Aside from entering the multiplayer session last minute, I actually do want to talk about the game itself as a part of Retroactive. Although I really have little to say compared to the people who have played the game since the original N64 release, as I have only played the game for under a year since I downloaded it during the summer of gaming sale on XBLA last year. I'm not sure how I missed this game when it was first released but I suppose it was because I was younger and not really into First Person Shooters but instead played Super Mario 64, Smash Bros and Mario Kart for most of the time that I had my N64. It wasn't until Metroid Prime 2 on the Gamecube that I really discovered the FPS genre. Coming back to some of the older titles such as now with Perfect Dark and hopefully soon to pick up Goldeneye on Wii, yeah I know it's still not the "Retro" version but, close enough right? anyhow, I think if I would have played it back then, being only 17 now, I would have been under 10 when I got my N64, I probably would have been turned off of the FPS genre had I gotten into it at a early age. The controls are far from smooth, frame rate causes characters to often glitch across the screen and altogether difficult to master the controls. Granted you could argue that this point would be only relative to playing more modern games as going back to Super Mario 64 the controls are also very "Bad", but when I first played Halo 2 after I started to get into First Person Shooters, I really wasn't blown away by it. It took me awhile to get the hang of the dual analog controls with moving and looking at the same time, and granted with time it soon became one of my favorite games, even though at the time I didn't have an xbox. In the end I believe that had I started earlier I wouldn't have caught on as quickly and would have most likely completely rejected the genre of games in place of my more preferred and in general "simpler" Mario titles. My final point in all of this is to simply say that from my point of view, as a gamer who got into the FPS genre more recently with more modern games, the multiplayer is quite broken, although that is not to say it isn't fun. We just finished the community session with James, and that was one of the most fun I have had playing a simple yet "complicated" retro game.
In terms of campaign the game can get more credit from me than it can in terms of the multiplayer learning curve that I compared to when I first got into shooters in general. On terms of gameplay I found it to be much smoother than with the multiplayer. It rarely gave me reason to gripe about bad performance and generally ran pretty smooth, and for an older game, had I played it when it first came out, I would have been impressed with the graphics, in fact, still am. It is indeed a game that had aged well with a history of over ten years under its belt, and can be played without cringing your eyes in pain over terrible graphics, better than can be said for some "new" games I have played on the xbox 360. In terms of story, well, I hope I'm not the only one who played through and during the credit roll just said "what the hell just happened?" The campaign is fun to play offering interesting objectives to which I'm not sure if there are any differences between the xbox version and original N64 but I doubt it. I only played on one of the easy difficulties, although I did do the first level on the hardest difficulty for an achievement and can say that I wasn't fun. The game just throws so many bullets at you while making you do many more objectives then are required on the easy mode that it's barely possible to play, let alone finish, which I was only able to do by following a speed run that cuts most of the level out. Aside from the difficulty, just throw it on easy and play through the game, it's definitely worth playing and as it's not very long of a game unless you just find a reason to be utterly disgusted by the game, you should be engrossed in it to not be bored until you reach the end. This is helped by the way in which the game gives you newer weapons to use throughout the game and if on the 360, my personal favorites: Achievements. In the end it is a good game and worth getting as it's only around ten bucks on XBLA, or if you want to go retro I have no idea how much it runs, or the cost of the expansion card thing which is required to play most of the content on the actual game. My outlook on the game may be a little more critical than what some others may think based on the reason that I don't have the same nostalgia value towards it that they might, but I believe I give it a fair shot and if you get bored of Smash Bros, this is a good retro shooter to pull out during a LAN party.
So, I'm not sure if there is a real reason or specific point that is supposed to be covered in Retroactive posts, but here is my two cents about Perfect Dark, my history with it, and opinions. After over two years of being a behind the curtain member, and even longer that I've been listening to the podcast, I think it's about time that I truly join the community and participate with Retroactive.
Good games guys and I look forward to more community activities in the future. After tonight, I'll be sure not to miss any!
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