Perfect Dark is out (again)

[Dark Jaguar]

lazy, you should know that strafe running is still working just fine. Also, the geometry glitches are intact.

Hurray for 6 second victories in the first level.

[Darunia]

Explain the meaning of this post. Which PD and in what format?

[Dark Jaguar]

Wow are you out of date.

I'm sure there's a recent thread in here somewhere....

[A Black Falcon]

.. You seriously didn't hear about the PD remake for XBLA? Huh...

[Darunia]

Ok.

I'm going to say this once more for all to hear.

(Gets megaphone)

I DON'T PLAY VIDEOGAMES ANYMORE. I SOLD MY WII. I AM 100% OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE INDUSTRY. I KNOW NOTHING THAT IS GOING ON.

[Dark Jaguar]

There you are little fella!

So get this, they have remastered PD on the 360. It's basically the same game, right down to the glitches, but with a few things added. Character models are improved a bit (though they still talk Power Ranger style), but otherwise the models haven't been touched. The resolution is upped, and the whole thing is in constant smooth 60 FPS, no matter how many rockets you launch. All the gameplay modes are there, challenges, everything. Even da hidden cheeeese. Multiplayer is the same, with some nice added bonuses. Online play is fully supported, and to that end maps can be played with up to 8 people instead of 4 now. (I kinda wish they'd upped it even more, but 8 is a great improvement). As with all XBox games, you have to go through the awkward process of "signing in" to your own profile and all that fun stuff, and that means that your nickname can't be customized, it's whatever your profile name is. Team names, for some reason, have a lower character limit than before. Also, in spite of what I had thought, the d-pad can't be used to control either movement or aiming. Annoying for one like lazy, though I'm doing fine with two analog sticks. In fact, what with the auto-aiming and the smoother XBox control stick, killing enemies is just stupid easy. I mean, wow, it's insane how easy it is to kill things now, even though in terms of gameplay nothing's changed. As a result, if you want something closer to the original challenge, shut off auto aiming. Don't count on others in XBox Live to do the same though. Oh yes, Co-op and Counter-op (why hasn't any game since PD ever tried counter-op?) work online too. Yes, Split Screen is still here, much easier to use with the higher resomolutions and all.

Oh! One awesome addition, they have everything in multiplayer mode unlocked from the very start. While there's a bit of a disappointment in terms of the fun of unlocking things, in the end this is what's expected of modern multiplayer and so if you basically just wanted to kill your friends, the sky's the limit. Oh yes, all the cheats are there, with one major change. The "classic weapons" can now be directly and individually selected in multiplayer without resorting to the cheat. Much nicer!

Here's hoping a later dungeon pack will add in the rest of the Goldeneye levels. Heck a few "downgraded" Halo levels would be fun for that matter. If there's one thing neither Goldeneye or Perfect Dark ever really mastered, it was good "sniping" levels. Oh sure you can make the argument that there's certain places to snipe in levels, and I'm sure you've made them work well, but it's nothing compared to certain levels in various modern FPS games.

Everyone keeps talking about how much of a classic this is and what it doesn't have in the reviews (like waypoints to objectives). However, they all seem to miss pointing out that at it's heart this is a stealthier FPS than modern ones, and it has far more to it than just kill, travel, kill, in the form of objectives like putting a bug on a limo or "escorting" someone to a computer to get them to unlock something. Halo may be all epic, but at it's core, it has none of those qualities. It's a straight run and gun.

[Darunia]

Makes me almost want to own a 360. I loved PD, and when Rare jumped ship from Nintendo a piece of me died.

[Dark Jaguar]

The port job was done by a company called 4J (in fact it's their logo, in 3D, that rotates into the PD logo instead of the big N64 logo). They also ported Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie (complete with fully implemented Stop & Swop, like it was originally meant to work). In the case of the Banjo games though, the funny N64 logo animations are just plain gone, replaced with nothing. It's more noticable with Banjo Tooie with the scene just showing empty sky for longer than it should before moving on. Otherwise they're great remasterings in their own right.

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay this is new. Apparently every level has some hidden "crown" objective, for doing some specific, but hidden, thing. No need to even bother winning the level, just do something like, say, kill 3 guards with an N-Bomb.

[lazyfatbum]

Hmm, what do you get for getting these crowns I wonder.

[Dark Jaguar]

Nothing! There is no award save the satisfaction of a challenge completed!

[lazyfatbum]

They could have at least offered the "You can stop playing now" award after getting them all. :(

It doesn't open hidden weapon caches on the level? or get you anything? at all? that's odd... I wonder if you complete the level on Perfect Agent and crown it it does something. Getting N-Bombs is no easy task since they're never given to you, you have to kill a guard who has one before he takes out the pin and they usually dont throw those on Agent difficulty. Curiousnessity.

[Dark Jaguar]

You get them in your loadout in the Pelagic level, and that's where you get the crown.

What exactly did you expect to get? It's just like the challenges, you don't really get much of anything. It's just there to be there. There is an achievement if you get them all, but that's about it.

Personally I wish there was a way to log how many cheeses you've found, and an achievement for getting them all. Maybe something like have the camera focus on a slice for at least 5 seconds and it's added to the list.

[Darunia]

Is there one cheese in every level? I only recall having found one, in the second level, but I never went in search of them, either. I recall thinking to myself, ... "is that a piece of cheese...?" which is, of course, what one would expect a person to think, in finding a piece of cheese in such an environment. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was beneath the floor, resting on a big pipe.

[Dark Jaguar]

You are correct, that IS a piece of cheese. And yes, there is one in every level. Mind you, since some levels are retreads of previous ones, the same cheese is shared between them. Some of them are VERY hard to actually find, needing unique methods like a rocket launcher or a farsight to actually view them.

[lazyfatbum]

What do you mean what did I expect? It's PD, the game is the master at unlocking.

Of course now the MP is all free and clear from the start but on N64 you had to do all the challenges/solos to unlock everything in MP.

So you get an achievement. Well whoopty shit, how about some lame sauce on that sad panda. A NEW GUN? No, that makes too much sense. GUN EDITOR? Nah, too much fun and freedom. PLAY AS A SKEDAR? Oh my God I must be snorting the cocaine straight from the fucking plant. Not even 'Unlock Viva Pinata Heads'? or 'Kid Mode'? MP maps that are based off Perfect Dark Zero's areas? Not even a cheat to make the characters talk like Banjo~Kazooie characters? No that would be AWESOME and FUN and INTERESTING, no, sorry kids, you get an "Achievement unlocked!" so you can tell strangers why you dont have friends. BADASS.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well actually they are planning on new DLC in the future so a lot of that is still possible. Since it'll all be aimed at multiplayer, it'll be unlockable from the start though.

Yeah, I know you wanted some sort of reward here, but face facts, games have been giving you challenges with no "extra gun" or anything special as a reward for years now. Heck look at Kirby Super Star (SNES version). You eventually unlocked the Arena, and what did you get for beating it? Notta. Didn't need it, because the challenge was it's own reward. Heck as I just said, there is NO reward for finding the cheeses in every level, but you find them anyway. You climb the mountain BECAUSE IT IS THERE, and then you make a terrible Star Trek movie.

I would have thought you'd just be happy to have a few new challenges.

[lazyfatbum]

It's not that, I hate the achievement system in general because that kind of reward is paltry and gimmicky.

The cheese is different because there's no YOU FOUND CHEESE that flashes up or OBTAINED ALL CHEESE LOCATIONS, HERE'S A STAR HERP DURP its just a bizarre secret in the game for people to talk about. But the crowns are added content with purpose and should have had a reward, even if it was just being able to literally wear a crown in multiplayer to showoff that you crowned each solo (giving you a slight advantage to protect your head?)

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm with you when it comes to achievements in general. Actually these crowns don't even show up as an achievement until you've done ALL of them, the game itself just keeps track of them. It's just there to do it, that's all. By the same token I wouldn't mind additional "par times" for all difficulties of all levels. Not really for extra cheats or anything, just added challenge. Heck you people at the PD Elite board are always trying to best each other for times right?

The crown giving an advantage in multiplayer would be unbalanced though...