Author Topic: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)  (Read 29404 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Nik Vendiers

  • Score: 1
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #50 on: June 01, 2011, 07:58:00 PM »
My impression of Perfect Dark's singleplayer though so far (finished on the easy difficulty and now starting over on the middle) is that it gets bogged down trying to imitate the modern Half-Life style of gameplay, .

That's quite interesting...

I never really saw any connection between the two games, Perfect Dark and Half-Life, although I'm usually kinda slow at that kind of thing so since you mentioned it I can recall some scenarios within the game that make the game play in a similar way. I do remember playing through it and thinking that some levels were way too long or the way in which they implemented the objectives did so in a way that only extended the game by creating seemingly pointless backtracking or other such means of wandering around the level endlessly searching for some mundane switch or lever that the game gives no hint as to its location.

I find it kind of funny that you appreciate the game for what it does for multiplayer while I praise the game more for its single player campaign. I suppose that only shows testament to a truly good game that is able to expand interest to a variety of players and not only in one mode or the other, such as modern games that are solely single player with tacked on multiplayer modes.

Offline Nik Vendiers

  • Score: 1
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #51 on: June 01, 2011, 08:42:50 PM »
Apart from discussing the game, I'm ready to play it again! :D
If the session is still set to go for tonight send me an invite when you are all ready.

Offline FZeroBoyo

  • Score: 12
    • View Profile
    • My deviantART
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #52 on: June 01, 2011, 09:17:07 PM »
Session still on for tonight? I'd like to join for a while.
This is where I would write something witty or funny if I had any ideas.

Offline Nik Vendiers

  • Score: 1
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #53 on: June 01, 2011, 11:24:00 PM »
Another good session of Perfect Dark multiplayer. Although it seemed a little less lively with the absence of James for most of it... maybe just a little slower then last night. Either way it was fun but doesn't really change the way I see the game. It's still full of issues but with a large party, still tons of fun to play. :D

Offline marty

  • Score: -96
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #54 on: June 03, 2011, 05:41:17 PM »
While I'm guessing the next episode is already in the can, I remembered a multiplayer trick:  Using a throwing knife on a dead body.  The post-mortem throwing knife would continue to deliver a few doses of poison to a re-spawned player dealing damage and screwing with their vision.  Not as funny (but still funny, read:cheap) was dosing someone with lots of tranq darts or crossbow arrows.


I definitely spent hundreds of hours with the combat simulator.

Offline gojira

  • Score: 2
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #55 on: June 03, 2011, 06:00:33 PM »
Another good session of Perfect Dark multiplayer. Although it seemed a little less lively with the absence of James for most of it... maybe just a little slower then last night. Either way it was fun but doesn't really change the way I see the game. It's still full of issues but with a large party, still tons of fun to play. :D

Yeah James acting as MC was definitely a plus for me.

Offline Traveller

  • NWR Staff
  • Score: 14
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #56 on: June 03, 2011, 07:46:25 PM »
I will jump on in an hour or so if anyone wants to play.
 
EDIT:  I plugged in the N64 version earlier, and wow, I really appreciate the 360 remake even more now. Granted I was playing it on a 1080p screen though..
« Last Edit: June 03, 2011, 11:22:07 PM by Traveller »
Nicholas Bray - Australian Correspondent

Offline oohhboy

  • Forum Friend or Foe?
  • Score: 38
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #57 on: June 05, 2011, 12:25:47 AM »
I have had no issues with the controls of the N64 version in regard to the software. What I do have issue with is the fact I played the not only this game, but other games long enough that one invariably grinds the responsiveness out of the joystick and salts it with plastic dust.
I'm Lacus. I'm fine as Lacus!
Pffh. Toilet paper? What do you think cats are for?

Offline Traveller

  • NWR Staff
  • Score: 14
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #58 on: June 05, 2011, 12:36:27 AM »
My N64 sticks are still in pristine condition. I did not play Mario Party 1 with them!
Nicholas Bray - Australian Correspondent

Offline Stardust

  • Score: 2
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #59 on: June 05, 2011, 04:30:50 PM »
Alright, setting up another dark night (i haven't been able to go to one yet) so I will be able to invite you all via gamertag, about thursday night (If you can't, dont worry) and this is not limited to the forum, crimm, jonny and the whole crew is invited also (If someone could give me Lindy's gamertag that would be awesome or lindy himself) 9'oclock EST come one come all! biggest dark night (hopefully) everyone is allowed to join! (can we fit that many people?)
EDIT: if you don't know my gamertag, you'll be invited by beastxxshadowxx and you'll know its dark time.
Bad players mash all the buttons. Good players mash one button.

Live and Let live.

Offline adadad

  • Score: 3
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #60 on: June 06, 2011, 01:40:05 AM »
Been playing some more of the Perfect Dark missions, and today I got to (and after a good deal of trial and error, finally beat) Chicago. On the plus side once you know what to do the mission is a good deal shorter than most of the others, which is a relief. The tone, the setting and the objectives were clearly a big inspiration for the Timesplitters games. I think one of the problems is that, as with every other mission, you get chucked into the fray without any real sense of where you are and what you are supposed to do. Even when the path is linear and not branching, the objectives can be so obscure that it takes a while to become oriented. The briefing helps to an extent (and in Perfect Dark the briefings are always essential reading!) but it feels like a bit of a cheat to me. It reminds me of the old adage that films ought to show story rather than simply have the characters say the story out loud. In movie-speak, you might say that Perfect Dark as a film has a ton of exposition and does not do much showing. This was a problem too in Goldeneye, although I don't feel it was quite to the same extent.

Anyway, the Chicago level really reminds me of the Timesplitters games. There's an emphasis on stealth in this mission, arguably probably as much as there was in the entirety of Goldeneye's singleplayer (the second Bunker level with Natalya in jail with you was the only time I can think of where stealth was ever really required). It got me thinking - yes, again - about the state of the FPS genre when Perfect Dark and Goldeneye were released. Goldeneye came out in 1997? And Perfect Dark was 2000? It's amazing how much of a enormous change the FPS underwent in just those three years. Not just in the FPS genre of course, but all of gaming, but in particular I think for shooters there was a revolution in gameplay. And of course Goldeneye greatly contribute to that shift by bringing diversity to the FPS genre, with a wide variety of objectives and approaches to levels that differed from Doom's run-and-gun style of play. And in 1998 that same creativity really started to flourish on the PC and we saw remarkably diverse and classic FPSs like Half-Life, Thief and Deus Ex, all of which hold up to this day in my opinion. Also, even though it's not an FPS, Metal Gear Solid too really helped to popularise stealth as a new method of interacting with a world.

And then, to play Perfect Dark for the first time in the wake of all of these innovations I think would have been disappointing. Goldeneye was on the cutting edge in 1997, whereas Perfect Dark was (in the singleplayer at least) a relatively minor iteration on Goldeneye. I can imagine that even by 2000 Goldeneye must've looked really old hat compared with the PC shooters of the day. Still, the major problem I have with Perfect Dark is that almost all of its changes to the old formula do not improve the experience in my opinion. I've already posted my thoughts in this thread on the final level's nods to Half-Life, and likewise, I think the Chicago level is highly reminiscent of Deus Ex (specifically the Hong Kong section of the game), both visually and in the way certain objectives can be done out of order, with multiple approaches and routes on offer. Just as with the Half-Life references though, it's too brief and ends up simply feeling out of step with the rest of the game. I'm coming to see PD's singleplayer as a kind of grab bag of these different elements from other games, but it's like seeing a parody of a classic film in a cartoon - it can be good but it's never going to serve as an adequate replacement for the original. And especially not when the sequences are so short, like the headcrab stuff in the final mission. It's just not possible for Perfect Dark to replicate the tone and feel of Half-Life in a minute long corridor walk in a single bounded level, when Half-Life is a seamlessly flowing 15 hour experience with its own distinctly cinematic style.

For its flaws I do think it's fascinating how Perfect Dark's singleplayer attempts to straddle the line between the old and the (then) new. Ultimately it's a shame though. Those three PC shooters I mentioned, Deus Ex, Half-Life and Thief, were great because they took and stuck to one direction that differentiated them from everything else around at the time. It's a shame in my opinion that Perfect Dark's singleplayer doesn't often enough emphasise Goldeneye's best features, which for me boils down to satisfying shooting mechanics and tactical enemy encounters. Instead it shoehorns in elements of other games and stretches the limits of the mission structure, which leads at times to an undesirable place.

One last complaint since I'm ranting: civilians, I hate them in this game. One civilian casualty and it's automatically mission failed?! Come on!! I blew the entire mission ten minutes in when I shot a scientist, because he gave me lip and set off the alarm. I swear in Goldeneye they give you some leeway here, like you can kill maybe 3 civilians before you fail the mission? Gah.

Offline oohhboy

  • Forum Friend or Foe?
  • Score: 38
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #61 on: June 06, 2011, 02:30:28 AM »
There aren't any head crabs in PD, they are adolescent Skedar and have the same AI as the larger unarmed counterparts. (Yes you were killing kids).

As with dealing with civilians, pistol whip is your friend, use the secondary function on the Falcon 2.

Rare never tried to replicate the PC experience and they couldn't even if they wanted to. PD already took the N64 to breaking point and then some especially with multilayer. It can't match the lighting detail found in the Thief games that enables Thief's unique gameplay. Half-life is a completely linear, abet seamless experience that PD was never meant to be. HL and PD are FPS, but are very different games with very different goals. The N64 couldn't handle a game the size of Deus Ex, the minimum video RAM requirement alone would have maxed out the N64 and the PS2 version had to cut down levels. It is extremely unfair to directly compare PD to those games which had an order of magnitude more computing resources.

PD was constraint by the N64 and played to it's strengths. GoldenEye was the first FPS on a console that really worked and PD is a bigger, better version of that, but no matter how much better it maybe, will suffer from sequel bias. Like the 3 examples you gave, PD had it's own direction that worked for it, so I wholly disagree with your assessment. It stands strong along with the best the PC could offer at the time.
I'm Lacus. I'm fine as Lacus!
Pffh. Toilet paper? What do you think cats are for?

Offline adadad

  • Score: 3
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #62 on: June 06, 2011, 03:40:43 PM »
There aren't any head crabs in PD, they are adolescent Skedar and have the same AI as the larger unarmed counterparts. (Yes you were killing kids).

Come on, they're blatant headcrab knockoffs. The adult Skedar too, with the way they beam in suddenly, are also EXACTLY like the Vortigaunt.

Quote
As with dealing with civilians, pistol whip is your friend, use the secondary function on the Falcon 2.

I'm aware of this, and I have to say the pistol whip is very satisfying to use, but it can be really annoying on a level like Chicago where the civilians can get in the way and be killed in the crossfire and then it's instantly mission failed.

Quote
Rare never tried to replicate the PC experience and they couldn't even if they wanted to. PD already took the N64 to breaking point and then some especially with multilayer. It can't match the lighting detail found in the Thief games that enables Thief's unique gameplay. Half-life is a completely linear, abet seamless experience that PD was never meant to be. HL and PD are FPS, but are very different games with very different goals. The N64 couldn't handle a game the size of Deus Ex, the minimum video RAM requirement alone would have maxed out the N64 and the PS2 version had to cut down levels. It is extremely unfair to directly compare PD to those games which had an order of magnitude more computing resources.

PD was constraint by the N64 and played to it's strengths. GoldenEye was the first FPS on a console that really worked and PD is a bigger, better version of that, but no matter how much better it maybe, will suffer from sequel bias. Like the 3 examples you gave, PD had it's own direction that worked for it, so I wholly disagree with your assessment. It stands strong along with the best the PC could offer at the time.

While I completely take your point that technology was what allowed those game concepts to be realised on the PC, and a game like Half-Life simply would not be possible on the N64 (in fact weren't there some slight cuts made for Half-Life on the Dreamcast and possibly the PS2 too?), my point is that Perfect Dark is so overambitious that it tries to expand Goldeneye by bringing in gameplay styles from those PC games, and the singleplayer game suffers for it. Why crudely borrow these things from other games when Goldeneye has a proven blueprint to work from? I would've preferred it had Perfect Dark been what you describe: a bigger, better version of Goldeneye. For me, that would mean simply a game with more levels than Goldeneye, with each level averaging under five minutes to complete.

Ultimately though I think a lot of this argument comes down to the fact that I think Goldeneye is a superior game to Perfect Dark as a singleplayer experience. In multiplayer for me they're about even, but I can absolutely see why many would prefer Perfect Dark, Rare did a great job with it.

I don't want to go on another rant, but for me the appeal of both games is the shooting. It's satisfying. My favourite parts of both games are when you're confronted by enemies and have to play tactically in order to beat them. So, for example in Perfect Dark, in the third mission I enjoyed facing off against Cassandra's bodyguards with the shotguns, particularly near the top of the building when the lights go out and you have to overcome four of them at the same time. So perhaps now you can understand why I find PD's final level so tedious to replay - there's no strategy whatsoever when most of the enemies simply spawn next to you and just run at you, it's just backpedal and shoot, backpedal and shoot. I'd be curious to know what it is for you that makes Perfect Dark so endearing, at least as far as the singleplayer missions go, because to me they feel bloated.

Offline pandaradox

  • Score: 0
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #63 on: June 08, 2011, 06:26:45 PM »
Man, I haven't played this game in forever, but after listening to part 1, all the memories rushed back in.  My brothers and I would spend hours playing 3 of us against 8 dark sims that had the alien skin and tiny heads.  If you want to be humbled, try that set up.  The only way we would win would involve plastering a prox mine on my little brother and send him in to the masses as a human sacrifice.  If you're not into the whole attrition method, find a sliding door and constantly open and close it to where the door is only half raised.  The AI reads it as a closed door and will keep trying to open it while you're closing it, allowing human players to shoot under the door.  This only works for a bit as they eventually get the door open and massacre everyone inside.  Still, made for some hectic adrenaline rushes that I rarely get from games these days. 

After hearing about the game's op weapons, I think what helped allow this to be so is that the game was mainly built for four player split screen where everyone in the room KNEW I had a farsight and could tell when I was sniping via the psychedelic x-ray view.  I like to think Rare encouraged screen looking on this level or at least acknowledged it in that way.  It made screen looking a fun part of the game and made kills that much more appreciated.  When I start humming Smoke on the Water and crouche walked with a callisto, my brothers knew that I was calling them out and they came running.  It was a feeling many shooters fail to capture and smash brothers does so well: Chaos. 

I never really enjoyed Golden Eye and played PD thoroughly.  The single player campaign is a bit lacking, but served its purpose in introducing the weapons.  Nbombs and Tranq battles will always hold a special place in my heart... as will the memories of my brother running out of the felicity bathroom with prox mines for eyeballs.   

Offline oohhboy

  • Forum Friend or Foe?
  • Score: 38
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #64 on: June 11, 2011, 03:23:05 PM »
I am not sure we have played the same games adadad.

I am not sure if you have been spoiled by modern shooters which contain checkpoints every 5 or so minutes, but you can't make a FPS with levels that takes 5 minutes to complete outside of a speed run. Perfect Dark by your definition should take 100 minutes to complete start to finish in a normal first time run including special missions. What you are looking for is Time Crisis, not a FPS. All the action scenes out of the movie without any of the build up. A shooting range in which PD provides for.

As for your claims of Head Crabs and Vortigaunts, I am not sure want the hell your smoking, but this is a Skedar, large and small(The actual Skedar is a slug in the back of the head):

This is a Head Crab:

And this is a Vortigaunt:


Seriously, what are you smoking.

In almost every way PD is a better game, looks better except for the frame rate. Massive number of guns, larger levels, more gadgets, secondary fire on all weapons, fully voiced, larger variation in mission types, an AR HUD for Joanna that is your in game HUD. If it wasn't for the frame rate PD would inarguably be the better game since it makes such an impact on gameplay. GE is also a more arcady game, a lot less deliberate than PD should you prefer the former style.

When GE was released there was nothing else like it on PC outside of a couple of small, early examples like System Shock 1 which has more in common to the corridor RPGs than FPS. FPS was no longer just about getting from point A to B. There were things to do along the way and the exit was only a way to tell you that you have achieve those objectives. Before this, it was kill anything that happens to distract you enough in order to get to the exit. This was during a time where people laughed at the idea of a console FPS(Some still do).

PD built on this and I can't see how you could ask for even more let alone state that it was crudely done from borrowed elements from the PC when it's predecessor had effectively in parallel invented said elements for the console in a working state!

As to your claims of spawning enemies, the final non-special level ends in a boss fight and the Skedar during that level that "Spawned" were Skedar you missed because they were cloaked. You can shoot them before they de-cloak and if you have a sharp eye you can see them stand there while cloaked or use the IR goggles. They don't spawn behind you like in DOOM 3. So no, I don't understand why you think PD final level is tedious because I don't think your playing the same game I did. Also backpedaling gets you killed when they leap, you strafe and shoot them in the slug.
I'm Lacus. I'm fine as Lacus!
Pffh. Toilet paper? What do you think cats are for?

Offline adadad

  • Score: 3
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #65 on: June 12, 2011, 10:55:08 PM »
I am not sure we have played the same games adadad.

I am not sure if you have been spoiled by modern shooters which contain checkpoints every 5 or so minutes, but you can't make a FPS with levels that takes 5 minutes to complete outside of a speed run. Perfect Dark by your definition should take 100 minutes to complete start to finish in a normal first time run including special missions. What you are looking for is Time Crisis, not a FPS. All the action scenes out of the movie without any of the build up. A shooting range in which PD provides for.

Damn right, I suppose you could say that I'm looking for Time Crisis, insofar as I dislike a lot of the mission padding in PD.

I don't think I explained my point very well in my last post about the length of the levels. Some of the best levels for me in Goldeneye are Train, Caves and Facility which give the player very little to think about in the way of objectives. The obstacles in your way are primarily soldier opponents. If you ignore the enemies in Facility and go straight for the objectives, that level can be beaten in under 2 minutes, which boggles my mind. But a first timer is not going to play that way it's so risky. At a more leisurely pace that level usually takes me upwards of ten minutes, and I should say that there is nothing wrong with that length per se (the speed run times for Caves are almost 10 minutes long). But what does annoy me is how often the levels in Perfect Dark go for non-linear level design on a large scale combined with vague objectives.

So, right now I'm playing Area 51: Rescue, and after a fun start in a big room with huge containers and a silenced pistol it goes downhill when you break a wall to get into the labs. It gives you so many potential ways to go from there that it's just ridiculous, and as well as being lost I also have no idea which objective I'm supposed to tackle next, or how to do it. Missions like this, where you have to dress up or obtain access to a lab or some such are tricky too since the goal is not represented visually. A counterexample is in GE's Frigate level, in which you have to place a tracking bug on a helicopter. You have the tracking bug in your inventory already, so there's no confusion, you know what to look for. By the way, I'm not in any way implying here that Goldeneye is exempt from the same criticisms as PD - many levels in GE suffer from confusing objectives and hard-to-navigate level layouts, most notably the Surface levels...bad enough the first time round, they had to put in ANOTHER one, even worse than the first?!

I can't grasp why anyone would play these games for anything other than the action though. Most objectives consist of nothing more than going to a place and hitting the B button. And there are no puzzles to speak of, so I'm confused. Where does the most satisfaction in the game come from? For me, the objectives are simply the conceit to move from A to B and have fun shooting lots of guys along the way, and maybe that's why it annoys me that objectives are integrated in a less linear fashion in PD than in GE. And I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way - Nik Vendiers said something earlier in this thread which echoes my thoughts:

I do remember playing through it and thinking that some levels were way too long or the way in which they implemented the objectives did so in a way that only extended the game by creating seemingly pointless backtracking or other such means of wandering around the level endlessly searching for some mundane switch or lever that the game gives no hint as to its location.

Worth quoting, because he said it better and far faster than I could.

Quote
As for your claims of Head Crabs and Vortigaunts, I am not sure want the hell your smoking
Seriously, what are you smoking.

Oh, what a fool you've made me look! Wasn't it clear that I was not attempting to suggest that these creatures look in any way similar? The point is that their interaction with the player is similar. The Vortigaunts beam in at set points in a flash of light and attack at close quarters, just like the Skedar when they appear close by (I wasn't aware you could see them using the IR scanner). And the baby Skedar things jump at you if you let them get close enough, just as with headcrabs. My complaint with these enemies is not that they're clearly an homage to another game, but that without guns (and obviously this doesn't apply to the Skedar who use Reapers) and in the small numbers the level throws at you, there is almost no strategy required to beat these guys and they pose little threat. Again, compare with GE's Train or Aztec levels, which encourage the player to be cautious and strategic by having numerous enemies in a single room who will shoot immediately if you're visible to them.

Quote
In almost every way PD is a better game, looks better except for the frame rate. Massive number of guns, larger levels, more gadgets, secondary fire on all weapons, fully voiced, larger variation in mission types, an AR HUD for Joanna that is your in game HUD. If it wasn't for the frame rate PD would inarguably be the better game since it makes such an impact on gameplay. GE is also a more arcady game, a lot less deliberate than PD should you prefer the former style.

I don't disagree with anything here, although I don't understand what you mean when you call GE less deliberate than PD. You're right though that the crux of this whole argument is that GE is more arcade-ey, which is a style I prefer to PD's bastard hybrid of modern and old-school elements. For me, the arcade style of GE is what makes it unique and still worth playing today. I might add that my reaction to Perfect Dark has been a huge disappointment for me, since I was compelled to complete GE in its entirety for the first time recently, beating every level on 00 Agent and all the speed challenges, and I'm not usually a completist. I had high hopes for PD, but so far I'm less than half-way through PD on Special Agent and I'm not enjoying the experience much at all.

Quote
PD built on this and I can't see how you could ask for even more let alone state that it was crudely done from borrowed elements from the PC when it's predecessor had effectively in parallel invented said elements for the console in a working state!

You seem to be under the impression that I wanted PD to perfectly replicate the experience of shooters like Deus Ex and Half-Life. I wouldn't say I'm asking for anything more from the game already has, if anything I'm asking for less since I wish they'd removed the fat from the game and focused on the strengths of their engine. It's the poorly thought out implementation of the missions' "variety" that is the problem.

When going back to an old game like this I think it's worth asking: what does Perfect Dark offer that other shooters haven't done much better since? I can see the arguments for the multiplayer, which has had its merits discussed both on RFN and in this thread (bots, weapons, etc), but the singleplayer missions not so much.

Ugh, I apologise for another essay.

Offline Jonnyboy117

  • Associate Editor
  • NWR Staff
  • Score: 37
    • View Profile
    • Nintendo World Report
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #66 on: June 13, 2011, 10:32:08 PM »
Hey everyone, we have decided to push back the conclusion of RetroActive one more week to catch up on post-E3 discussion and tackle some of the great emails from the past two weeks. The good news is that it gives you and us more time to play the campaign and collect more comments on the overall game. It looks like the thread is going very well, so thanks to everyone who has been contributing!
THE LAMB IS WATCHING!

Offline Nick DiMola

  • Staff Alumnus
  • Score: 20
    • View Profile
    • PixlBit
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #67 on: June 14, 2011, 08:36:40 AM »
I had high hopes for PD, but so far I'm less than half-way through PD on Special Agent and I'm not enjoying the experience much at all.

For what it's worth, the game really comes alive in Perfect Agent mode. So many of the subtleties of the experience are lost in Special Agent mode to make it easier. Fighting the Skedar is a great example of that. In one level, you start with just a knife on a Skedar ship with enemies everywhere. You'll quickly learn that your knife can be thrown into the back of a Skedar's head for a one shot kill. In Perfect Agent, those guys are bullet sponges, so it's a revelation when you learn it. As you work your way through the level, you'll come to realize there is a "right" path through the place and it requires perfect timing and precision to make it through.

The rest of the game is very much the same way in Perfect Agent, though the first few levels aren't the best showcase of it. The game takes a lot more thought and planning than GoldenEye did and that makes it a very different experience. Perfect Dark is more of a stealth game where you should be working your way through levels out of enemy sight, whereas GoldenEye is closer to a run 'n' gun, though some of the stealth stuff is still there (Bunker comes to mind).

I can see why Perfect Dark wouldn't be as appealing to most as GoldenEye in the single player campaign, especially in the lower difficulty segments, but that's largely because they are fairly different experiences that, in my opinion, won't necessarily appeal to the same people.

The only other game that reminds me of Perfect Dark is, surprisingly enough, Hitman 2. While not a first person shooter, the stealth elements, objective-based mission structure, and versatility of the experience make for something extremely memorable. Of course, we needn't forget Perfect Dark's challenge mode and multiplayer modes, which put it in a different league. Spec Ops mode in Modern Warfare 2 did a great job of updating the Challenge Mode concept introduced by Perfect Dark and improving it considerably. And of course, the multiplayer mode of Perfect Dark improves what was introduced in GoldenEye making it a much better choice for bouts with friends.

I can see where people would draw parallels to other first person shooters of the time. Surely Rare was influenced by some of these other experiences, but clearly they are all different and unique games, not the disjointed hodgepodge of concepts I believe you are describing, adadad. I concede to the point that the mission objectives are completely unclear and that provides for some definite frustration. For me, at the time I played through Perfect Dark, I had a whole high school summer of doing nothing to complete the game and part of the experience was discovering what each objective was while playing through the missions. For something like the retrospective, that part of the game is unwelcome because it hinders getting through it for discussion purposes.

If Perfect Dark didn't have its multiplayer component, I think it would be a love it or hate it kind of experience.
Check out PixlBit!

Offline marty

  • Score: -96
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #68 on: June 16, 2011, 07:38:44 PM »
adadad, I tend to agree a lot with your sentiments about the single player portions of both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.


A big inspiration for GoldenEye was Virtua Cop.  Originally, GE was going to be an on rails shooter and when the game went FPS, it retained the inclusion of needing to aim at the head or body for maximum damage as well as there being non-combative NPC's that shouldn't be shot.


Levels were also designed before the engine was finished so they weren't made serving any real purpose--they were just based off movie and other locations that they thought would be interesting to see.  I think this gave GE a pretty interesting feel since levels were pretty open and contained extraneous rooms that made the locations seem more realistic as well as giving the player alternate paths to objectives and allowed for the stealth elements to make sense.


Multiple objectives were also put in because the dev team liked the idea of many things to do in one level.  This was inspired by Mario 64.  The objectives are sometimes very hard to understand but I don't ever really feeling like I sank a lot of time into any one play through, that going back and doing it over felt like punishment.


PD had a similar development process but was little more focused--level's built because they might be interesting to play in/gadgets that would be cool to use.  I know a lot more work was put into the AI and multiplayer, too--much more than GoldenEye and it shows.


I think that PD's level's, and therefore missions, suffer from being too big, for the most part.  The first few levels are okay, but Area51 is pretty big and hard to keep track of, same with the Air force base and the crash site and the Skedar levels--especially the last one.  The sprawl doesn't help the frame rate either, which became more of an issue due to tougher enemies that were a lot more responsive than those in GE as well as a lot more capable of shooting you through windows and across railings and small gaps.


I also feel like what weapon you are using is very important in PD.  Enemies take more damage, move and target you faster, and seem a lot better at killing you so taking them down quickly is needed if you're going to beat a level.  AI was just a little slower in GE which gave the player a half second to line up a head shot or run past them or even go back into cover if you were outgunned--you had a little bit of time to react to your situation.  GE allowed for a little bit of planning to, if you came up on enemies with their backs to you--you could try to maintain silence with a few well placed headshots or you could pull out the automatic and fill a few enemies backs with lead before they knew you were there.  In PD, I always felt like I needed to run with the biggest gun I could because enemies could take a few shots without flinching and were pretty good at shooting you.  Where GE you could get by with accuracy and a pistol, PD you really needed to be quick on the trigger of a machine gun or you were dead--outgunning someone is way more important than accuracy.


Objectives are a bit of a problem in both games as they are often vague or give no direction on what the player really has to do.  It's not good in either game but GE seems to keep things pretty condensed--I really don't remember too much back tracking outside of the Aztec level.  Due to GE's limited AI, completing objectives was really the driving force behind gameplay--enemies can stop you but you can get through a lot of levels without having to kill everyone.  Since the AI is such a threat to you in PD, I always felt like I had to kill everyone otherwise they might kill me--it's a different dynamic, really--GE has you completing objectives and killing people that get in your way, PD has you killing enemies and completing objectives that get in your way.


I'd also like to say that the tone of PD is really inconsistent.  The b-movie future spy stuff really clashes awkwardly with the wacky alien bits which clashes awkwardly with the horror alien parts.  I don't want to harp on the writing or acting but the blood/being called a bitch mixed with elvis and presidential clones and ancient alien death rays is just a bit jarring and really uninteresting.  The moddy Blade Runner-esq first few levels in dataDyne and Chicago are cool but then there's the villa--which, on it's own, is a fine level, but it feels out of place--but then the game just jumps the shark and keeps going off in weird directions.  I guess a lot like I see the levels just having too much sprawl simply because they could--even though they hurt the frame rate, gameplay, and, as I see it, overall game design--the tone of the game just goes everywhere because it can regardless of how interesting or fun any of it is--or in this case isn't.


Perfect Dark isn't an abomination.  It just doesn't have the same consistency as GoldenEye.  Where technical limitations encroach on GoldenEye, they do so in service to a focused, if not sometimes overambitious design.  Rare was also under the impression that the N64 was going to be a little more powerful than it was.  Perfect Dark also pushes the technical boundries of the system a little too hard, at time, but it never feels as necessary as it did in GoldenEye and it's never in service of good gameplay, either--it's usually just the developers showing off what almost could be done.

Offline adadad

  • Score: 3
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #69 on: June 16, 2011, 11:44:26 PM »
Great post marty, and I'm not just saying that because it's a relief to not be the only dissenting voice in this thread! I vaguely recall having heard that GE was an on-rails shooter originally, but I'd completely forgotten, so thanks for that nugget, that's really interesting. And also thanks Nick, your post motivated me to pick up the game again when I was ready to give up. I took your advice and have now completed two levels on Perfect Agent (the first level and the crash site), which were both pretty enjoyable. They did involve some frustration though, I think due partly to some of the reasons marty pointed to. Crash site in particular suffers I think because of how expansive the level is.

One thing Perfect Agent has made me think about is how the progression through difficulty levels differs from Goldeneye. In Goldeneye the progression through the difficulty levels would go: Agent took you through a level down a linear path in most cases, with easy enemies and few objectives. Secret Agent made the enemies a little bit harder but the main difference would be in the objectives: you'd usually have at least one added objective which would require you to go off the beaten path and do a bit of exploring. 00 Agent generally kept the same objectives as Secret Agent, and only occasionally added minor wrinkles, none of which require substantial additional exploration. The exception is the Dam level, which on 00 forces you to go through the underground passage beneath the dam.

Based on my experiences so far in the two levels I've beaten so far on Perfect Agent and a look at a walkthrough of PD, I think it's a little odd how in Perfect Dark every difficulty up adds at least one new objective. In the case of the levels I've beaten, Crash Site and the first Datadyne mission, the added Perfect Agent objectives substantially added to the level. In the Crash Site in particular, I was frustrated on Agent at how sprawling the level was, and how much of it felt like unnecessary space, when in actual fact the objectives are fairly easily accessible. My level completion time was something like 20 minutes because I'd wasted loads of time traversing cliffs and facing off against turret guns to no end. And then Secret Agent is almost identical with one extra objective that is found very close to where you start the mission. Only on Perfect Agent are the cliffs and turret guns sections of the level utilised. It's a similar case in the Datadyne level too, although perhaps not to quite the same extent. Perfect Agent requires you to fully explore the top three storeys of the building, whereas Secret Agent and Agent only require you to break into Cassandra's office (the top of the three accessible floors) before you can descend to the bottom floor.

This would certainly explain what Nick said about Perfect Agent being the best way to experience the game. From those two levels I can certainly see it. On the easier difficulties practically half of the Crash Site level is dead space! I think the Dam in Goldeneye gives a good example of level design which helps to prevent the experience of aimless wandering I've come across several times on the lower difficulties in Perfect Dark. The Dam is basically a straight line from start to finish, but by the level exit is the entrance to an underground tunnel. Your sole objective on Agent is to jump off the dam so there is no motivation to enter the two buildings on the dam which contain entrances to the tunnel. On Secret Agent the sole additional objective is to destroy the alarms. The final alarm in the level is just inside one of the buildings on the dam, right by a staircase leading down to the underground passageway. The player isn't required to go down there, but the staircase entrance leading to the passage is introduced for what is likely the first time. If the player wants to they can go down and explore, but crucially this is with the knowledge that there is nothing there relevant to the mission (after the final alarm by the tunnel entrance the only remaining objective should be to jump off the dam and thereby end the mission). Then finally 00 Agent requires the full exploration of the tunnel. And, as I mentioned, this level is the sole exception in that the 00 Agent difficulty actually adds an objective which requires traversing someplace new.

To be honest I'm surprised at how much content is exclusive to Perfect Agent in PD. In Goldeneye the challenge of 00 was almost always putting your existing knowledge of the level from Secret Agent to the test through a scarcity of ammo and tougher enemies. Basically, an exercise in honing what you learned in Secret Agent. Whereas Perfect Agent broadens the canvas significantly with its new objectives. My feelings on this are somewhat mixed. It's great that, as Nick put it, the game has finally "come to life", and the levels feel that much more rich and complete. On the other hand, I disagree with the game's implementation of the difficulty levels: the levels on Secret Agent and Agent are filled with so much dead space that the levels feel far too sparse. I think the second level (Datadyne Investigation) is a good example of how Perfect Agent changes a level for the better - on Agent and Secret Agent there are a lot of dead ends and seemingly pointless rooms which become relevant on Perfect Agent. The level suddenly becomes more interesting since there isn't the danger of taking a wrong turn and ending up on a dead end path which has no relevance to any objective. The problem then on Perfect Agent is that the higher threat posed by the enemies makes the new exploratory aspects of the level that much more difficult and time consuming to accomplish. It was frustrating for me on the first Datadyne level, having wiped out three storeys worth of bloodthirsty enemies, to have the engineer delete the file I was supposed to download, just because I didn't knock him out at the right moment after he'd completed his role. I'd much rather have the ability to experience that sort of objective-failure moment on Secret Agent than on Perfect, where the effort and skill required to survive isn't as high.

Having said all that, I'm looking forward to getting back to the game and applying myself to more Perfect Agent!

Offline oohhboy

  • Forum Friend or Foe?
  • Score: 38
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #70 on: June 17, 2011, 01:34:28 AM »
You pretty much didn't play the same game I did, nor did you finish it. It would explain most of your complaints.

In any case I still find your claims of Mini-skedar = Head Crabs incredulous. What you are complaining about is the use of a particular enemy arch-type that pre-dates half-life. Duke Nukem 3D had this type of enemy well before either games in the form of the face hugging slime aliens. GE's non-scifi setting precluded the use of anything other than turrets and people as enemies. PD scifi setting allowed for more gameplay leeway, which as a side effect gave us Thor Elvis. the story was there to service the gameplay, not the other way around. As for the Vortigaunts I have no idea why you still insist the Skedar spawn in especially after I pointed out the use of the IR scanner. The only time anybody blantently spawn is the final boss battle and you get warning from the boss when it happens. Which lead to..

I can safely bet that your first FPS was Half-life or something equally linear of the same time period(Which at the time was the new thing on the block). You wanted a linear experience whether it was GE or PD, which neither were made for. You were generally allowed to do objectives out of sequence. There are few "cinematic" scripted experiences that plague current shooters. The levels are designed to be non-linear outside of 3 levels (Deep sea Nullify threat, Skedar Ruins, War!) and even then with deep sea the level path changes with each level of difficulty. Skedar Ruins randomizes that beacon placement, while War!(This level has a lot in common with COD type shooter) is completely linear. The AI is left to it's own devices with it's patrols which is about as much scripting as they get.

I can't believe you played GE on 00 and then came to bitch about PD's "empty" levels when it followed the very same level design philosophy. This is the very basis of how they built up PD from GE. GE is the same and PD expands this to it's logical conclusion. It also forces you to deal with more enemies without resorting to infinite scripted spawns or giving them astronomical health or damage boosts. The fact you have been slowed down on higher difficulties show what I meant by PD being more "deliberate". On higher difficulties given the option, silenced Falcon is the weapon of choice as silence is golden. GE is a little broken in that aspect since you can fire a non-silenced automactic weapon silently by only shooting one bullet at a time and spacing out the shots, a bug that is no longer present in PD due to the improved AI. In GE run right up to an enemy, then try the same with PD. Enjoy the free beating.

Another subtile change in PD is the short "Invincibility frames" that you get when hit. In GE the frames were a lot longer allowing you to get to cover, which meant you could play more loosely. Which meant you couldn't use quite the same play style from GE.

Also the weapons fire at their stated RPM found on the shooting range. This is very important as the enemies fire at the same speed and so do you. Which means never mag dump unless your fighting a skedar point blank on Perfect or hosing a corridor or choke point(Still a bad idea since dead bodies eat the bullets). A short burst from any full auto weapon or any headshot is enough to kill any unshielded human.

PD is the conclusive proof that GE wasn't successful because it was one of the few examples of a excellent licensed game, but the underlying design was solid. That said I highly recommend watching or playing Perfect Dark Zero as an example of how wrong everything could have turned out.
I'm Lacus. I'm fine as Lacus!
Pffh. Toilet paper? What do you think cats are for?

Offline adadad

  • Score: 3
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #71 on: June 17, 2011, 12:02:01 PM »
You pretty much didn't play the same game I did, nor did you finish it. It would explain most of your complaints.

I've made it clear in my posts how much of the game I've played. This thread is partly about people coming to a game for the first time and writing about their experiences as they are playing the game so I don't think it's fair to harp on at me for not having "completed" the game. And I have to question what you consider "finishing" the game to mean. Typically in a singleplayer game, like, say, Resident Evil, I'd say anyone who has played through to the end credits on any difficulty level has finished it, even though there is usually plenty more content available and other difficulties on offer. In hindsight, some of my complaints about PD are somewhat premature I suppose because of the way the game changes on Perfect Agent, but I still contend that playing through the game on Agent and Secret Agent is to a pretty large extent unenjoyable, and you have to wonder how many players were willing to push through the chaff. As I mentioned, if it weren't for Nick's post, I wouldn't still be playing PD and starting to reevaluate my overall opinion of the game.

As to my comments about the Skedar/Half-Life enemies comparison, I think you are missing the point somewhat. I believe you when you say that the head-crab type enemy is a common FPS archetype, although since my experience with Duke Nukem 3D is limited to playing briefly at friends' houses I never saw that sort of enemy. The main point though is that on Agent at least, that level is extremely tedious. The comparison with Half-Life was less to do with the enemies and more to do with the linearity and playstyle of that level, which I don't feel work since the objectives pose very little challenge, the enemies require very little strategy, and at the end of it is a boss who requires obscure tactics to beat, whilst firing rockets which can kill you instantly. The randomised pillar placements do not make it anymore fun. I just checked and what you said about the IR scanner is actually untrue - the enemies do not show up on the scanner until they spawn.  I should emphasise though again that this is on Agent difficulty (I don't have access to any higher difficulties on that level), and from what said about facing Skedar on Perfect Agent I can see that there is potential. It really does sound as if we are playing a completely different game. The difference is that it sounds like you're playing a good game - Perfect Agent difficulty - and I'm playing a mediocre one with flashes of greatness - Agent/Secret Agent.

Also I'm not quite sure where you get the idea that I want a linear experience. Half-Life was not my first FPS, I had played Doom, Gloom and Goldeneye several years earlier and loved them. I greatly value the freedom offered in Goldeneye and Perfect Dark to tackle objectives in any order. I probably wasn't clear enough about this in my previous posts but the issue is not non-linearity per se, but rather that in PD the levels tend to be so big as to be overwhelming, so that the game ends up feeling unfocused and big for big's sake. Yes, you can complete the objectives in any order, but first you have to be able to find the objectives and not constantly come up against locked doors and dead ends. However, now, playing on Perfect Agent, the levels so far make way more sense, since previously vacant parts of the level are utilised. And in a level like the Crash Site there is a lot of strategy involved in choosing the order in which you tackle objectives, which makes it far more interesting to approach than a linear level.

Also, you raise some good points about some positive changes made in PD that I hadn't noticed, like the lack of infinite enemy spawns. In certain missions those could be really frustrating in Goldeneye, although I did think it made sense in a few missions like the Bunker when the alarm system was involved and you basically had to restart if the alarm went off because of those armoured double ZMG bastards.

I hope you can understand where I'm coming from now Oohhboy. My gripes about PD are based on the fact that neither the linear levels nor the non-linear ones have been positive experiences for me on the lower difficulties, for a variety of reasons (mostly though just that the levels are too big and the missions are too long!). I suppose it shows just how tough it must be to design levels that can be played in a variety of ways across difficulty levels whilst still remaining fun and challenging.

Offline Jonnyboy117

  • Associate Editor
  • NWR Staff
  • Score: 37
    • View Profile
    • Nintendo World Report
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #72 on: June 21, 2011, 09:36:52 PM »
I'm having some issues with the mission objectives in the campaign. The Chicago level didn't want to end -- twice, I failed the mission by walking to the parking lot entrance. Confused, I wandered all over for ages and eventually just went back to the same place... that time it was "Mission Complete". Still have no idea what that was all about.

Then, I wasted a ton of time and effort on the first Area 51 mission by accidentally skipping the first objective -- it's easy to do, since the game tells you nothing about how to complete it, nor is it at all clear that you should put explosives on that one computer terminal underground. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Carrington's briefing says you should place a bug on the antenna, not blow up the computer room. The worst part is that you can proceed well beyond that point without finishing the first objective, only to arrive at the final door in the level, which won't open because you didn't blow up that computer 10 minutes earlier. But the game doesn't tell you any of this, so I roamed all over looking for another door, a secret passageway, anything to let me keep going. Obviously this game was a pioneer in mission-based shooters, but didn't they have anyone play-test these levels?
THE LAMB IS WATCHING!

Offline Sundoulos

  • My mascot is a type of toxic algae
  • Score: 27
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #73 on: June 22, 2011, 08:22:45 AM »
I think I remember actually having to buy the Game Guide for Perfect Dark, or at least I used to sneak into book stores to get a quick glance at some of the sections I needed to reference in the single player.   Never liked the Chicago level at ALL.

I loved the early and mid-section of the game, but I feel like the level and game design really sort of got boring and generic when it became more alien-themed.
"A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers--including even his power to revolt...It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower." - C.S. Lewis, in a preface to Milton's Paradise Lost

Offline pandaradox

  • Score: 0
    • View Profile
Re: RFN RetroActive #18 - Perfect Dark (N64/XBLA)
« Reply #74 on: June 22, 2011, 12:15:11 PM »
I've fallen victim to the long backtracking that was sometimes necessary on the game.  Strangely, it has the same effect as Mirror's Edge where a lot of the fun and frustration comes from becoming "Perfect."  Games don't do that as often these days because it gets trashed as poor design.  The other side of that coin is getting trashed as babying the gamer.  I like to think Perfect Dark is partially responsible for my overly observant nature of FPS games as you treat the game more like a full level instead of segments that add up to a level.  Treating the game with a retrospectively wider view of it provides those cool secret agent moments just as much as instinctual twitch moments. 

While I'd like to say this was intentional, it is more likely lack of QA, but it was serendipitous to a degree.