Review  Perfect Dark
- Carrington Institute
- By Mike Schneider,
-by Andrew Weatherton
, 6.30.00
If ever
there was a game that I originally thought that did not need a training mode,
which is essentially what Carrington Institute it, it is Perfect Dark. My
logic was, “Perfect Dark is basically going to feel like ‘Goldeneye: Part
2,’ we’re all going to be Goldeneye vets, we won’t have any need to
waste our time going through a stupid training mode.” Wow, talk about blind
logic. Carrington Institute was hardly what I pictured it to be, and it
actually turned out to be a cool thing, in and of itself. The fact that it was
actually set up like an office building took me by surprise, since I
originally assumed that it would be a bunch of text, with objectives presented
to you, and you’d claw your way through it in twenty minutes.
The meat
and potatoes of Carrington Institute are the three training areas within it,
one of which is a firing range. In the firing range, you can test out any of
the weapons in the game, while training to complete simple targeting
objectives that consist of either scoring a certain amount of points,
destroying a certain amount of targets, or both. For each weapon, there is a
bronze, silver, and gold star challenge, and upon obtaining every star, it
opens up something neat… Although the firing range had the potential to be a
tedious side-quest, it isn’t. The gold star challenges are challenging, and
the range as a whole brings back flashbacks of Zelda OoT’s wonderful
horseback archery mini-game. The Firing Range is simple, and addicting.
Another room within the vicinity is a Gadget Room, which allows you to
test out the many gadgets in Perfect Dark, such as the Data Uplink, or IR
Scanner. The way it’s set up, you start with one gadget, then after
successfully using it in the way it is intended to be used, you open up a new
gadget, and use this. At the same time, while opening up new gadgets to take
for a test, you gradually unlock more areas within the secret area you’re
using the gadgets in. Worth noting here, while you’re trying to complete the
objectives in this training mode, you have the opportunity to put away the
gadget, and use the 2 ladies in the room as punching bags… Quite humorous
indeed. The final training area, “Holotraining”, is the least useful of
the three, and in my opinion, a waste of time. Its purpose is to teach you how
to look around, move around, and disarm people, but for anyone who has played
Goldeneye, you can go through the seven different training scenarios here in a
matter of a few minutes. The “Holotraining” mode simply is an unimportant
extra in the game; it doesn’t add much, but doesn’t detract from anything,
being that it isn’t anything new or overly challenging.
In
addition, Carrington Institute offers so much more than just training. In one
room, there is a computer that you can turn on, which allows you to read
character profiles and see pictures of them. You can view what cheats you have
available, and turn them on or off. Upon beating the game, you’ll open up
background story information (as discussed earlier).
For
the sick and perverted, even they will find something entertaining in
Carrington Institute. Without any trouble, you will be able to locate people
scratching their crotches. Approach Daniel Carrington too close, and he’ll
tell you, “please don’t do that Joanna, it worries me.” It really is
hilarious how Rare programmed the people within Carrington Institute to have
such lowclass habits, but yet, be employed at one of the most prestigious
Institutes in the world. The interaction between Joanna and people in
Carrington Institute is classic, with such highlights as Joanna being dubbed a
“loser” by a computer nerd with a scratchy voice, being called “our star
agent” from one of the guys in the firing range, being asked, “could you
be any more annoying?”, or being told, “just don’t screw up, okay? I’m
surprised you lived this long,” by a guy who then proceeded to scratch his
crotch a mere 3 seconds after saying this. It’s outrageous and humorous at
the same time, it is what we’ve come to expect of those crazy Brits.
To see what we're talking about, check out some
lady intensely scratching her crotch, or even Daniel
Carrington doing the same thing. Both are animated gifs that we're
captured by taking multiple shots from the game, then animating them together.
They are 100% real, just simply offered as .gif files for quick viewing.
Continue on for our thoughts, and even a little bashing of cooperative
mode, all on page 8...
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