"Perfect Dark": A Great Game

Perfect Dark is a first person shooter developed by Rare Ltd. and released for the N64. Perfect Dark is set in a futuristic world where the player assumes the role of a female secret agent. This character is sent through a series of missions.

The missions are made up of a few levels. The difficulty levels are Agent, Secret Agent, and Perfect Agent. In the higher difficult levels special gadgets like shields are missing and the auto aim ability is turned off.

Alongside the main campaign there is a cooperative mode. In this mode two human players, or up to three computer controlled players take on the missions together. Only one human player has to make it to the end with all objectives completed though.

Counter Operative mode is an exclusive mode to this Perfect Dark. Two human players are required for this mode. One player assumes the role of the main character, while the other player assumes the role of an enemy somewhere in the level, and attempts to stop the other player.

If the counter operative is killed they will re-spawn as another enemy. The counter operative cannot kill the other player's allies to try to make them fail their mission outright.

The weapons range from fists to assault rifles, rockets launchers, and even some alien weapons. The icing on the cake is that most of the weapons have two fire modes. Pistols in second fire mode will cause the player to pistol whip. Shotguns get dual bursts which can be useful in crowded rooms.

An assault rifle may be thrown on the ground as a proximity mine, Rocket launcher is in secondary fire mode become guided launchers. Some grenades with bounce like a pinball, and will detonate if an enemy gets close to it. It is often thought by some to be a clone of Golden Eye 007.

The multiplayer combat plays almost the same in Perfect Dark, but the graphics are brushed up, and weapons along with multiplayer maps from Golden Eye 007 may be unlocked if the player does certain things in single player.

Multiplayer modes in Perfect Dark include most of the staples, like death matches, king of the hill, and capture objective type modes. Most multiplayer features and the entire campaign can only be accessed if the player has an expansion pack for their N64.

In 2010 it was ported to the Xbox 360 with graphic upgrades and some minor fixes by 4J Studios. It is available on the Xbox Live Arcade. Noting that it is an original Nintendo title, it was not released on the Nintendo network because Microsoft acquired Rare Ltd.