Perfect Dark
22nd September 2023, 4:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 22nd September 2023, 4:08 AM by Sacred Jellybean.)
Great write-up! There's a lot of things in here that I didn't know. Various thoughts:
PD in high-res (or is it just higher framerate?) sounds incrediballs. I remember framerate being a big issue back in that time, and especially, Matt Castallarammalammadingdong in IGN mentioning it in every review (to the point of it being irritating). I remember Dreamcast being a big game-changer in this regard. I feel like that was the last time I was blown away by a graphical upgrade in video games. The last noticeably large and impressive step-up from what we were used to.
ANYWAY! All that being said, I don't know if I can vibe with a two-stick controller. I revisited Time Splitters 2 a few months ago, and I could not for the life of me get used to the controls. It felt unwieldy no matter how many different ways I configured it. This may be a GameCube specific problem, because I don't seem to have that issue in more recent FPSs. It was always much simpler to have the four directional buttons on N64 and using the analog stick to look around.
As an aside, I have no idea why, but it seems like the convention back in those days was to have an inverted direction for looking. The opposite (which should probably be more intuitive) seems to have become standardized since then, meaning it's retrograde become my default preference for old games too.
Holy crap, you're kidding me. Without an expansion pak, the game is literally just a two-player combat game and nothing else? It's hard to imagine Nintendo allowing that. They were reticent for games to require the expansion pak, to my recollection. They didn't want people to buy a game and feel ripped off when they only later realize they need an additional accessory just to run the damn thing. Like... a game that's exclusively a pvp shooter barely qualifies as a game imo. I'd have thought the same would be true for Rare, who emphasized polishing a game, even at the expense of prospective players' patience. It was delay after delay in their time, but it was almost invariably worth the wait.
(it was disappointing that Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64 did not match the expectations, at least for me
)
That being said, a lot of the time I spent in Perfect Dark was me, solo, playing against bots. "Sims", heh. I completely forgot about that term.
Yep. I still love me some Conker's Bad Fur Day. I see it as a swan song to one of the greatest game developers in that era. They seemed to have tapped out just about every graphical capability that N64 had. From reflective puddles on a stormy night, to something as simple as a torch glowing on a castle wall. The character model for the "evil, panther-type king" in particular was impressive.
Helluvan ending, too. That was more mature than every other part of the juvenile (but fun) game, and quite jarring. Especially the after-credits scene. "I don't wanna talk about it. I'll just drink this."
Anyway, you've made me want to do another playthrough of Perfect Dark. Incidentally, I recently started one, but didn't really follow through. I think I got distracted by Time Splitters 2, which turned out to be much less impressive than I remembered. No wonder I hardly ever scratched the surface with that one. On top of the poor controls, the first level feels underwhelming. Kinda crappy level design, difficult to kill enemies (but probably that's only because of the bad controls), the game is stingy with ammo, and... eh. I just found it really hard to care about what was going on on-screen.
It also felt tedious to play a whole hour of a level with only one checkpoint. I suppose I'm spoiled by modern games, where you can literally pause and pick up at any point in time, can typically create save files at will, and are granted ample auto-saves.
PD in high-res (or is it just higher framerate?) sounds incrediballs. I remember framerate being a big issue back in that time, and especially, Matt Castallarammalammadingdong in IGN mentioning it in every review (to the point of it being irritating). I remember Dreamcast being a big game-changer in this regard. I feel like that was the last time I was blown away by a graphical upgrade in video games. The last noticeably large and impressive step-up from what we were used to.
ANYWAY! All that being said, I don't know if I can vibe with a two-stick controller. I revisited Time Splitters 2 a few months ago, and I could not for the life of me get used to the controls. It felt unwieldy no matter how many different ways I configured it. This may be a GameCube specific problem, because I don't seem to have that issue in more recent FPSs. It was always much simpler to have the four directional buttons on N64 and using the analog stick to look around.
As an aside, I have no idea why, but it seems like the convention back in those days was to have an inverted direction for looking. The opposite (which should probably be more intuitive) seems to have become standardized since then, meaning it's retrograde become my default preference for old games too.
Quote:Further, technically the game is "playable" without the expansion pack, but most of the game modes have been disabled, including single player, and limiting multiplayer to some smaller levels in two-player only.
Holy crap, you're kidding me. Without an expansion pak, the game is literally just a two-player combat game and nothing else? It's hard to imagine Nintendo allowing that. They were reticent for games to require the expansion pak, to my recollection. They didn't want people to buy a game and feel ripped off when they only later realize they need an additional accessory just to run the damn thing. Like... a game that's exclusively a pvp shooter barely qualifies as a game imo. I'd have thought the same would be true for Rare, who emphasized polishing a game, even at the expense of prospective players' patience. It was delay after delay in their time, but it was almost invariably worth the wait.
(it was disappointing that Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64 did not match the expectations, at least for me
)That being said, a lot of the time I spent in Perfect Dark was me, solo, playing against bots. "Sims", heh. I completely forgot about that term.
Quote:What we finally received from Rare was their last great hit. Conker's Bad Fur Day would be another great game released a year later to end out their run of N64 games (a game Nintendo refused to publish forcing Rare to do so themselves)
Yep. I still love me some Conker's Bad Fur Day. I see it as a swan song to one of the greatest game developers in that era. They seemed to have tapped out just about every graphical capability that N64 had. From reflective puddles on a stormy night, to something as simple as a torch glowing on a castle wall. The character model for the "evil, panther-type king" in particular was impressive.
Helluvan ending, too. That was more mature than every other part of the juvenile (but fun) game, and quite jarring. Especially the after-credits scene. "I don't wanna talk about it. I'll just drink this."
Anyway, you've made me want to do another playthrough of Perfect Dark. Incidentally, I recently started one, but didn't really follow through. I think I got distracted by Time Splitters 2, which turned out to be much less impressive than I remembered. No wonder I hardly ever scratched the surface with that one. On top of the poor controls, the first level feels underwhelming. Kinda crappy level design, difficult to kill enemies (but probably that's only because of the bad controls), the game is stingy with ammo, and... eh. I just found it really hard to care about what was going on on-screen.
It also felt tedious to play a whole hour of a level with only one checkpoint. I suppose I'm spoiled by modern games, where you can literally pause and pick up at any point in time, can typically create save files at will, and are granted ample auto-saves.