Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a 2000 first-person shooter game developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64. The first game of the Perfect Dark series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research centre, as she attempts to stop an extraterrestrial conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. The game features a campaign mode where the player must complete a series of levels to progress through the story, as well as a range of multiplayer options, including a co-operative mode and traditional deathmatch settings with computer-controlled bots.
As a spiritual successor to Rare's 1997 first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark shares many features with its predecessor and runs on an upgraded version of its game engine. GoldenEye 007 director Martin Hollis led the game's production for the first fourteen months of its near three-year development cycle before he left Rare to pursue other interests. The game is one of the most technically-advanced titles for the Nintendo 64 and requires an Expansion Pak to access the campaign mode and most of the multiplayer features. Shortly before the game's release, a feature that would have allowed players to place a photograph of their choice onto the face of their multiplayer character was cut due to sensitivity issues surrounding the ability for players to attack images of real people.
Upon release, Perfect Dark received critical acclaim and sold relatively well, eventually joining Nintendo's "Player's Choice" game selection. Critics widely praised its graphics, artificial intelligence, and number of multiplayer options, but some criticised its inconsistent frame rate. The game received the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Moving Images Award for 2000 and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Interactive Product in 2001. The game is occasionally cited as one of the greatest games of all time. It is supplemented by a Game Boy Color counterpart, which allows some gameplay options to alternatively be unlocked via a Transfer Pak. A remaster, also titled Perfect Dark, featuring enhanced graphics and online multiplayer, was released for the Xbox 360 in 2010. The game was re-released on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2024.
Gameplay
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter where players complete levels to unlock content and progress through the game's storyline. Players maneuver their character from a first-person perspective and have the ability to lean left or right, look up or down, crouch, crawl, and drop from most ledges; there is no jump ability. Interaction with the environment is via a single button, which can activate computers, operate lifts, and open doors. Players can carry an unlimited number of weapons, ranging from handguns to assault rifles, rocket launchers, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and combat knives. Besides their primary mode of fire, weapons have a secondary function that enables an alternate fire mode or grants players special abilities. For example, the secondary function of the K7 Avenger assault rifle detects threats like explosive devices. Most weapons have a finite magazine and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. Some can be used in duplicate, one in each hand.Players have a certain amount of health, which decreases when attacked by opponents. Although the game does not feature health recovery items, players can pick up shields that protect them with a secondary health bar. Players and opponents can disarm each other at close range, and players may use this feature to steal weapons or knock foes unconscious. Damage taken during combat is location-based, with a shot to the torso causing more damage than a shot to a limb. A number of tutorials and training activities can be taken in the game's home level. The most notable of these is the shooting range, where players can test their proficiency with the game's weapons in individual challenges. In addition to training activities, players can find information about the game's locations and characters, which are gradually unlocked as they complete levels.
Campaign
Perfect Dark features a campaign mode where a single player controls the game's protagonist, Joanna Dark, through a series of levels collected together into missions. In each level, the player must complete a set of objectives while opponents controlled by the game's artificial intelligence try to hinder the player's progress. Objectives generally require the recovery and use of high-tech gadgets like night-vision goggles or door decoders. The player has freedom as to how to approach encounters, and many objectives can be completed in a nonlinear order. Stealth is an important element of the gameplay because the player can kill opponents without being seen or remain undetected by using disguises. If Joanna fails an objective or her health is fully depleted, the player must start the level again from the beginning.Each level can be played on three distinct difficulty settings. These affect aspects such as the number of objectives that must be completed, damage taken from opponents, the effectiveness of the game's optional aiming assistance, and the availability of ammunition and protective shields. Four bonus levels may be unlocked by completing the campaign on each difficulty setting and all the challenges in the firing range. Some of these bonus levels allow the player to assume the role of a different character. If all the levels have been completed on the highest difficulty, an additional setting becomes available, allowing the player to customise various aspects of the game's opponents, such as their health, aiming accuracy, and the damage they inflict. The player may unlock cheats by completing levels within a certain time limit.
The campaign includes a co-operative mode, allowing either two players or one player and up to four computer-controlled bots, to tackle a level together. If two players play, the game splits the screen horizontally or vertically. Options such as friendly fire can be disabled, and only one player is required to survive a level. A "Counter-Operative" mode is included, allowing one player to play a level as Joanna while another takes the role of an opponent attempting to stop her. The player-controlled opponent has less health than Joanna but will reappear as another opponent when defeated. The opposing player may choose to take control of another opponent at any time by swallowing a suicide pill.
Multiplayer
Perfect Dark features a multiplayer mode where up to four players and eight computer-controlled bots can compete against each other in different arenas. A split-screen is used for multiple players. Players start a game unarmed and with a certain amount of health. Weapons and ammunition are placed around the arena in preset positions. Once a player is killed, they are regenerated unarmed elsewhere in the arena. The objective of each game is determined by the scenario being played. Scenarios range from the traditional deathmatch mode, where players score points by killing opponents, to objective-based modes such as Capture the Flag or King of the Hill.Aspects of a multiplayer game can be highly customised, including the chosen arena, the winning conditions, and the ability to choose what weapons and items appear in the arena. Players can be grouped into teams or compete individually, and they can optionally be shown coloured according to their team. The appearance, team affiliation, skill level and pre-set behaviours of each computer-controlled bot can be customised. Pre-set behaviours range from them pursuing the highest-scoring player to exclusively chasing the player who killed them last. Other behaviours restrict bots to only attack players using fists and disarming moves. On higher skill levels, bots perform actions at a superhuman level. Players may issue commands to bots of their team to perform certain tasks. For example, a player can order an allied bot to defend an area or attack a designated opponent.
The multiplayer mode includes 30 pre-set challenges against bots that may be tackled by one or more players. These challenges cover a variety of game types, weapon arrangements, and level setups. By completing challenges, additional features such as new weapons, player models, and bot behaviours are unlocked. At the end of a match, the overall results are shown, alongside information about the individual players' performance. The game keeps track of player statistics such as damage dealt and distance travelled and awards players with medals based on how well they performed. Players are ranked according to their performance; the better the performance, the higher the grade. The player's overall progress, multiplayer setups, and character profiles can be saved to the Nintendo 64 game cartridge or a Controller Pak. The game also supports the Rumble Pak.
Plot
In 2023, there is an interstellar war between two alien races: the Maians, who resemble the archetypal Grey alien, and the Skedar, reptile-like wicked creatures who use a cloaking device to appear human. On Earth, there is an ongoing rivalry between two companies: the Carrington Institute, a research center founded by Daniel Carrington that secretly operates an espionage group in league with the Maians; and dataDyne, a defense contractor corporation headed by Cassandra de Vries. In exchange for creating an AI with code-breaking abilities to access an ancient alien spacecraft at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, the Skedar agree to supply dataDyne with enough alien technology to become the biggest corporation on Earth.Joanna Dark is an agent of the Carrington Institute whose flawless scores in training have earned her the nickname "Perfect Dark". On her first mission, she is sent to extract a defector known as Dr. Caroll from a dataDyne laboratory. Dr. Caroll is revealed to be the AI created by dataDyne and is worried about the mission for which it had been designed. After the extraction, Carrington is held captive at his private villa by dataDyne soldiers. When Joanna rescues him, she is informed that Dr. Caroll has been taken to a dataDyne front in Chicago. There, Joanna learns that Cassandra, NSA director Trent Easton, and a mysterious man known as Mr. Blonde plan to kidnap the President of the United States to get access to a deep sea research vessel called the Pelagic II. Although the President is in danger, Carrington alerts Joanna that a Maian craft was shot down near Area 51 and sends her to rescue a Maian protector named Elvis.
Because the President of the United States refuses to loan dataDyne the Pelagic II, the NSA sends a strike team to kill and replace him with a dataDyne-grown clone. The strike team invades the air base from which the Air Force One will depart. When Joanna foils this strike, the NSA and a group of cloaked Skedar take over the plane itself, which crashes after Joanna attempts to detach a craft attached to it. Having survived the crash, Joanna eliminates the President's clone and rescues the real President. Trent's incompetence angers Mr. Blonde, who kills him after disabling his cloaking device. With no other options, dataDyne hijacks the Pelagic II to reach the ancient spacecraft. However, unbeknownst to dataDyne, the spacecraft contains a powerful weapon capable of destroying a planet, and the Skedar intend to test it on Earth before using it against the Maian homeworld.
Joanna and Elvis follow dataDyne to the ancient spacecraft, where they find a reprogrammed Dr. Caroll cracking the weapon. Joanna replaces its current personality with a backup of the original, and the restored Dr. Caroll sets the weapon to self-destruct. As Carrington and Joanna prepare for a Presidential reception, the Skedar assault the Carrington Institute and capture Joanna. In space, aboard an alien spaceship on course to the Skedar homeworld, Joanna finds herself in a holding cell with Cassandra. Feeling that she has been used, Cassandra redeems herself by making a distraction and sacrificing herself, freeing Joanna and therefore giving herself a chance for revenge. With the help of Elvis, Joanna takes control of the spaceship and lands on the Skedar homeworld, where she ultimately defeats the Skedar leader, leaving the Skedar in disarray. The game ends with Elvis and Joanna leaving the planet just prior to an orbital bombardment from the Maian navy.