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Review  Perfect Dark
- Graphics
- By Mike Schneider,
-by Andrew Weatherton
, 6.30.00
Perfect
Dark features excellent graphics, in nearly every way imaginable.
Lighting effects are everywhere, and realistic too. For example, enter
Chicago, and just walk around the level. With the rain falling,
lightning crashing, neon lights glowing in the sky, and the likes,
you'll swear that you are on a system more powerful then an N64.
Take a stroll through some hallways in the Air Base level, and you'll need to
squint if you catch the right angles of the lights. It all is eerie how
realistic the lighting seems, at times. Don't like the lights? In |
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Part of Chicago, a splendor to
look at, as well as to play in. |
many
instances, you can shoot some out, meaning that you will be in much darker
quarters. In addition, while in darker locations, it is very neat hearing
enemies shooting at you, while simultaneously having the room light up during
that time period their spraying bullets in your direction.
Also, there is a cool cheat that you can earn which turns off nearly every
light in the game, forcing you to use night vision.
But there's something even cooler about the cheat than nightvision;
with no lights on, the enemies have a difficult time seeing you, and so you
can toy with them a bit. And with
artificial intelligence as advanced as Perfect Dark's, you're going to have a
lot of fun doing this!
Plus, within Perfect Dark's thousands of options, you can change the game to
hi-res mode, or if you prefer, to wide screen, or cinema views.
Speaking of cinemas, before and after each mission, you will be treated to an
intriguing and sometimes humorous scene that gives you information about the
plot. Though, to get the entire
description you will have to read the mission briefings, since these cut scenes,
totaling slightly more than 40 minutes in length when timed by Andrew, can be a
little lacking in some key plot points.
One movie that sticks out in my mind
as being memorable is the one before you enter Area 51. The mood is set
immediately, when Dr. Carrington tells you that you are watching a movie that
a double agent within Area 51 has sent out. In a captivating effect that
exemplifies this fact, it is a very fuzzy movie, and the highlight of it shows
Elvis, a little alien that has somehow found himself quite involved in
dataDyne’s plot, for the first time. When a cinema roles it always feels as
if you are part of the action. In fact, Rare has gone to such lengths as to
end many of the intro cinemas by zooming in on Joanna in a dramatic spin that
eventually places you in Joanna’s sweaty sports bra.
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Look at the intricate designs that these
walls possess.
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Being
that Perfect Dark takes place in the future, I've found it fitting that the
levels with the biggest wow factor are the indoor levels, with
exception to the fabulously crafted outdoor part of 2023 Chicago. As seen in
the screenshot at the right; within the dataDyne bulding, the textures in the
indoor levels are unbelievable. Room walls are quite possibly the most
intricately designed I've ever seen in a console game, and beautifully capture
the essence of the futuristic feel. Not only this, but in a lot of the levels,
when you look out the windows, you will see some awe-inspiring landscapes.
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While in
the dataDyne building, you’ll see a gorgeous downtown environment when you
look out the windows, as well as being able to shoot down hovercrafts that fly
by outside. Or, in one level in which Joanna boards an alien spacecraft that
had crash-landed in the ocean millions of years ago, looking out the window of
it produces a breathtaking view of the seafloor.
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addition, another spectacular landscape can be seen when looking out the
window of the Skedar attack ship itself, towards the beginning. By doing so,
you’ll be witness to a cool loading dock located in another part of the ship. The
aspect of this that I found superb was that the frame of the window was lit,
and by slowly backing away from the window, what I could see outside the
window dimmed realistically, and as I’d slowly approach it, what was visible
outside of it would then become brighter. Additional touches include seeing planets
when looking out certain windows of the spacecraft, and being able to actually
open a few of the futuristic windows; to top it off, all this just described
is within one level.
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You can see planets when looking out the
windows of one level...
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With all these wonderful textures, lighting effects, and graphical eyecandy,
coupled with all the talk of Perfect Dark's frame rate that took place before
its release, one would seem to be justified if they worried that Perfect
Dark's framerate. However, for the most part, Perfect Dark's frame rate is
very fluid. In one player, it is brilliant, and while playing multiplayer, it
is very playable. If you thought Goldeneye framerates were good, then you will
be especially pleased, because Perfect Dark has better framerates than
Goldeneye. Basically, in every mode that Perfect Dark shares with Goldeneye,
Perfect Dark has better graphics, while also having better framerates. Playing
without bots results in hitch-free matches, while you can basically play with
bots without anything too bad until you start using high numbers. Playing 4
humans and 4 bots is all right framerate-wise, as is 1 human against 8 bots.
Co-opp and Counter-opp are the modes that have the biggest framerate struggles
(a part from multiplayer matches that feature 4 humans and 8 bots). Get both
people shooting weapons, while trying to move around, and there are some
definite drops in the frame rate, and things do get quite jerky. However, when
the smoke clears, both co-opp and counter-opp are still playable. As any gamer
should realistically expect, when playing with more than one person, the
graphical quality isn't as good as one player, but as far as split-screen
gaming goes, PD's graphics are still a splendor on the N64.
Unfortunately,
while using the expansion pak, you’ll encounter one annoying little result
of it: Some of the longest loading times you’ll experience on the N64.
Although this is hardly Rare’s fault by any means, due to the N64 having to
refresh an entire 8MB of RAM, it is still worth noting. Plus, I found it
annoying how choppy the game is when scrolling through the custom character
set up screen, it is seriously perhaps the choppiest facet of the game.
The
character design and animation are the best I’ve seen on the system.
Characters pack an amazingly high polygon count, and faces contain far more
detail than in Goldeneye. With Goldeneye, characters sometimes appeared
blocky, and not properly proportioned, but in Perfect Dark, they are very
crisp, faces are definitely distinguishable and varied, and proportioned
properly. Death animations are more varied than Goldeneye, and the physics of
them are more accurate too. Snipers are everywhere in Villa, and you’ll
enjoy watching them fall off the building after snagging them with a
well-placed bullet. In most instances, when you take down enemies near walls,
their bodies will realistically interact with the wall as they fall to the
ground. Some animations appear to be borrowed from Goldeneye, but there are
many new ones as well.
Overall, it is commendable just how good the graphics are in Perfect Dark, in
as many modes as the game offers. Rare truly has proven that they can get more
out of the N64, even more so then Acclaim's fabled hi-rez.
Continue to page
two that covers our thoughts about The Missions.
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