1-16 of 144 results for Video Games: PC: 'Perfect Dark' Skip to main search results Amazon Prime. Eligible for Free Shipping. Rechargeable Wireless Computer Mice for Laptop/PC/Mac (Dark Grey) 5.0 out of 5 stars 11. Dark grey $13.99 $ 13. 20% coupon applied. Save 20% with coupon. Set for release this winter, Rare's GB version of Perfect Dark chronicles Joanna Dark's past as she finishes her training. Set in the South American jungle, the game has Joanna chasing after cyborgs and trying to destroy a robot factory.

Perfect Dark Pc Game Review
Perfect Dark Pc Game Background

Leave it to the guys at Rare to devise a use for the most useless weapon in first-person shooters: the fist. 'Your opponents' vision becomes blurry when you punch them,' Rare's Mark Edmonds, Perfect Dark's producer, told us. 'It makes it hard for them to aim, and there's a gun in the game that has the same effect.'

Sure enough, your perspective goes goofy--all wavy and distorted by the same blur effect seen in Metal Gear Solid--when opponents coldcock your noggin in Perfect Dark's multiplayer mode, which we played extensively at E3. And Rare has crammed this mucho-anticipated pseudo-sequel to GoldenEye 007 with plenty of equally snazzy innovations.

Wanna hear another? 'You can shoot out the lights in some of the deathmatch levels,' Edmonds continued, 'and then use your night vision to see people and shoot them.' Nifty. And we haven't even mentioned the computer-controlled 'simulant' allies and enemies, the complex mission objectives, the game's Blade Rurrnennsplred cinematic feel or the ability to map your face onto multiplayer characters with the Game Boy Camera.

We'll get to all that later. First, some background. When Nintendo and Rare missed out on the Tomorrow Never Dies license, they built GoldenEye's sequel around a slick new character. Her name's Joanna Dark, she's a rookie secret agent with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo, and she wields twice as many weapons as oP 007. Ms. Dark's adventure-set in dreary 2023--begins when she's assigned to rescue a scientist from the secretive dataDyne Corporation. She learns dataDyne is working with aliens called the Skeedar, who are at war with the Grays, that infamous race of big-eyed aliens who are your allies in the game. One thing leads to another, Dark learns of an intergalactic war, Earth's caught in the middle, yada, yada, yada. The gripping plot twists through plenty of in-game cinemas, while the levels are set everywhere from a future-shocked Chicago to secret airbases to an alien crash site at the bottom of the Pacific.

If you can't tell from the screenshots, these environments are stunning. And according to Nintendo game guru Ken Lobb, Perfect Dark's supreme visuals (and enhanced gameplay) are the result of Rare's major overhaul of GoldenEye's code. 'Basically, Rare was like, 'We know what we like about the GoldenEye engine,' Lobb told Videogames.com. 'Let's throw everything else away.' Well, they didn't like very much.' As a result, level architecture is more complex, with staircases everywhere, more varied and detailed textures and latticed structures. Gee-wiz graphical tricks abound, including real-time lighting, particle effects, fancy HUD displays, lens flare, steam and falling rain.

Perfect Dark Pc Game Review

Even enemy animation will be beefed up with scads of new motion-captured death throes. Perfect Dark will also support Nintendo's Expansion Pak to punch visual quality up a few more notches, and it'll sound as good as it looks thanks to Rare's immersive Surround and Acoustic Shadowing Technology.

But will it play as good as it looks? Let's put it this way--Perfect Dark was one of the few games at E3 that every EGM editor returned to play again and again. And again. And just one more time. And again. Everything in the single-player game has been enhanced. Enemy Al is at the genius level compared to GoldenEye's bad guys. Perfect Dark's baddies will reportedly work as a team, they'll seek cover, they'll assess your abilities and take immediate action. You'll need to rely on stealth if you wanna walk, breathe and whup ass for long.

Here's the real kicker: You'll have Al guys on your side, too. During your adventure, you'll find computer-controlled buddies who--much like Natalya in GoldenEye's jungle stage, but smarter-wili fight alongside you and respond to formation commands issued via D-pad. They'll provide cover, scout the area, even act as shields from enemy fire. (Oh, and you can access these simulants in multiplayer mode, but more on that later.)

As in 007's adventure, each of Perfect Dark's 18-plus single-player stages will offer three levels of difficulty, with harder difficulties doling out more mission objectives. But Nintendo says the objectives will be more intellectually challenging this time around. So, instead of simply dealing with tougher enemies, Perfect Dark players will face some tricky puzzles at the higher difficulties, or they can stick with the more action-oriented easy mode. Sample mission objectives include planting mines to obliterate security cameras, convincing a scientist to grant access to a computer system, and nabbing a Edmonds said, 'so we really wanted to concentrate on making better weapons and better-designed multiplayer levels. And we wanted the bots.'

That's right--for the first time in any console shooter (although a few upcoming games will pack them, too), you can battle computer-controlled bots in multiplayer mode. All you gotta do is choose how many simulants you want in the arena. You'll be able to go solo against as many as seven simulants (and Rare said they may bump that number to 10). Or you can have four human players in the level with four bots. The amount of multiplayer-mode combinations will be nearly endless. Pit your character against your friends' characters, you and your friends against the bots, you and a few bots versus your friends and their bots, and so on and so on.

If there's a downside to Perfect Dark's multiplayer, it's that there's no cooperative mode for the regular one-player game. But that's one of the reasons Rare added bots to multiplayer, so players could team up against simulants. Multiplayer modes similar to capture the flag and team battle will be implemented too, of course, and Rare's toying with the idea of adding some mission elements. For example, Edmonds told us players may have to fight as a team to reach and access a computer under simulant guard.

As Edmonds said, Rare has put a lot more thought into the multiplayer levels this time around. It shows. Three levels were playable at E3, and two of them were familiar: the Temple and Complex stages from the original GoldenEye (more classic GoldenEye levels are expected to pop up in Perfect Dark, as well). All the deathmatch levels are more detailed, multi-leveled and crammed with staircases. New to the mix are moving platforms and bottomless pits. Unlike in GoldenEye, your character can now walk off ledges. One false step near a pit and you'll plunge to your death. Despite the more complex environments, Perfect Dark maintains the same four-player frame-rate seen in GoldenEye. So, while things get choppy once in a while, it always remains playable.

We should know; we certainly played the game enough at E3. We left the show a little overwhelmed by the game's potential and Rare's knack for packing innovations into a crowded, ho-hum genre. How does the U.K.-based company do it? It's not like the Perfect Dark team is particularly huge. Only about 12 programmers and artists have worked on the game for the past two years, ever since they finished GoldenEye. Ultimately, Rare's games turn out right because--to the chagrin of impatient gamers--they take their sweet time. 'Every developer dreams of working on a game until it's finished,' Edmonds told us. 'We get to do that, and it works out really well for us.'

With games as good as Perfect Dark and the rest of Rare's lineup, it works out just fine for N64 owners, too.

Multiplayer

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Perfect Dark is the best multiplayer game on any current system. And the funky thing isn't even finished yet! If you think GoldenEye has a wealth of deathmatch options, sheesh..forget about it! Perfect Dark is going to blow it away. You can customize your character, you can pick what specific weapons you want on the level--you can even play on old GoldenEye stages! Too bad the frame-rate hasn't changed much.

One Player

Although we played it on a crowded show floor, the quality of PD's single-player game still shined. Requiring stealthier tactics than the majority of Golden Eye's levels, it manages to capture the tension of a spy-thriller as effectively as its predecessor. The new weapons and tactics are awesome. S