(XBLA) Perfect Dark

Posted 3 years ago By - Jay Acevedo

It was May 2000. I was a few months away from getting my Playstation 2 and still playing my N64 a lot. While I never owned a PS One, Sega Saturn, 3DO, NEOGEO, Sega Genesis or Dreamcast, I had to share my little gaming time I had back then with my N64 because of one game, Goldeneye 007. However, I knew that the N64’s time was short-lived, since cooler games were being released on other consoles. Once I got my hands on Perfect Dark, however, my N64 playing time increased exponentially.

Yes, back then Perfect Dark made a great impression on me. Ten years later, the original Joanna Dark adventure is back, and in glorious HD, with a lot of cool features thanks to Rare and 4J Studios. And I’m left with the same great impression I had back then. It definitely feels good.

Story-wise, Perfect Dark XBLA is the same set-up as the N64 version. You play as Joanna Dark, a secret agent working for The Carrington Institute, sent to investigate an alien conspiracy involving the dataDyne Corporation with your high-tech weapons and gadgets.

What makes this new rendition of Perfect Dark so special, aside from the obvious visual boost and improved framerates, is the impressive list of features that have been added. From the 17 story missions, which can be completed for leaderboard times each, different mission objective list depending of which difficulty you are playing on and cooperative gameplay, the game also features online play with up to eight players. Whether it’s deathmatches or capture the flag, every single multiplayer game mode can be customized to fit your personal tastes. There’s even a very cool Counter Operative mode (also playable in local split-screen and online, just like every one of the 17 story missions) in which one player plays as Joanna and the others play as bad guys. Speaking of game dififculties, you might want to play the game at the "Secret Agent" difficulty because the "Agent" is very easy and downright boring. Shooting three enemies while the forth just stands there watching, it’s just not worth bothering.

Both the character animations and environments feel dated despite the 1080p revamp and voice-overs are horrendous but, when you put that together and compare it to what the game offers as a whole, Perfect Dark isn’t too shabby. Think about all the other games that are nicely rendered but extremely boring to play. I don’t think anyone can find something bad to say about this remake. Actually, a friend told me that Rare didn’t put Southpaw controls in the game even though there are three different control configurations and it seemed like a huge deal to him. Aside from this, though, and maybe some small aiming sensitivity issues and random slowdowns and disconnections during online play, I don’t think there is anything else to complain about.

Trust me when I say that you’re getting a very interesting package for $10.

Conclusion

I’d highly recommend adding this XBLA re-make of a Nintendo 64 classic to your XBLA game collection. Featuring a myriad of gameplay modes, improved HD visuals and the same high-paced action feel, Perfect Dark is a great overall package. Until Goldeneye makes an appearance on the Xbox Live Marketplace (which I highly doubt but still) Perfect Dark should more than scratch that itch. And on top of that, it’s much much better than that awful Perfect Dark Zero game.

Now that Rare has brought Jetpack, Banjo and Perfect Dark to XBLA, how about give me some Killer Instinct next?