6/12/2023 0 Comments Perfect dark area 51 rescueThe game features a broad variety of completely different environments that you'll explore and fight it - Rare used the same design philosophy as iD and most other FPS developers in the mid to late nineties - design a whole range of really cool, wildly diverse areas to play in, and then bring them together with a story, rather than plot an entire game and then force the design to fit the plot. That being said, the game is still a treat to watch and play - yes, it does hearken back to the days when video game characters couldn't move their mouths when they talked, but the character models are retooled for the XBLA release of the game, with much more detailed textures, and the character animation is excellent - during combat, for example, enemy characters will duck, take cover, and even roll and open fire with enough realism that almost seem motion-captured. The game is, of course, ten years old, and with Moore's Law a video game's age could be measured in dog's years. The multiplayer is fast and brisk, with short matches, lots of games available, and with a large array of gadgets and trick weapons with alternative fire modes, so that you never have to frag your opponent the same way twice. And when you've brushed up your skills sufficiently after a few hours in the single player campaign, the same multiplayer the game is famous for is waiting on Live, with up to eight players supported now and up to four players supported on each console. Additionally, the single player campaign is supplemented with several alternative play modes - Co-operative, both on split-screen and Xbox Live, and Counter-Operative, in which one player attempts to complete the mission and an opposing player controls whatever AI enemy is closest to Joanna Dark at any time and attempts to stop her. The single player campaign is enormously replayable, as there are three difficulty settings and the mission objectives change and become more difficult with each increase of the difficulty. Joanna deploys on a mission to rescue a defector from the company headquarters of DataDyne International, and soon gets caught up in a globe- spannning adventure that involves corporate conspiracy, secret alien visitors, Area 51, and (of course, this is a first person shooter, after all) lots and lots of gunfights. In the game, you play the role of Joanna Dark, a secret agent outfitted with a high-tech kit of gadgets, spy equipment, sophisticated weaponry, and a cool English accent (who says Lara Croft has to be the sole token representation in video game adventuring?) working for an organization called the Carrington Institute. And for the folks like me who missed it the first time around, it's another chance to play a first-person-shooter that laid a lot of groundwork for every shooter to follow, and raised the bar for console first person shooters for the next decade. A lot of you spent dozens and dozens of your college days in darkened dormitory rooms, huddled around the N64 with a bunch of your classmates and friends in lengthy, pitched deathmatches with bragging rights and pride on the line - you won't be disappointed with the refreshed Perfect Dark. It also comes with a few surprises, as this isn't a straight port of a classic shooter, such as Doom or Duke Nukem 3d's arcade ports - 4J studios, the team responsible for bringing this revered classic shooter to XBLA, has gone back into the game, improving the graphics, frame rate, enhancing the multiplayer for Xbox live, and adding other goodies throughout. Perfect Dark, developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, has come to Xbox Live Arcade ten years later with great anticipation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |