Perfect Dark Preview

Looks like someone visited IKEA.

First, the bad news.  GoldenEye will never appear on Xbox Live.  Sorry, but you’ll just have to fire up a Nintendo 64 to re-experience James Bond’s epic adventure.  However, the good news is you’ll receive the next best thing this holiday season, Perfect Dark.

Perfect Dark came out for the Nintendo 64 in 2000 and is still a favorite amongst first-person shooting fans.  You control Joanna Dark, a mysterious agent with a shady past.  She’s worked for the Carrington Institute as part of a campaign against the dataDyne Corporation.  Her latest mission is by far the most dangerous, as she discovers an alliance between dataDyne and an ancient alien race.  She’ll need to find out the truth and stop both factions before the planet, along with the rest of the galaxy, is history.

While enjoyable, the original game suffers from constant slowdown and glitches.  On Xbox Live, however, you won’t run into these problems.  4J Studios, the same developer that handled the Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie upgrades, blessed the game with a slick new engine that not only helped it improve the graphics (1080p resolution), but also bump up the frame rate (60 frames per second) to make the action move quicker.

As for gameplay, Perfect Dark contains the same variety of weapons, including the PPi9 handgun (a modified version of the PP7 from GoldenEye), twin laser pistols and other tools of destruction.  Joanna also has access to various gadgets, including protective shields (in lower difficulty settings) and, once unlocked, night vision goggles.

Along with the single-player campaign, Perfect Dark will have online support with leaderboards.  Players can take part in a number of matches, including Combat (traditional Deathmatch), Capture the Base, King of the Hill (where players maintain control of one spot), Hacker Central (this requires opponents to acquire both a data uplink and a corresponding computer), Pop a Cap (where one player faces off against the rest) and our personal favorite, Hold the Briefcase (where you carry a briefcase as long as possible); if you prefer to kick it old school, the game comes with four person split screen multiplayer.  In addition, Rare may include some exclusive modes, but nothing has been revealed. 

No, it’s not GoldenEye, but Perfect Dark is a quality shooter that’s worth a look.  With revised graphics and online play, it should be a big hit for newcomers and fans when it arrives later this year.