There are complexes to infiltrate, computers to hack, hoverbikes to ride, then the lady herself: Bond in a catsuit, apparently voiced by Mary Poppins. Perfect Dark’s grimy hi-tech vision of the future showed the cinematic influence here is Blade Runner, shiny office buildings rising out of dirty streets. Rare couldn’t abandon the espionage angle that dovetailed with its design talents: double-helix levels with spiraling objectives, enemy positions perfect for the stealthy, patient player, and the glorious gadgets. The lack of a licence brought freedom and yet, in this context, choosing to make an FPS with a secret agent may not seem the most original move. The ideas had married perfectly, but a second Hollywood tie-in would see diminishing creative returns. There remains a misconception that Rare couldn’t continue with the Bond licence, but the developer in fact rejected the opportunity to make the tie-in to Tomorrow Never Dies, perhaps feeling that a return to 007’s world would offer little more than a retread of the Kalashnikovs, missile sites and gadgets it had already perfected. Perfect Dark can do excess, but let’s shoot the elephant in the room first: GoldenEye. Sequels, even spiritual sequels, have governing rules, neatly encapsulated by Cliff Bleszinski’s “bigger, better, more badass” tubthumping for Gears of War 2. If Rare had revolutionised what a console FPS could be, Perfect Dark was its belated manifesto. This is an ideas game, as concerned with its own genre’s existence and limits as it is with targets. But what Perfect Dark does have, beyond even GoldenEye and most other FPS-es, is imagination. Most of all, the always-suspect framerate is now a convicted murderer. The explosions and effects, brilliant in memory, are muted. Those sleek offices and twisting tunnels have morphed into poorly textured geometric mazes.
Twenty years on from release I must acknowledge that, for a classic multiplayer game, Perfect Dark now suffers from a fairly major fault.
0 kommentar(er)
