thing and wait for exams to be over before purchasing it.
I was 16 years old and obsessed with video games, being mature did not factor into the equation.
I forget what I had to concede in the deal, but I managed to get about fifteen minutes of playtime in a day. As if that could possibly satiate me, this was the spiritual sequel to Goldeneye 007 by Rare in the year 2000. This was Rare at their apogee; what they were doing with the N64 hardware had to be seen to be believed, although preferably played instead of just watching.
It was far ahead of its time. It’s one of those rare few that are obviously too big for the console they launched on. It was simply too ambitious, you could hardly fault Rare for the framerate. It’s a miracle the N64 could run it at all.
Everything you could possibly want in a shooter was here; futuristic settings, incredible single player missions, unique weapons like the Cyclone and Farsight, and more settings than you could possibly imagine.
I can’t, and won’t, associate Perfect Dark with anybody other than Eric S. He introduced me to Goldeneye 007 and I’m confident we played every single multiplayer game the Nintendo 64 had to offer, but Perfect Dark was his stomping ground. He was generous enough to into more detail.
(Eric)
By the time you’re 39-going-on-60 (judging by knee-pain), you’ll have likely acquired some perspective about the previous 38-going-on-59 years. Many of those years were spent on video games – “wasted,” if many vocal detractors are to be believed. I now have a wife, a child, a house that owns me as much as I own it, an increasingly demanding job, resident in-laws, and I wouldn’t trade any of that to revisit my misspent youth. Okay, maybe the last two, depending on the bargain. But still, for all the perspective I ought to have obtained by this point, the most galling change in my lifestyle has been the near-complete departure of video games from my daytime hours.
Follow me? Daytime.
Oh sure, I’m falling into bed most nights, a desiccated, vacuous husk of a man, sapped and spent from the day’s many labours. But some nights, just a few quiet evenings when the rest of the house is sound asleep, I revisit my younger, unencumbered self and relive some of my glory days.
And the most glorious of those days came from one ambitious title, debuted in The Year 2000 to much fanfare and only moderate success, a near-perfect example of the marriage of form and function and, like so many great works of art, only properly appreciated after its time: Perfect Dark.
Come at me, Goldeneye 007 fanboys. Everything that made that game great (and it WAS great, don’t get me wrong) was improved upon in Perfect Dark. Except for the blocky characters, of course – it was still basically Minecraft with rocket launchers.
Set in an oddly futuristic 2023, this spiritual successor to “Bond” pushed the technology available at the time to its absolute limits, with roughly 65% of the game content unavailable without the N64 expansion pack RAM upgrade. Perfect Dark had everything you could ask for: a deep single player campaign which included a co-op option and four difficulty settings, one of which could be customized; 42 incredibly creative weapons, including a thermovision sniper rifle that could shoot through walls and a gatling gun that could turn into a melee-range lawnmower; training stages that were actually rewarding and encouraged replay (how great was that shooting range?); and, the pièce de resistance, the best multiplayer shooter in history. Full stop.
The. Best. Multiplayer. Shooter. I didn’t say “up to that point,” I mean ever. Before or after.
Let’s review the facts. The “Combat Simulator,” as Perfect Dark called it, included the following:
- 30 challenges of increasing difficulty, which could be completed by anywhere from 1-4 players, through which additional settings, maps, and character models could be unlocked for the normal multiplayer.
- 1-4 player scenarios, including regular ol’ “Combat” as well as versions of capture the flag, hot potato, king of the hill, and more. Play in teams or free for all.
- The scenarios included 16 incredibly distinct and Complex maps (get it?), including three classics from Goldeneye
- Those same scenarios could include up to eight “Simulant” players, bots that, if on your team, could follow five different types of orders, came in five different difficulty settings, and 12 different personalities. “JudgeSim” would stalk the winning player to try and even the score, “SpeedSims” could sprint around the map at lightning pace, “FistSims” were always unarmed, etc.
- Characters could be customized with different heads and body types, with dozens and dozens of options
- Up to 17 different awards could be given out at the end of each match, including the sought after “Most Deadly” and “Marksmanship Award,” and the hilariously judgemental “Most Cowardly” and “Most Dishonourable.”
- Additionally, four medals could also be earned: Killmaster (red), Head Shot (yellow), Accuracy (Green), and Survivor (Blue).
- The above medals and other statistics would accrue on individual profiles, resulting in one of 21 different ranks ranging from Beginner to Veteran to Perfect.
- These player profiles could be saved to individual memory packs and were thus portable. “Bring your controller” was the clarion call before game night.
For reference, to attain the 1: Perfect rank you needed 18,000 kills, 90,000 damage dealt, 450,000 ammo used, 9000km run, 12.5 days of combat, 900 games won, and 900 of each medal. Accuracy medals were notoriously difficult to earn and held most of us back in advancing in the ranks. I ended my career at 5: Lethal, which, I don’t have to tell you, is pretty impressive (cue Ron Burgundy gif).
So, you’ve seen the list. Elements of the above can be found in any number of modern shooters. I dare you to find a game with all of them.
If that hasn’t convinced your brain, let me appeal to your heart. Teenage Eric lived for this game. Whether it was a friend’s basement, happily murdering Henry, Kasim, Dobbo, or some poor rando who had no business joining us, or in my own home, steadily turning my very accommodating little sister into a respectable killer in her own right, it didn’t matter. It was heaven. I’d found something I was good at, and BOY was I good at it.
Double-ricochet bank shots with the grenade launcher in the Felicity (Bond’s Facility). 360 no-scope (okay, quick scope) with the Farsight in the Complex. Praying for the laptop gun to save you from the DarkSims. Spawn-camping proximity mines (because you’d better believe I’d memorized all the respawn points). Reaper madness. Exploiting the double-Mauler ammo glitch to have that little bit extra in a prolonged fight. One hit kill slap fights. The list goes on.
Henry was the lord of 4-player Smash Bros, Kasim was a diabolical genius at Super Bomberman, Dobbo was Dobbo and good at everything, and they all certainly held their own at Perfect Dark. But… it felt like it was mine, in a way no game before or since has. It was made for me.I kept my N64. My sister and I still dust it off each Christmas. Just so happens it’s December. Looks like some more Perfect Dark is just around the corner.
(Eric’s writeup finished)
I guess I understand why Joanna Dark never really caught on as a gaming icon. Perfect Dark Zero landed with a thud, and Rare was never the same once Nintendo sold them. I’m lucky I waited until the year 2023 to post this entry: it’s the year Perfect Dark is set in, and it’s also the year Microsoft announced that a reboot of the franchise was being worked on. Anybody who sunk their teeth into Perfect Dark knows that it deserved better. It’s earned the reputation to be included in discussions of all-time great First Person Shooters. Its multiplayer options put modern titans to shame, it truly was ahead of its time. Now that we’re in that future, will we see a version that Perfect Dark truly deserves?
The 500 