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Are you afraid of the Dark?
Ok, cheesy opening, I know. I bought this game for $10 long ago and haven't played it a whole lot. In fact, I don't think I've been
through any more than three levels. Because of that, this game should be good for making some first impressions.
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 Monday Game Time - 43:22
I must say, I wasn't too excited about starting a
week of Perfect Dark. I remember from my first time playing that the game was confusing and kind of hard to adjust to. Well, I'm a little older, a little wiser. The controls, for a
first person shooter, aren't perfect. Think Halo. Think perfect. Think not perfect. Think Perfect Dark. Get the general idea? That aside, this game has a horrible frame rate. A frame
rate is how fast an image reloads. Seen the Xbox 360 in motion yet? That's a good example of a high frame rate. Perfect Dark is what you might call "choppy". Imagine turning around so
fast that you lost all orientation because you didn't see the walls rotating around you. All you saw one one wall one second, another wall another second. I have the feeling this might
lead to my downfall in later levels. I completed one mission today, broken down into three smaller sections. Basically, there was a lot of shooting, a lot of killing, and a bit of
confusion on where to go next.
Final Thoughts - Monday: The game doesn't explicitly tell you where to go and what to do. Sure, it has your objectives on the pause menu,
but it doesn't consantly remind you of each and every task. Today went fairly well, especially for a game I wasn't too thrilled about playing. The gameplay is alright, but I'm really
on the edge. If the story and action get much better, I might really love the game. But if it gets extremely frustratingly hard, I might hate it. |
 Tuesday Game Time - 41:15
You know, I thought I was doing pretty good. I
finished two missions, hardly taking any damage, and was doing alright on the third. But then I screwed up royally. I'll start with the two good missions. The first was a stand-alone
(remember how yesterday one mission was broken into three sections). One brief set of objectives and I was done. I had to do a little bit of sniping here, which isn't particularly
easy on the N64. I killed more people and ended up saving someone who I guess was important. The game isn't terribly clear on these things. The second level was actually the first
extension of a new mission. This was actually a sweet level as it was distraction and infiltration. First, I had to find a reprogramming tool to hack a taxi's computer. I programmed
the taxi to crash conveniently far from me, distracting a bunch of guards while I snuck into the now unguarded building. The third level required a bit more stealth, I guess. I blew
my cover, thus failing one of my objectives. I was forced to abort the mission, even though I could have taken on the onslaught of guards for at least another half hour or until I
got bored.
Final Thoughts - Tuesday: The level I thought so highly of today was once the reason I never played this game. See, as a young child, I wasn't too keen on
following the rules a game gives me, so I didn't catch onto the whole taxi diversion thing. Now that I'm further into the game than I've ever been before, I'm sure the whole stealth
thing would have been lost to me as well. I have high hopes for tomorrow, since through some wandering and exploring after my botched mission, I found a small crawl space that I
probably should have used to avoid detection. |
 Wednesday Game Time - 41:13
You know how on Monday I mentioned how I would
either love or hate this game? Well, I've come a lot closer to making up my mind. See, in all the time I put into playing this today, I only finished one mission. That's right. Count
'em. Uh, one. That's it. I was about to shut off the game making absolutely no progress today. But I was determined to get to the end of this level at least. I blew my cover at the
end of yesterday, right? Today I blew it about six more times. And man was that getting old. The trick was semi-stealth. I could take out the enemies as long as they didn't set off
the alarm. If they did, I couldn't spy on a meeting taking place. Fortunately, the stealth was only necessary to complete the first objective of the mission. Objective 2 was to retrieve
a data disc while surviving and objective 3 was to make it out in one piece. After I figured out how to crack the vault that housed the disc, the rest of the mission was pie. Mmmmm,
pie.
Final Thoughts - Wednesday: Holy crap. I hope that's the last of that kind of level. A 40-minute mission I can handle. What I can't handle is blowing the mission
five minutes in and having to restart. The opinion I'm beginning to form about this game is that it was made for players who really know how to think further than "run-and-gun". Maybe
this game isn't for me, but I'll give it two more days. |
 Thursday Game Time - 1:20:50
This game is just getting more and more
interesting. Today I got to infiltrate Area 51, which sounds kinda cool, right? Well, maybe it is, but I'm just not too terribly thrilled about Perfect Dark anymore. Stealth is
important in this game if you don't want to get completely shot up right away. If only the enemies were playing the same game. I tried two stages today, the first being the actual
entry of Area 51. I had to shoot people and blow up a few things. I don't remember all the details, but I do cling to the memory of exploding an underground computer center. Kinda cool.
The next level I tried and tried but eventually gave up. First, there's a lot of shooting (and sneaking. But mostly shooting). I had to blow a hole in a wall with a crate of explosives,
disguise myself as a lab tech, and then go rescue an alien. On my last attempt, I got as far as the room where the alien was being held. I'm sure at that point, Joanna Dark (me) closely
resembled cheese of the swiss variety.
Final Thoughts - Thursday: I've stopped enjoying this game. I'm going to put my 64 away and not play this game for awhile after
tomorrow. However, what I really love about first-person shooters is that completely unpredictable things are bound to happen. For instance, today a guy on an elevator tried throwing a
grenade at me. Fortunately, the grenade hit the closing elevator door. A few seconds later, I could see an explosion (and hear a nice manly scream) from the balcony on the floor above
me. |
 Friday Game Time - 43:50
I'm glad this week is over. The game has been
really getting to me. I didn't even want to turn it on today. But for my dear readers, I sacrificed. Now for todays missions: I started by trying yesterday's mission again. I messed up
about halfway through, so I didn't feel too great about my Friday. I finally finished what I labored so greatly over yesterday. I actually got that swiss cheese thing going on again,
but I made it into the alien's holding chamber without keeling over from massive blood loss. The next section was making it out of Area 51 alive. Riiiiiight. Near the end of the level,
either you or your buddy needs to open the hanger doors so your new alien friend's UFO can get out. Cool, huh? Well, I evidently did something wrong, so I had to take hanger door duty. I died in the
process, but I'm sure my friends got out ok (selfish wussies). When I gave up (my second failure in two days...*frown*), I thought I'd try some of the other fabulous features this game has
to offer. What I found was "Challenge Mode", which was a basic one-on-one slayer-esque gunfight. I did pretty well here, killing the computer AI four times without getting hit once. Of
course, it was on the easiest challenge.
Final Thoughts - Friday: I'm done! Finally! Now, you may think I'll never want to play this game again. You're kinda right. But
I'm pretty persistent on finishing games. So...someday. Overall today I only put in enough effort to beat that first level. Then, well, I just wanted to stop. |
Total Time - 4:30:30
Felt More Like: 7:00:00
Estimated Time to Complete: 10:00:00
Final Thoughts - Week: I was kind of hoping I wouldn't get so sick of a game during these impressions.
But it happened. I guess not all games can be a hit. The strange thing is, someone once recommended this to me as one of the best N64 games ever. That guy is probably sitting in a
basement somewhere playing E.T for the Atari 2600 (voted one of the worst games ever). Actually, when I had bought this game, I was wondering what the big deal about Halo was because
I figured an FPS is an FPS. What's the big deal? But after this, I long for some Halo action. However, I think it's going to be awhile before I can go back to a first-person shooter.
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