Perfect Dark
When the studio that defined the console shooter with GoldenEye 007 is given a free hand and a world of its own, something exceptional is born. Perfect Dark by Rare is the sci-fi heir to the spirit of GoldenEye — an espionage FPS that pushed the genre's possibilities on the Nintendo 64 to their very limits.
You step into the role of agent Joanna Dark in a cyberpunk future full of corporate conspiracies and alien intrigue. The campaign builds on the same DNA as its famous predecessor — varied missions with concrete objectives, difficulty levels that change both the tasks and the placement of enemies, and an emphasis on smart progress rather than mindless shooting. On top of that it adds an inventive arsenal of weapons, many of which have a secondary firing mode with surprising effects.
Where Perfect Dark truly shone, however, was in multiplayer. It offered extensive options for local battles including bots — computer-controlled teammates and opponents with adjustable intelligence and behavior — which was remarkably progressive for a console of its time. You could wage battles even without a group of friends, or assemble team firefights exactly to your taste.
The game was among the most demanding things the Nintendo 64 could technically handle — rich environments, detailed effects and sophisticated artificial intelligence cost the console a great deal, and in the busiest scenes the hardware visibly broke a sweat. Even so, it stands as an impressive demonstration of just how far Rare managed to push the machine.
Perfect Dark is still prized today as one of the peaks of console FPS of its generation and a meaningful extension of the GoldenEye legacy into its own, original world. For fans of the shooters of that era it is a mandatory stop — polished, ambitious and still fun.
Why play it: An ambitious espionage FPS from the creators of GoldenEye with a rich campaign and pioneering bot-driven multiplayer — one of the peaks of the genre on the Nintendo 64.
Game 14 of 77 for Nintendo 64
The same title elsewhere (1)
On the Nintendo 64 this was a sprawling first-person spy shooter with elaborate missions and a beloved multiplayer mode, one of the console's most technically and creatively ambitious games. The Game Boy Color version, however, is not a scaled-down port of the same experience — it's a separate game with a top-down perspective, closer to stealthy action than direct shooting, with simpler graphics and music matching the handheld's capabilities. Anyone wanting Perfect Dark at its full strength should reach for the N64 version; the GBC release is more interesting as a curiosity and a different angle on the same agent's story.
