Review  Perfect Dark
- Weapons
- By Mike Schneider,
-by Andrew Weatherton
, 6.30.00
First and foremost, I’d
like to say that from day one, the aspect of Perfect Dark that worried me the
most was the use of alien weaponry within the game. Looking at most other
first person shooters that tried to mix alien weapons with human weapons, the
result was an imbalance in power and/or realism. Take Turok 2, where a
headshot with a bow and arrow kills an enemy, but a blast with a cerebral bore
that drills itself into the body leaves somebody losing half a life; the
results of the weapons was simply not believable. Fortunately, Rare has put to
rest my worries that Perfect Dark would feature weapon imbalances.
The beauty behind the
weaponry in Perfect Dark is that with a few notable exceptions of weapons that
you wouldn’t expect to be as powerful as the rest, it is equally possible to
get kills with just about any weapon, and each weapon has pros and cons to
them. Take the reaper, a weapon with a 200-clip magazine that fires very fast.
Fast, yes; accurate, no. Or the Cyclone, another fast weapon that
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A certain staffer here likes to blame the
Cyclone's magazine dischard for ruining his accuracy %.
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has a magazine discharge
secondary function. At the price of this is the fact that it takes
longer to reload than most weapons. Another weapon with a slow reload
is a bow, but when used in its secondary function, provides one hit
kills. Then there’s the tranquilizer, a weapon that requires
precision aiming, and is fairly weak; but, when successfully used,
results in the player that you hit having very fuzzy vision for a long
while. A strategy you can consider after sedating the person with
tranquilizers is to use |
the secondary function of the tranquilizer, a
lethal injection shot, and try to lethally inject them. They’ll usually be
so out of it, that this is entirely possible.
The list goes on and on,
with weapon features such as being able to drop your dragon as a proximity
mine, using your RCP-120 as a cloaking device in addition to a weapon at the
price of burning more ammunition, using the slayer to guide a rocket while at
the same time leaving yourself a sitting duck or setting up your laptop gun as
a mini turret on the wall. Perfect Dark’s weapons are clearly well thought
out, and equally fun to use. Never in any other game have I had so much
trouble deciding on what my favorite weapons are, which is a good thing. There
are just so many cool features with so many guns, and at the same time, a
unique balance to them that is something out of a dream come true.
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weapon that is especially brilliant is the FarSight. I’m sure that
you’ve heard of that by now, and more than likely, already fragged
your share of bots and humans with it. The FarSight is such a
formidable weapon because of its unique ability to be able to shoot
through walls. Although I still have no clue what the purpose of it is
in its primary function, when used in the gun’s secondary function,
it also is able to help you locate your targets. The FarSight, more so
than any other weapon in Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, or any other N64 FPS
for that matter, can alter your playing style when you know that
someone is using it. Literally, when a friend of yours has one, and
you are on the opposite side of the level, you will be dancing
like a little ballerina in a tutu trying to evade their farsight shots
from afar.
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Farsight's can make people dance with
fear.
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As if it hasn’t been
stated enough already, the secondary functions of weapons are well-conceived,
and even help in making multiplayer matches more fun and fair. There are two
secondary functions to weapons that demonstrate this perfectly. First, the
disarm function. In Goldeneye, upon getting killed, you’d start out without
a weapon, and when playing against vets who knew the Goldeneye levels inside
and out, backwards to front, side to side, and knew where you were before you
even pressed the start button, it would be a frantic race against the clock to
find a weapon before they’d be back to slaughter you again. Only having a
simple punch, you were left out to dry like a sorry animal in a
slaughterhouse. However, in Perfect Dark, thanks to the secondary function to
your punch, “disarm”, you now have a fighting chance to prevent one death
from turning into two or three quick massacres against your helpless soul.
With the disarm, you have the opportunity to even the odds by stealing the
weapon they were planning on using to kill you with. You have the opportunity
to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Another weapon, the K7
Avenger, also helps keep matches fair. For me, there was nothing cheaper than
some lucky gamer starting next to the proximity mines in a Goldeneye match,
then proceeding to win the whole battle simply because of their random mine
scattering, without me being able to do anything about it. In Perfect Dark
though, thanks to the K7 Avenger’s secondary function, it has a threat
detector that shows you where mines are, meaning that skill less loser has to
rely on smart mine placements, and basically, real skill to beat you.
Returning to the
The top would be the avenger in its
secondary mode. A very helpful secondary function, we might add. |
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awesome balance in Perfect
Dark’s weapons, the K7 Avenger is one of the weaker automatic
weapons, with a small magazine. Plus, it takes a long time to reload.
Thus, there is a definite trade off here to being able to detect
mines, because someone who comes up against you with another weapon
stands a good chance of winning the standoff. Once again, it cannot be
emphasized enough that there is balance and depth to the weapons in
Perfect Dark that is unmatched by any game, period. Perfect Dark has
around 40 weapons, and each of them have secondary functions to them.
In general, the secondary function of the weapons is more difficult to
use, requires better aiming, burns ammo quicker, etc., but results in
more damage being done when used correctly. In most FPS games,
you’re lucky to see 20 original weapons; Perfect Dark’s arsenal is
perfect! |
Continue on and find out if we believe Carrington
Institute was worth the efforts, on page 7...
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