WOOOT! I got quoted
For future reference oohhboy is a reference to Scott Bakula/Quantum leap and trouble. It can be pronounced long or short to whatever comfort level you desire.
I paid full price for Perfect Dark back in the day, that's $120NZD in year 2000 dollars which according to Wolfram Alpha, cost anywhere between $47.04USD to $63.05USD. Not only that I bought an expansion pack for another $60NZD, making Perfect Dark the single most expensive game I have ever brought and nothing else comes close since. I feel no buyer's remorse for spending so much money on a single game, however it will remain a unique experience as I will never do that again.
The Coop campaign should be quite interesting. As innovative as it was, the N64 had no hope rendering enough frames to be playable for Coop. I look forward to hearing about how well it could have played.
The campaign itself, style and general openness of a level hasn't really been done since. Almost everything these days are corridor shooters, roller coaster rides. They sometimes try to give you an illusion of a branching path, but more often than not there's nothing there or it's "Intel". PD places additional objectives down multiple paths and gives far greater leeway as to how to reach an objective.
Carrington Villa Hostage One on Perfect Agent is a great example of this. You get dropped off by your transport and the first thing you have to do save the negotiator. Most games would take control and lead you to a sniper rifle forcing you to play how it wants you to play. Of course the easiest way to finish that objective is to snipe, but should you feel obligated, you can use a pistol. Same thing with the rooftop snipers, on agent you don't have to, but killing them helps, on special and perfect, it's an objective. There are whole sections of the villa you don't have to go to, but now contain objectives and partially randomized like the Datadyne hackers. Your told to take a prisoner, but it is completely up to you who to knock out, they don't force you to look out for a specific guy who can only be ID with some small difference, or scanning. The power generator is a fixed objective, but on Perfect you have to hit to switch than the one. Rescuing Carrington has two complete separate paths you can use.
It is example of excellent level design that directs you to a final objective, with tasks that are logical and doesn't hold your hand. It doesn't make it harder only by making enemies do more damage, more health, more/faster respawns, more accurate like all modern shooters, but make you confront more situations that need resolving. One really neat feature that is used in Chicago Stealth and Airforce One: Antiterrorism is actions performed on one level carry over to the next. In Chicago, PD remembers where you placed a remote mine last mission and opens up that door when you extract. In Airforce One you get access to a hover bike next level if you performed a certain nonobjective action.
The level design in PD and games like it during that period is so different as it doesn't use scripting to like chewing gum and duct tape to hold separate elements of a level together like with modern shooters. Enemies are placed into a level and given standing orders. Unless there is an alarm, there are more or less enemies to kill.
Timesplitters, while descended from GE and PD, doesn't have quite a wide scope with it's level design and contain so obnoxious objectives like find and destroy X number of some object inside linear levels. It makes TS the lesser game.
Topic: Episode 245: Most Dishonorable (Read 15591 times)
