Perfect Dark

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Perfect Dark
developer	Rare
Publisher	Rare (Nintendo 64) Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox)
First title	Perfect Dark (N64) (2000)
Last title	Perfect Dark (Xbox 360) (2010)
Platform (s)	Nintendo 64 , Xbox 360 , Xbox One , Game Boy Color , Xbox One
Genre (s)	Ego shooter

Perfect Dark is the name of a series of video games from the first-person shooter genre that has appeared on various consoles . The first part was released in the USA in May 2000 for the Nintendo 64 . In Europe, including German-speaking countries, it will be published in June of the same year. In Germany, Nintendo decided not to publish it because of concerns about indexing like the previous game. In Japan, the game was released in October. A version for the Game Boy Color was released almost simultaneously with the Nintendo 64 version . In 2005 , the successor, which is a prequel , Perfect Dark Zero was finally released for the Xbox 360 .

The games were designed by the English development studio Rare , the N64 and GBC versions were published by Nintendo , and the Xbox 360 version by Microsoft .

Since March 17, 2010, Perfect Dark is also available for the Xbox 360 (via XBLA). In 2015, a game collection with rare titles called Rare Replay was released for the Xbox One , including the XBLA versions of Perfect Dark and Perfect Dark Zero .

Perfect Dark (N64)

Perfect Dark is a kind of sequel to Rare's successful game GoldenEye 007 ( indexed ), which is based on the film of the same name. In Perfect Dark the player slips into the role of Special Agent Joanna Dark, the top agent of the Carrington Institute.

Improvements to the GoldenEye engine include a second fire mode for each weapon, the ability to jump / fall off heels, and the ability to disarm opponents. These improvements required more memory and so the N64 Expansion Pak was necessary to be able to use all the features of the game (including the single player mode). As in the previous version, the heads of the opponents were chosen at random when a level was loaded. The height of the opponent is also recalculated by a few decimeters each time .

Perfect Dark (Game Boy Color)

In the same quarter, a 2D game called Perfect Dark was also released for the Game Boy Color (GBC). The two games could exchange data with the help of the N64 / Game Boy Transfer Pak , which enabled some cheats to be activated . Despite appearing almost simultaneously, the GBC game did not reach the quality of the N64 version, which had an impact on sales. The plot of the GBC game also collides with that of the N64 game at some points. However, the GBC game also had an extensive multiplayer mode that exploited a wide range of the Game Boy Colors options.

The GBC game also has voice output, which is unusual for the Game Boy Color.

Perfect Dark Zero

Rare released the Xbox 360 Perfect Dark Zero , which tells the story of Joanna Dark and her father.

Single player (N64)

There are four levels of difficulty in single player mode:

• Agent - is the easiest level of difficulty - lots of energy, lots of ammunition, simple AI (Artificial Intelligence) of the opponents and few mission objectives.
• Special Agent - is of medium difficulty - normal energy, less ammunition, average AI and some mission objectives.
• Perfect agent - is the highest level of difficulty - little energy (no shields), very little ammunition, very good AI and many (all) mission objectives.
• Perfect Dark - This mode has to be unlocked first. Here you have as much ammunition and mission objectives as on "Perfect Agent", but you can determine the accuracy and energy of the AI ​​opponents and the damage they cause with a hit yourself.

A cooperative mode is also playable, in which two players can do single player missions. Player 1 takes over Joanna Dark and player 2 her sister, Velvet Dark. If there is no human player available, a bot can also take on the role of player 2. Perfect Dark also
includes a game mode that was not seen in any other game until 2004: the counter-operational mode. There one player takes on the role of Joanna Dark and the other player takes on the role of an opponent until his death, after which he slips into the next enemy.

Characters (N64)

Joanna Dark

She is the protagonist of the game. A still quite inexperienced, but talented agent of the Carrington Institute, whose training results were so good that a new rating had to be devised. She can handle a variety of weapons and was codenamed Perfect Dark because of her good training .

Jonathan Dark

Until Joanna's training session he was the agent with the best rating. He doesn't do very well in open combat (if you let him escape on his own in Area 51, he'll die in the process), so he works as an undercover agent. When he's not on duty, he's guarding Daniel Carrington's office.

Daniel Carrington

Founder of the Carrington Institute and Joanna's employer. He is already 62 years old and accordingly he stays out of any kind of fight. He assigns Joanna her missions and leads the related mission briefings. During the game, he gives Joanna tips and instructions by radio.

Cassandra deVries

She owns the dataDyne Corporation. She is the first of three antagonists you get to know. DeVries' lust for power drove her to conspire with the Skedar. She later realizes it was a mistake and allies with the Carrington Institute. But not for very long, because she is later killed by the Skedar.

Mr. Blond

First, the player gets to know him as a Scandinavian man in his late 20s, who definitely has the say among the conspirators (see below). Only later does he turn out to be a disguised Skedar warrior, who acts as a middleman between the Skedar and dataDyne. He is the main antagonist of the story as he represents the enemy aliens.

Trent Easton

Easton is the head of the NSA and cooperates with dataDyne and the Skedar, like de Vries, mainly out of lust for power. He is so blinded by the prospects the Skedar offer him that he does not see what they are really up to. He is the third and least important antagonist as he has little involvement in the plot. However, he owns the game's deadliest weapon, a modified magnum revolver (the DY357-LX) that kills with one shot. In a mission you can disarm him and use the DY357-LX yourself.

Elvis

Second protagonist of the game. The small, gray alien accompanies Joanna through a few levels after she rescued him from Area 51. He has an idiosyncratic personality and causes quite a few smiles, not least on his first appearance: “Well, Joanna, I am Protector One. But you can call me Elvis! "( " Well Joanna, I'm Protector One. But you can call me Elvis! " )

Aliens

Here is a description of the game's three alien races:

Maianer

The Maians are the "typical" aliens. Small; Gray; large, black, almond-shaped eyes. You are on the side of the Carrington Institute and also fight with Joanna. They have green blood and - despite the lack of a mouth - a rather high-pitched voice. They have been at war with the Skedar for centuries. They recently managed to negotiate a truce, but it doesn't last long. When Daniel asks Carrington for help, a Maian ambassador and his protector Elvis go to the Carrington Institute. However, the UFO is shot down over Nevada and brought with its occupants to Area 51. The Maians are good weapons engineers. Their weapons are characterized by the complete processing of the ammunition. No cartridge cases are required that end up as waste. The weapons are powered by an energy cell that is absorbed by the weapon.

Skedar

The Skedar are an aggressive, fanatical race that made war a religion. They are good at hand-to-hand combat and have a penchant for exotic weapons. They also find a perverse pleasure in seeing their victims flee in panic (their weapons are designed accordingly). They have two legs, like humans and Maians, but their knees are the other way around, which gives them a very peculiar gait. They have a kind of tail that comes out of the back of their head and blue eyes with no irises. The skedar honor the war on the "planet of the war shrine" and are led by a religious leader. The "planet of the war shrine" orbits three suns - their shrine is built in such a way that the suns are exactly over the ends of its "rays" (provided you are looking from the right side at the right time of day). To get to the center of the shrine you first have to make a sacrifice (in the form of weapons) to the “god of war”.

Cetans

Little is known about the cetans. A long time ago they developed a living spaceship and armed it with a molecular weapon that could cut entire planets into their smallest parts. When they realized what they had created, they sank the weapon in the sea of ​​the earth in the hope that it would never be found there.

Plot (N64)

In 2023, the young special agent of the Carrington Institute, Joanna Dark, will be sent to Lucerne Tower, the headquarters of dataDyne Corp, to meet a scientist named Dr. Rescue Caroll. This had raised an objection to the company policy.
When Joanna Dr. Caroll finally finds it, it turns out to be an artificial intelligence in the form of a flying laptop . Joanna, also known as "Perfect Dark" thanks to her excellent training results, brings Dr. Caroll safe. Daniel Carrington, the head of the Carrington Institute, takes the AI ​​with him to his private villa and tries to find out interesting facts about dataDyne. Cassandra De Vries, CEO of dataDyne, learns about this and sends a squad to the mansion to bring the AI ​​back and take Carrington hostage.
After Joanna saved Carrington and Dr. Caroll is back at dataDyne, she is sent to Chicago, where she has a secret meeting between Cassandra de Vries, Trent Easton - head of the National Security Agency - and a Scandinavian man named "Mr. Blond ”should take up. You plan to replace the President of the United States with a clone.
Although Joanna believes the President's safety is paramount , Carrington sends her to Area 51 to rescue a couple of aliens, Maian race and allies of the Carrington Institute.
In doing so, she meets Protector One, the bodyguard of the Mayan ambassador. He introduces himself to Joanna by the name Elvis. Jonathan, another agent of the Carrington Institute, helps Joanna in Area 51. - At this point in the game you can decide whether Jonathan will survive or if he “sacrifices” his life in Area 51 to enable Joanna and Elvis to escape. If he survives, he will help again in a later mission.

After escaping from Area 51, Joanna learns that dataDyne is cooperating with the Skedar, another alien race. The Skedar promised dataDyne technology; In return, dataDyne was supposed to develop an AI that was intelligent enough to crack the control codes of a powerful weapon developed by a third alien race (the Cetans). This weapon was at the bottom of the Mariana Trench . To get there, de Vries needed the help of Trent Easton, who was supposed to arrange for a government deep-sea submarine, the Pelagic II, to be loaned to dataDyne. Since the President did not agree, Easton now wants to clone and replace him.
So Joanna goes to Alaska, where Air Force One is waiting to fly the president to Oslo . She smuggles on board the plane and convinces the president that he is in danger. Shortly thereafter, the Skedar attack Air Force One, which ultimately leads to their crash. In the ice desert of Alaska, Joanna has to find the president and bring him to Elvis (who also crashed with his ship). Then we learn in a cutscene that Mr. Blond is a skedar in disguise. He kills Easton as punishment for his "incompetence".

While Joanna, Elvis and the President are stuck in Alaska waiting for rescue, dataDyne and the Skedar simply steal the Pelagic II and send a team to the Cetan weapon. This is part of a gigantic spaceship. Dr. Caroll has already been processed by dataDyne and connected to the weapon. As soon as Joanna is rescued, she will be sent to the Pelagic II with Elvis. From there they follow dataDyne to the Cetan ship. After some searching and countless fights, both with dataDyne and with Skedar troops, they find Dr. Caroll and bring him back to normal. He explains that he cannot stop the weapon, but that he can destroy it, which he then does; however, he has to sacrifice himself for this.

A few days later, the Carrington Institute is attacked by the Skedar. Joanna can help all (or most - depends on the player) employees of the institute to escape, but she is captured by the Skedar herself and taken to their ship. Here she is held prisoner together with Cassandra de Vries, who is supposed to answer to a Skedarian court on the home world of the Skedar, while the Skedar battle ship flies home. De Vries knows that through Joanna she has a chance to get revenge on the Skedar and sacrifices herself to enable Joanna to escape from the cell. Joanna lowers the ship's shields and allows Elvis to come on board. Together they fight their way to the bridge and take over the ship. Here Elvis realizes that they have reached the sacred planet of Skedar fanaticism, the planet of the war shrine. He explains that the Maians have been at war with the Skedar for centuries and that even a truce did not help much. He also declares that the Maians could never find this planet and that its destruction would be the only way to real peace with the Skedar. Elvis alerts the Maian fleet and Joanna heads to the planet where she is supposed to mark tactical targets for the fleet and kill the leader of the war cult. When the Maian bombardment begins, she can leave the shrine just in time. Elvis stops the bombardment to find Joanna. He finds it under some rubble. When he tries to pull her out, she demands his weapon to convince the last fanatical Skedar to let go of her foot. The two then leave the planet and the bombardment continues until the shrine is in ruins.

Multiplayer (N64)

The Perfect Dark multiplayer mode includes all weapons that exist in the game, with the exception of the Psychosis rifle. The weapons can be freely combined. There are six game modes:

• Combat - Corresponds to a deathmatch
• Grab the suitcase - Corresponds to Capture the Flag
• Grab the suitcase 2 - Grab the suitcase and use it to survive as long as possible. There is one point for 30 seconds of suitcase possession
• Lord of the Hill - An area on the map becomes a "Hill". Find and defend it for 20 seconds. You get as many points as there are team members in the hill, when the time runs out - if you are alone there is only one point, if there are 2 other team members in the hill there are 3 points. When the time is up, the hill appears in a different place. Comparable to domination
• Hacker Headquarters - There's a data uplink device lying around somewhere on the map. Find it and use it to hack into the computer that is somewhere (elsewhere) on the map.
• Pop a Cap - A player is “the victim”. Everyone else gets two points by killing the victim. The victim receives one point for every minute survived. ("How much is your life worth to you? You are the victim!")

Weapons, maps and new skins can be unlocked by mastering the "challenges". Challenges are pre-set games against simulators (AI bots) and are well suited to familiarize yourself with multiplayer. There are 30 challenges. The first are easier, the last are incredibly difficult. For one of the last challenges you get the most dangerous multiplayer opponent: The Darksim.

Options such as one-shot kills or "No radar in multiplayer" could only be activated via cheats in GoldenEye . In Perfect Dark , there are completely freely available options that, with a few other options, guarantee an incredibly freely adjustable gaming experience.
Players can create their own multiplayer profiles separately from the single player, which are updated after each game. The player receives a rank and can through special things, such as B. spent ammunition, get medals u. a. rising up.
You start with rank 21: trainee and move up to rank 1: perfect. If you reach the rank perfect, the player receives a username and a password (see "Easter Eggs").

In the meantime there is even a new version of the multiplayer mode, which was designed by a modder team for the game Half-Life 2. The mod is currently in the first beta version and can be downloaded and played for free if you have Half-Life 2.

Simulators

Perfect Dark supports bots , here called "simulants". The bots have six levels of difficulty: Sacrifice, Easy, Normal, Hard, Perfect and Dark. VictimSims are walking targets, while PerfectSims have the skills of a hardcore gamer. DarkSims are described as AIs that have superhuman abilities. Unlike all other simulants, DarkSims can move inhumanly fast, have a reaction time of 0 and hit any range with any weapon. They are also the only simulators who can camp (i.e., stay in one spot and wait for the opponents to run in front of them), and they do so in tactically smart positions. Simulants can also be of a special type. So there are z. B. a Vengeance Sim, who is always on the hunt for the player who last killed him. Or the SpeedSim, which runs twice as fast as a normal Sim.

In team games, the player can give commands to the simulators in his team. From the command to attack a specific player, to holding and defending a position, everything is included. A unique way of interacting with the AI ​​(at least on the N64).

weapons

There are a total of 42 different weapons, almost all of which have a second fire function. From the predecessor GoldenEye 007 , you can unlock eight classic weapons for single player mode.

Machine guns and pistols, as well as knives, grenade launchers, grenades, so-called N-bombs and a few weapons that cannot really be put into one category are available. Also represented are three weapons each from the Skedar and the Maianern.

The Psychosis rifle, the only one with only one fire function besides the GoldenEye weapons, can turn most opponents into partners (the Skedar and Trent Easton, among others, are excluded). The enemies then turn against their own people. Unfortunately, the Psychosis rifle can only take four shots. Even if the magazine is larger and the capacity is (theoretically) higher.

Some weapons, e.g. B. the DY357-Magnum or the Callisto NTG can shoot through doors and bulletproof glass, which is a great advantage in some situations. Likewise, some weapons have useful functions such as aiming through walls or making the wearer invisible.

Points of contention

A feature that was planned for the game, but was removed from the final version, was the "Perfect Face" option. It should make it possible to use the Game Boy camera to take photos of real people and then feed them into the game using the Transfer Pak so that you B. could play your own head on the simulated shoulders. When asked why the feature was removed, Rare replied that it had turned out to be more complex than initially thought and was therefore dropped. It was later revealed that Rare had long since got the feature working, and took it out of the final version out of fear that a new controversy might arise over violence in video games. It was said that it was more brutal to act against the faces of real people than against those of fictional people.

Other (N64)

Easter eggs and glitches

Like most of Rare's N64 games, Perfect Dark has no shortage of Easter eggs and oddities. One of the most famous Easter eggs is cheese. A piece of cheese is hidden in every single player card. Often you can only find this if you use special cheats. So you can z. E.g. you can only find the cheese of the Carrington Institute if you put a box in a certain door outside of the missions (if you push the mission selection screen away, you can go exploring in the Carrington Institute), and with the fly-by-wire rocket of the Slayers flies out of the shooting range. It is believed that this cheese was originally intended to be cheats free to play.

Another special feature is the use of inaccessible rooms as "video rooms", which is not uncommon in computer games. Here character models are already loaded for the level so that they are available more quickly in the outro. Usually you can only reach such rooms with cheats like “noclip” (you can fly through everything) or “wallghost” (you can walk through walls); but there are no such cheats in Perfect Dark (except maybe when you use a gameshark ). However, you can still reach some video rooms.

For example, there is a video room on the third level (dataDyne - Escape) that you can open with a key card that you get when you get to a certain point fast enough. Actually, the card opens Cassandra's office, but it also opens the video room. The card also opens the entrance to the building. If you leave this, however, Joanna falls into infinity. The character models from the level's outro are in the video room. You can attack them, which affects the appearance of the cut scene.

There is also the mystery of the user name “Entropic Decay” and the password “Zero-Tau”, which you get when you achieve the rank “Perfect” in multiplayer.

Rare has commented on some topics - mostly with the answer that some things mean nothing or that they are only there for “a laugh”.

As in GoldenEye , there are some strange glitches in Perfect Dark that added to the mystique of the game. For example, there is the extremely rare case (it may never happen to some players) that a random opponent suddenly starts walking around the map and shoots their people. This "apparition" became known in fan circles under the name Janus ; derived from the GoldenEye character, which in turn took its name from the Roman god Ianus with the two faces .

Cheats

Just like in the predecessor GoldenEye 007 , you can also unlock cheats in Perfect Dark by mastering certain levels in a certain degree of difficulty in a certain time. A few can also be unlocked by connecting the Game Boy Color game Perfect Dark to the N64 using Transfer Pak. Unlike GoldenEye has Perfect Dark , according to the developers, but not over push button code .

additions

In the American sense, you can activate a "language filter" in Perfect Dark . If you do this, sections of the speech output that contain a swear expression are not played (this is most noticeable in the intro of the Air Force One mission, where the president waves his arms for a good thirty seconds and - with the voice filter activated - nothing says that he starts the sequence with "damn it again!")

Awards

• Perfect Dark (N64)
  • Game Critics Awards : Best Console Game 1999

Book translations

Greg Rucka published the novel Perfect Dark - Initial Vector in 2005 , which was published in November 2006 in German with the title Perfect Dark - Der Virus . In May 2007 the successor was published again by Rucka under the title Perfect Dark - Second Front, but only in English.

• Perfect Dark - Der Virus , Volume 1 by Greg Rucka, Heyne-Verlag, November 2006, ISBN 345352246X

Web links

• Perfect Dark at MobyGames (English)
• Perfect Dark Zero at MobyGames (English)