After releasing the prequel-Perfect Dark Zero-back in 2005, Microsoft thought it best to recreate the N64 classic that started it all with improved textures, steadier framerate, and online additions to the already impressive list of multiplayer options. With nostalgia turning out to be a great cash cow, it seems expected for a publisher to sink their teeth into what many proclaim to be one of the best fps' of all time. In a world where the first person shooter reign supreme, is their a perfect niche to be found in this $10 (800 MS point) shooter?
The story to this cyber-punk setting takes place in the year 2023. Johanna Dark works for the Carrington Institute, a pseudo-business, espionage company founded by Daniel Carrington. Achieveing the rank of "Perfect Dark" from the company, Johanna's tasked with Carrington's most dangerous missions to go after dataDyne, and eventually an evil alien race. The overall story is essentially one cheesy idea to the next, but it can show signs of knowing what it's doing. It's fairly obvious to see that the story was really just a placeholder to the assortment of great locales Johanna visits throughout the game. Dwadling the line between funny in a campy sense and stupid, Perfect Dark is the posterchild for enjoying the journey, rather then adoring the end result.
Developer 4J Studious, the ones behind the XBLA remakes of Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie, have really raised the bar on what can be done to revive what a game two generations can look like, without making it feel foreign to fans of N64's Perfect Dark. The sights and sounds are remastered to today's HD standards, although both aspects show some noticeable hitches. Despite all of the rigirous tasks completed by the developer on the technical side, this remake is going to be marked by the term "dated". If you understand the fact that the original required external RAM just to play 100% the game, it will be understandable to see Perfect Dark can be appreciated for simply keeping a solid framerate. Overall, the technical aspects may fall short thanks to there being no lip synching and questionable voice acting, but that's more at the fault of how far FPS have come since Perfect Dark's 2000 debut.
Being the spiritual successor to Rare's Goldeneye 007, Rare's "other half" FPS falls along most of the guidelines set by its predecessor while building upon those guidelines in almost every way. The seventeen missions are structured around the idea of adding more objectives and tougher enemies with each corresponding difficulty. This formula can feel fresh to most shooter fans since it's rarely used by many other games. These tidbits plus added "cheats" help to provide extras that feel like real incentives to go back through the campaign. The one aspect that can be found to be an annoyance is the lack of a clear marker to tell you where to complete the next objective. Although it does give into the sense of being non-linear, it may catch the unanticipated into getting lost from time to time.
Before the vision of Halo bringing a 2 weapon loadout, Rare's Perfect Dark stayed to the usual idea of switching through the entire arsenal. With this impressive arsenal comes a wide variety of weapons complete with their own alternate fire components. It's certainly a common thing to see in today's shooters, but hardly any game does it to better effect. With the gleaming side of shooting that any N64 fan will remember comes the AI that all will wish to forget. Regardless of difficulty, Perfect Dark's AI usually acts as more of being there for cannon fodder, rather than acting as trained guards. The term dated is not restricted to PD's visuals and audio design, but to the gameplay as well. What should be more shocking is the fact that some of Perfect Dark's single player features are hardly used in today's plethora of shooters. Don't be suprised if there's something in PD you may have never experienced before if you have only played a handful of today's modern fps.
Where Perfect Dark may feel old in technical aspects, the grocery list of cooperative and competitive options propeled further by the added online option make Perfect Dark stand above many of today's competitors. Whether it's from 4 player splitscreen or 8 players online, Perfect Dark's competitive online options are nearly infinite. With a maximum of 12 characters allowed in total on one map, you're able to either play solely against bots or have eight human players with four bots in combat. Add this impressive showing of competitve MP with the coutner-opertive option, which has 2 players (through either splitscreen or online) face against each other throughout all the SP missions as either Johanna Dark or one of the respawning enemies, and you have an amazing amout of value for just 800 Microsoft points.
In conclusion, the XBLA version of Perfect Dark feels like the absolute package that could have arguably been called better than the original had it released during a less competitive timeframe. Although Perfect Dark Zero may have left an aftertaste that was a bit bittersweet to most fans, this re-entry into the Perfect Dark universe exceeded my expectations right out of the starting gate. If you can manage to cope with the noticeable signs of age in Perfect Dark, you're in for a revision that just might be one of the greatest remakes to be released for this-gen consoles (X360, PS3, Wii).
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Perfect Dark (N64): 9.5/10 and coolbeans' *Certified FresH* badge
NoobFeed Editor Joshua Burt writes - There are so many titles that will be coming to Xbox in the next coming years. But there are some that quite simply stand head and shoulders from the rest of the pack. These 10 games will be available exclusively on the Xbox (and PC of course) and they are truly some of the most highly anticipated games in the entire games industry.
Do they even have 10 /🌽JK
Btw when was elder scroll announced exclusive to Xbox? Did I missed something
All Bethesda games will be console exclusive, except existing agreements they already had in place such as Deathloop
I thought ALL xbox games were on PC now, so there were no more exclusives?
For me, it's just Hellblade 2 I'm interested in at the moment, based off the first game, but it would be nice to see more after all this time.
Yes anytime xbox exclusive is mentioned they mean console exclusive.
@SullysCigar
I think you can take it that if someone mentions that an Xbox game is exclusive it means it won't appear on PlayStation.
God of War is on PC, should we remove if from the list of best Playstation exclusives?
^ @gamer9, of course you should. If it's on PC it's multiplaform now, just like all xbox games.
It was exclusive for 4 years on PlayStation, but it's not anymore. You've got to be consistent.
"Btw when was elder scroll announced exclusive to Xbox? Did I missed something"
Have you been living under a rock?
@SullysCigar
so does sony games now are lunching on PC ... bu xbox Exclusive means MS platforms (windows,xbox,cloud gaming)
@SullysCigar
Not sure about what a PS exclsuive means tho its a PS game on microsoft platform.... Feels weird spelled weird... You want me to make a list for you for all the PS exclsuives in pc?
Might want to hold off your expectations for Fable and Perfect Dark. I don't think we'll see anything Perfect Dark related but I can see a in engine fly by camera in Fable. Showing off the world, but that's as far as that goes though.
All the talk of Golden Eye recently had me imagining a Perfect Dark and James Bond crossover. Will never happen but would be pretty cool.
I dont have any expectations other than when they are ready, they are ready. Maybe you misunderstood this piece? It's just about upcoming games in general. So regardless of their release dates, they are still the ones im looking forward to.
It's been confirmed already that neither Perfect Dark nor Fable will be at the show
Hellblade 2, Avowed, Gears 6, Starfield, and PD.
There is more but I'll leave it at that.
Hellblade is the only must have right now. Not that there won't be more, I'm actually really excited to see Redfall, Indiana Jones, Fable and Avowed and State of Decay 3. I just think the idea of saying they are must have games when we haven't seen ANYTHING from them outside of a CG reveal trailer is ridiculous.
My expectations for Perfect Dark and Everwild are also kept very low given the issues developers are having. Theres also rumours of Playground suffering with Fable which I hope aren't true.
The only PC/Xbox game I'm interested in is State of Decay 3. And yes I realize we haven't seen gameplay. I'm just expecting it to be better than State of Decay 2 which was already fun for me dispite its flaws.
Metro: The Inside Xbox show in May unveiled some interesting but smaller scale projects. The Medium and Scorn are both Xbox Series X exclusives, smaller in scale but potentially great additions to Game Pass. Really, Xbox’s chance to show what they can do is the upcoming July Showcase. I have dug through the rumors and speculation from various forums to come up with what we are likely to see from the showcase.
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I’m hoping Ninja Theory will shock the gaming industry by showing Hellblade 2 gameplay. If Hellblade 2 gameplay looks anything like the trailer I’ll have a heart attack lol.
I agree. But Hellblade story and gameplay wasn't that great. Hopefully they add more depth to the story and gameplay
I agree hellblade needs a gameplay overhaul but i enjoyed the crazy story. To be honest the story was the only thing that made me keep playing because combat was pretty lame.
Hopefully hellblade looks great and the combat is alot better and deeper.
Some intense battles while they last. Otherwise it feels like a walking simulator. Story was pretty shallow. They need to expand the core elements big time.
For the people who disliked the story, did you play the game with headphones?
Hearing the subtleties of Senua's inner monologue, her self-doubt and deprecations made that game one of my favorites of the gen.
Console Exclusives
343 Industries: Halo Infinite
The Coalition: Gears 5 Enhanced
Turn 10: Forza (most likely Forza 8)
Ninja Theory: Hellbalde 2
Xbox Game Studios Publishing: Flight Simulator
Rare: Battletoads or Everwild
Mojang: Minecraft RayTracing (this one will be shown as it shows off Ray Tracing best)
3rd party developers
Cyberpunk 2077
At least one game from: EA, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Sega
Take 2 Games: Red Dead Online (they milked GTA why not Red Dead at this point)
Bright Memory: Infinite
The Ascent
The Medium
Scorn
Call of the Sea
Indies
Games they have in the works, but probably 2021 - 2022
The Initiative: New AAA IP
Playground Games: Fable or New AAA IP (I hope it's not Fable, we need new game MS)
Compulsion Games: ???? / New IP AAA Indie
World’s Edge: Age of Empires (the studio was made specifically for this game)
Obsidian: Releasing Grounded that month, next game possibly Outerworlds 2 for 2021
Double Fine Studio: Psychonaughts 2 (multiplat with PlayStation) / maybe a teaser for 2022 game
Inxile: Wasteland 3 (multiplat with PlayStation) / maybe a teaser for 2022 game
Undead Labs: Praying it's not State of Decay 3, but whatever it is it's a multiplayer game based on job openings
Lol. You can’t be acting like this wasn’t a valid criticism. It took them long enough. You know.... took them like a an entire generation to finally start somewhere lol
King_Noctis
Last 3 years of Xbox 360 and this whole gen and yet we are still at predicting stage but you brag
More games better for us gamers you Xbox fans act like that was an invalid point. It's because of criticism Microsoft acquired so many studios
what would be best for us gamers is if both Sony and Microsoft go at it sell neck and neck and deliver amazing games throughout the whole generation
I don't believe most of us have any stocks with either company so the only thing that should matter to us are games
Look at what sony delivered with TLOU2 and ghost and those are curren gen games. Hopefully with Ms having more studios now they can release amazing games throughout next generation
Ps2 closed with GOW2 and SOTC
Ps3 with TLOU
Ps4 is closing with TLOU2 and ghost
Microsoft stopped supporting the original Xbox to focus on Xbox 360 which they're released when it was not ready. The last two to three years of Xbox 360 they did not support it well and now this generation what have they done the last few years
These are are valid criticisms and this is where they can improve. but it seems we cannot have any mature conversation in gaming about any console maker because if anybody says anything negative about PlayStation or Xbox or Nintendo the fanboys come out in full force
Do you buy consoles to worry about if the games come on PC? Why does it hurt you if a game is on PC?
Consoles are designed for ease of use...and based on Steam reports the average PC is only geared for 1080p graphics.
You crying about issues that don't exist.
But the definition of console exclusive is a game that appears on one console and not another... and Xbox does have those
I don't think we'll see anything 3rd party. I think this will be 1st Party only event.
On that front I expect to see 1-2 new studio acquisitions(Specifically I'm predicting a Dontnod acqusition).
It would be weird seeing Cyberpunk 2077 with Series X upgrades previewed right after the delay that pushes it right on the next-gen launch, when all that'll be available then will just be the One X version running at full throttle.
The last thing MS needs to show are third party cross gen titles when they're receiving flak on their own cross gen titles.
343: Open the show with Halo Infinite no more than 5 minutes of gameplay. Hopefully the single shot campaign is a real thing. Making for a nice cinematic feel. Brand new engine, characters, enemies, gameplay mechanics, abilities etc. Its said the game has 1200 people working on it. This game seriously cannot fail.
Playground's Game: Obviously it has to be Fable IV. The team is said to be using photogrammetry techniques for world building. Similar style as Forza Horizon games. They were teasing quite a bit last year but was a no show, I think this year we will definitely see it.
Going through each studio will take awhile so I expect something from The Initiative since the game is in playable form. Turn 10 will show off a teaser but won't release this year its said they're skipping this year's release. Obsidian was already announced they have something planned. Hopefully its the planned Pillars Of Eternity Skyrim Inspired AAA game. Undead Labs most likely SOD 3. This game needs to be AAA. If they're making a zombie survival they need to go all in and make it BIG a full blown AAA title. One new studio acquisition or possibly building a MS Japan studio for AAA JRPG's.
Yes SoD 3 with a AAA budget and story. The sandbox and gameplay is there. All that missing is the AAA graphics, animation and story. Do that and you got one of the best zombie games ever. Screw it you don't even need the top notch graphics get the animations up so you can have good scripted events to go with a story and the game is set
I always wanted their first pitch. The Class 4 pitch. It sounded extremely interesting.
Turn10 skipped last year's release, they should be releasing something this year.
Here we go , more speculations. What happened to the PS5 SSD articles, did those run of steam?
We don't have to speculate on SSD tech anymore. Sony and Microsoft weren't lying with regards to what that could do to revolutionize game design. Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart and The Medium proved that as the core gameplay of both games requires traveling between worlds in an instant.
Rare's Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 was a masterpiece. Twenty years later, it is time for a revival on Microsoft's Xbox Series X... from The Initiative?
The original was really a great game at the time! Never bothere much with the crap on Xbox 360. though.
The original was great. And the sequel utter crap. However they did remaster the original and add standard gamepad FPS controls and its available on the Xbox. I run it on my X1X and its fantastic.
I agree plus Microsoft now has xbox game pass that'll get alot of people to play it for free
Hope everyone enjoyed the review. I personally think this is one of the best, if not THE best fps on the arcade market solely thanks to Rare's ambition that surpasses quite a few other shooters on the market. This remake would've been on par with the original in my eyes if they tweaked the gameplay and technical design just a little bit more.
This and Goldeneye were great games back in the day. Always wanted to pick this version up though and might go do that.
Howw many people play online?
NM.
You give it 6/10 for gameplay and overall 9/10. Your reviews are all over the place, you gave Resistance 3 a better score for gameplay 8.5, but only gave that game 7.7 overall. Surely gameplay is the most important factor when reviewing games?. You seem to throw logic out the window when you do a review. Which makes you a good candidate for the postition of chief reviewer at IGN
Upon reading criticims, I recalibrated the scores in gameplay & sound. Although I'm not forced to diligently follow averages when weighing in the final score, the category scores may have come off as being too divisive with the overall score, which may have caused some head scracthing. I was wrong in giving this game some scathing remarks when understanding that they still feel complete and functional.
I'm truly sorry for the rubber banding of the overall score, and hope my apology (and changes) can alleviate some of the frustration. As stated before, feel free to PM me with any questions (since I'm out of bubbles). Once again, sorry for any of the frustration this may have caused.