arbleich rates this game: 5/5Amazing and beautiful FPS with a unique story, Made by the developers of Golden Eye.
This game made use of the Expansion Pak that as a child you thought did nothing. The game's textures and resolution were already great, but with the Expansion Pack you had access to "High Resolution" in the options.
The game starts with our Heroine, Joanna Dark, being sent to the dataDyne Corperation's tower to access some files and break into a secret underground lab and rescue "Dr. Carol"
After some obstacle-course running and extraction with our CPU Dr., you learn that there is more to this mission than what was said. Your boss, Daniel Carrington is kidnapped and tortured for the CPU, starting another mission: Spying on the people responsible for his kidnapping and retrieving Dr. Carol's backup drive. You record a conspiracy to kidnap and clone the president, as well as learn about some radar equipment being set up in Area 51. (ooh, the plot thickens)
Next thing you know it's off to Nevada for you. Time to break in to the 3rd most guarded place in the United States of America. Don't expect Rednecks with shotguns, but rather pathetic patrolmen with pistols and warehouse workers with assault rifles (shouldn't it be the other way around?)
After meeting up with your undercover agent in the warehouse, Jonathan Dark (I've arrived at the conclusion that "Dark" is a title given to infiltrators like Joanna, Jonathan and Velvet [the co-op agent]), Joanna must infiltrate the medlabs of Area 51, disguise herself as a very unfortunate (VERY very unfortunate on Agent difficulty) surgeon named Harry, obtain certain evidence and destroy the computer system (objectives vary with mission difficulty) and rescue a certain patient. A soldier and a crash survivor, to be exact.
By the way, he's an alien. Named Elvis. Literally a little grey man, the classic image of an alien. And he has a funny voice.
You lead him and your no-longer-under-cover friend Jonathan to his spaceship. And yes, it is a classic flying saucer. "It's a single seater! Two can fit in, but no more! Plus it's got no style. Know what I mean?" — Elvis the Maian.
After this escape, the plan to kidnap the president is begun. Joanna must disguise herself as a stewardess and board Airforce One. Once in the Secret Airbase, our kidnapper friends show up to crash the party, killing every living thing in sight. After some Mission Impossible laser play, Joanna successfully boards the plane. On the plane, she reveals the ploy to our president. But now, our kidnappers are here to play. They do what they do best and kill everyone. Including the pilots. Yay. You must get the president to safety and detach the kidnapper's odd aircraft from the plane before... too late. AF1 crashes in a frozen wasteland. To add insult to injury, it becomes blatantly obvious that this is what the kidnappers wanted to happen. With comms offline you must find the president and get him to safety, kill his clone and remove the device jamming your comms (the device is another weird aircraft). After meeting up with Elvis, who is going all MC Hammer on his beat up UFO you are left with a nice little cutscene, revealing the fact that you are caught in the middle of an ancient war between two alien races (The Skedar [freaky evil dino aliens] and the Maians [little grey men]) and the only way out is to end it.
I won't explain the story any more than that. Too many spoilers already.
The game feature several unique features, like 2-player splitscreen COUNTER-OP. Where the First or second player takes control of the anonymous henchmen and tries to kill the Dark Agent.
Another great feature was the Combat Simulator. Classic customizable death matches, King of the Hill, pre-made and customizable characters and weapon sets, simulants to play against by yourself or with friends (up to 8 simulants at once!), a ranking system, challenge mode (which unlocks more multiplayer maps and, if I'm not mistaken [and I probably am] a single player bonus mission called "Duel"). Sims come in a variety of difficulties and special mindsets. Like "Meatsim", who basically spins around in circles shooting in your general direction. "Darksim", who moves about with finess and has a damn good eye. "Judgesim", who only targets the winning player and "Preysim" who targets the losing player. "Turtlesim" who moves slowly and has a super shield. "Peacesim", who only disarms players and collects guns. And "Vengesim" who targets the last player who killed him. Or her. Every sim's character and difficulty can be customized. You can have a Meat Preysim or a Dark Judgesim (there are a few difficulties between Meat and Dark. I use them as the extreme of both difficulties)
Between missions you are in the Carrington Institute: A place with interesting things to do.
You can take a tour with Daniel, your boss.
You can Read up on the various vehicles, places and people you've seen.
You can practice using various devices that you will encounter in-game.
You can explore the layout of the Institute. Trust me, you'll need to know it later.
You can practice using weapons at the shooting range. Foster may seem a bit douchey but he's one of the only CI desk jockeys with a name. "Ah. Our 'star agent'."/"I'm expecting a good show; Don't let me down"/"Just leave me alone, would you!?" — Foster, the douchebag.
Completing gold challenges in the shooting range unlocks classic weapons in the cheat menu. These guns are from GoldenEye and, compared to the guns in PD64, are useless.
The game, aa I just said, features a cheat menu. It is available through Jo's computer or the start menu while in the Carrington Institute. The cheats can be unlock in the shooting range, by completing in-game challenges or (for a select few) by connecting Perfect Dark (gbc) with a Transfer Pak. As far as I know, the only way to connect with a Transfer Pak on an emulator for PC is to physically own an N64 controller, a Transfer Pak and a copy of Perfect Dark (gbc). If you didn't know that Perfect Dark was a GBC game, feel free to check it out. Top-down shooter game. Pretty fun.
The cheats unlocked by using the Transfer Pak also have their own challenges, so they're all unlockable.
The game features loads of unique weapons (which feature a primary and secondary function [hold B or hold B and immediately use Z to quickly use the secondary function. Release B to stop using the secondary function.]) and items:
Xray goggles - They do what you'd expect. Toggle them by holding A, highlight the item and release A (while highlighting)
NVG - they also do what you'd expect. (aslo a toggle)
Combat Boost - only usable with 1 player, these slow time down to ¼ speed. Great for the 2(?) missions it is given to you in, where time is short and aim is key, and in Multiplayer when confronted with with many seems at once. This is a "weapon" so it has to be in your hands to use.
The Pheonix - an alien (maian) pistol. Not to shabby. Secondary mode: Explosive rounds. Pistol. Explosive. Ha. This gus can be dual-wielded
The Mauler - another alien pistol (skedar). It has an impressive mag capacity and damage output. Secondary mode: charge-up shot. It consumes 5 bullets to charge and another to fire, but deals massive damage. Usually a one-hit kill. This gun can be dual-wielded, which helps perform a good ol' "one-two" on shielded enemies.
The DY357-LX - The personal .357 magnum of Trent Easton (leader of the kidnappers we discussed in the story part). This gun is gold-plated with a leopard fur pistol grip. Oh yeah, and it's a one-hit kill. The original magnum is the "DY357" so I imagine "LX" is short for "Luxury"
The RCP-120 - The gun that is Foster's redeeming quality. Supposed to be akin to the P-90, this gun shares its shape and status as an SMG. This gun packs a punch and carries an impressive magazine size of 120 rounds, and for good reason. Secondary mode: Cloaking Device. This cloaking device is fed by the magazine, and empties the clip in no more than 5 seconds. Reloading the clip doesn't disable the cloak, but you lose about a fifth or a quarter of the clip while in the reload animation. Worth it if you don't plan on shooting any SMGs.
The Laptop Gun - This SMG can be disguised as a laptop. That is an impressive feat, but does not come into play ingame. The reason it makes this list is the secondary mode. Secondary mode: Deploy it as a sentry turret. With it is sent (up to) 200 SMG rounds for it to fire. Be aware, it is a bit wasteful. It fires before it takes aim at its target and continues for awhile after. Pick it back up to replenish its supply.
The Calisto NTG - Another alien (maian) weapon, this assault rifle is capable of piercing light cover.
The Reaper - Yet another alien (skedar) weapon, this chaingun/fan/pray&spray thing puts out 200 rounds everywhere in front of you. Highly inaccurate. Once out of ammo it becomes a melee weapon.
The Farsight-XR20 (-XR some number, but I think it's 20) - The most OP weapon ever. It is a sniper rifle that has X-Ray vision. And it shoots through any amount of walls and cover. And it's a one-hit-wonder. And it has a target locator. And it has a relatively short cooldown. And it holds 8 rounds. And it reloads quickly. Maian alien tech at its fine ass madness-est
The Slayer - The Skedar's sadistic rocket launcher. It has the ability to be controlled, guiding the rocket to its target. It can be slowed to ½ or ¼ speed (hold L and/or R) to make sharp turns and glide through crawlspaces with ease. Be careful when flying slow, as the rocket can get shot down.
Finally, the craziest weapon of all. Only available by cheating or in a special mission:
The Psychosis Gun - a modified Tranquilizer that forces the enemy to permanently become your ally, killing enemies and following you. The weapon (eaven with the infinite ammo cheat(s) enabled) only has 4 (out of the 8 it can carry) in the magazine. This gun does NOT work on Skedar (unless they are "Scandinavian" [you have to play to get the reference]) so don't waste your ammo on them.
That about sums up the description. I feel sorry for whoever has to read this and approve it. Sorry, sir or ma'am.
Rating
Story - 4/5
Graphics - 5/5
Music - 65,463,684,100/5 (Best soundtrack ever)
Gameplay - 5/5
Keep this classic in your hard drives and sd cards forever. And if you have the cartridge, have it surgically implanted in your heart.