GoldenEye Vs. Perfect Dark

[Big Orange]

PDZ is pretty damn average, visual effects make it hard to see, controls feel "weird", and the visual style doesn't mesh that well with the setting. I dropped PDZ the moment DOA4 came out (and I dropped DOA4 the moment Chromehounds came out).

I played a bit of Perfect Dark Zero at a games shop on singleplayer mode and while the game will not catch the world on fire I thought it had solid gameplay and excellent graphics (judging from the limited time that I played on it).

Only three games, plus the DD, needed the expansion pack. I'm not surprised there's still people who don't know this - almost everyone assumes it's just there for higher resolutions.

Well my expansion pack originally came with Donkey Kong 64 (another solid game from Rareware), so I had no problems with Perfect Dark and I could access the single player mode. As for Perfect Dark's single player campaign itself, I had no trouble with it for most part (even though the single player for GoldenEye was in some ways more ground breaking).

And while Perfect Dark's story could've been much more compelling, it still had a somewhat better narrative than the narrative found in any Time Splitters or Metal Gear Solid game and it held most of the missions together adequately enough.

However I thought other FPS games like Deus Ex and Red Faction 1 & 2 had far superior storylines and comparatively much deeper characters, despite working with the same source material (like PD they were FPSs set in a near future dystopian era). And while I love GoldenEye and I re-play the SP missions to this very day, I still don't know what the fuss was about with the storyline. Rareware merely "cheated" by basing GE's missions around a relatively so-so Bond movie. And despite that the narrative was still slightly incoherent with game characters that were paper thin. But Rareware still did great work in replicating the film's locations and sets though.

[Adrian Laguna]

I like the Perfect Dark story, it's simple and to the point. There really is no pressing need for a deep engrossing story, just a reason for Joanna to go around blasting shit. I'd say it's telling that, despite having them memorized, I sometimes don't skip the cut-scenes. Many of the one-liners still make me smile.

[Big Orange]

Ok is the rundown for GoldenEye and Perfect Dark's storylines:

GoldenEye: James Bond works for MI6 and goes in with Alec Trevelyan to shut down a Soviet chemical plant; they blow shit up, shoot loads of Red Army guards and run in with Col. Orumov. Alec dies, the gas plant is sabotaged and you escape. You then infiltrate a Soviet command centre under construction and steal GoldenEye related data. Soon after that you then sabotage a Soviet missle silo involved with the GoldenEye project (you also run into Orumov again).

Years later you handle a load of terrorists on a French destroyer who are holding the crew hostage; the terrorists are working for a Russian criminal known as Janus and they stole the Tiger helicopter on the ship. The helicopter is then traced to the Soviet complex you went to years earlier and there was some kind of theft there, but soon after that elite Russian troops moved in to secure the base. You infiltrate the base as you did before and you meet up with Natalia who is held captive by the government troops. She tells you the crooked General Orumov is in league with Janus and stole the GoldenEye key. You bust her and yourself out of jail, steal data on the GoldenEye theft and escape the compound before it's destroyed by the GoldenEye weapons satellite activated by Orumov.

A few weeks later MI6 tracks the Tiger helicopter again in another location, St. Petersburg. Also Natalie's last known location was at St. Petersburg as well and she was presumebly kidnapped by Janus and the other conspirators. The Tiger helicopter was last seen in a spooky park full of relics from the Communist regime and this is where Janus may have his operations located. You are dispatched to the statue park dispatching soldiers sent by Orumov and black suited men loyal to Janus. You finally confront Janus and unmask his true identidy: he is none other than Alec Trevelyan, your old buddy! He gloats about stealing GoldenEye and quickly escapes. After that you rescue Natalie from the Tiger before it blows up, erasing all traces to Janus, then you both run right into the sights of Defence Minister Mishkin and his GRU soldiers who are investigating the GoldenEye theft.

You are taken by Mishkin to his HQ for interrogation. You soon find out that the GRU soldiers are more loyal to the corrupt General Orumov than to Mishkin. You blast your way out of the building and not before you reason with Mishkin on who the real enemy really is. Natalia is promptly captured by Orumov and you have to track him down to his real boss, Alec Trevalyan. You go as far as hijacking a tank, rumbling down the streets of St. Petersburg, blowing up all of Orumov's forces in your path. You finally track down Orumov, Natalia and Trevalyan to an armoured train. You kill Orumov and rescue Natalia, then after Alec escapes you learn the location of his secret base where he is going to activate the GoldenEye satellite on London.

You finally go to Alec Trevalyan's command centre in the Cuban jungle with Natalia; you wipe out Trevalyan's private army, wreak his control room and then kill him atop the satellite cradle. Then you and Natalie in a stolen helicopter sail off into the sunset.

--------------------------------------------------


Well it's not a bad storyline, but I don't think it's particularly brilliant and I also think the setting of James Bond is as trite and clichéd as they come, in terms of plot ideas. I'm going to recap the plot for Perfect Dark later on as well.

[Stark]

Absolutely! People who buy Goldeneye are just going to hate the trite, cliched Bond story it contains, right? There is no movie (or huge series of movies) to inform them, they'll just be really disappointed by yet another uninspired post-cold war story! Plus, no Sean Bean!

I await you spinning 'zomg teh alienzor' into a moving, original piece of plotting. Such fantastic, never-before-seen concepts like FLYING CARS, talking computers, and ALIENS from another WORLD. Most amazingly, of course, a black President. Who are they fooling? What this has to do with ANYTHING is beyond me, of course.

[Big Orange]

Absolutely! People who buy Goldeneye are just going to hate the trite, cliched Bond story it contains, right? There is no movie (or huge series of movies) to inform them, they'll just be really disappointed by yet another uninspired post-cold war story! Plus, no Sean Bean!

I await you spinning 'zomg teh alienzor' into a moving, original piece of plotting. Such fantastic, never-before-seen concepts like FLYING CARS, talking computers, and ALIENS from another WORLD. Most amazingly, of course, a black President. Who are they fooling? What this has to do with ANYTHING is beyond me, of course.

I'm not saying Perfect Dark's storyline is inspired as such, far from it, but I don't think GoldenEye's plot is that great either if you put things into perspective: oh wow, a evil criminal mastermind wants to cause world chaos with a secret weapon. Whoopi shit! How original! And like the last five hundred Bond films, Bond gets the girl and blows up shit! Goodness, I didn't see that coming! And then Russia is a place where you get to kill thousands of Russian consripts and somehow don't trigger a war between NATO and Russia! And you learn that a MI6 agent that stages his death in a highly convoluted situation then suddenly gains unlimited funds out of thin air, a big army of mercenaries and builds a gigantic radio dish in the middle of Cuba!

[Stark]

Are you intentionally ignoring that Goldeneye is a *licensced product* based on a *fucking movie*? You don't see how that's somewhat different than RARE cooking up their own poorly-told story?

This is of course secondary to PDs actual problems, which are more related to storytelling than the story themselves. Plenty of games have missions with poorly thought-out objectives and characters you don't care about: are you going to defend all those too, or just your sacred cow?

[Utsanomiko]

Only three games, plus the DD, needed the expansion pack. I'm not surprised there's still people who don't know this - almost everyone assumes it's just there for higher resolutions.

I recall it being mentioned as necessary for eventually-released games when the pack was first sold. And the ones which did were rather big titles (I seem to recall it being more than three. Didn't Rogue Squadron and DK 64 need it?). I made sure to look into it and pick it up back in the day.

The expansion pack didn't really help it anyway; it still looked too mukry and cluttered in multiplayer anyway. When I want to play an FPS on a console, clarity and simplicity are an advantage over a game that tries to cram in too many features and options. Goldeneye just plays more quickly and smoothly in my experience.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

are you going to defend all those too, or just your sacred cow?

Well it certainly wouldn't be the first time...

[Stark]

Some of the map textures were far too busy for the N64, and most of the attempted detail they tried to add was lost anyway.

[Big Orange]

Are you intentionally ignoring that Goldeneye is a *licensced product* based on a *fucking movie*? You don't see how that's somewhat different than RARE cooking up their own poorly-told story?

That's exactly what I meant; Rare "cheated" because they built missions around an already existing screenplay. With Perfect Dark they had their own original plot and setting (but they fumbled the ball somewhat).

This is of course secondary to PDs actual problems, which are more related to storytelling than the story themselves. Plenty of games have missions with poorly thought-out objectives and characters you don't care about: are you going to defend all those too, or just your sacred cow?

Hmmmm, I thought most of the missions objectives tied in with the narrative well enough and I think the main reason you thought the missions felt "unfinished" was because you played the single player mode on "Agent". Put the game on "Special Agent" or "Perfect Agent" and the levels open up a little more with new objectives. And as for Perfect Dark's characters; I liked Daniel Carrington and Trent Easton, despite their brief screen time and peripheral characters like Dr. Carol and Elvis the alien both had personality. Joanna Dark, however, was a flat character and was dubbed by an annoying, mediocre voice actress.

I thought Perfect Dark was a mostly decent game, with even the slightly uneven single player mode being mostly solid. All that Rareware has to do is get new writers, new voice actors, get rid of having individual missions and fine tune what they already got working well and the next Perfect Dark will be really stunning.

[LaserRifleofDoom]

In the day, PD was a lot more fun. A large part of that was the availability of bots in multiplayer. I liked the story and singleplayer too. I wouldn't mind playing through a remake.

Goldeneye's singleplayer was better, but that was just because it was based oiff a movie, and was therefore garaunteed to have some sort of plot. I've always found it strange that later Bond games have failed so miserably in comparison. I think it's because Goldeneye was teh first really good video game based on a movie. Afterwards, action movies were made with games in mind- which forced developers' hands into doing things they might not have wanted, since it was in the movie.

But, enough of that. I tired replaying PD recently, within the last six months, and it was simply too slow. Even single player felt like all the characters were walking in molasses. GoldenEye still compares favorably to modern games in terms of speed. And it doesn't hurt that I still pwn at it because, unlike my friends, I haven't gotten trained to Halo-style controls. It's very hard to switch between how you move your fingers with the two control styles.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

As far as single-player, PD had better graphics and some particularly fun levels you kept going back to, but Goldeneye had more, as well as the bonus levels (PD had them too, but they were new missions in existing levels, it felt tacked on. Goldeneye's bonus levels were worth beating the game on other difficulty levels for). In the end, I'd say they were evenly matched.

PD really excels in the multi-player mode. Goldeneye's MP could be extremely fun if you had some friends playing with you, but PD had far more customization, and more significantly, the ability to play alone with AI opponents.

[Stark]

Hmmmm, I thought most of the missions objectives tied in with the narrative well enough and I think the main reason you thought the missions felt "unfinished" was because you played the single player mode on "Agent".

Fuck off and die you little cunt. I could remind you that I've already mentioned unlocking things on my first go through - holy shit, maybe I was playing on hard the whole time! But frankly, you've just come right out with 'lolz u suck play on hard rube', with absolutely no evidence. I've finished the whole SP on perfect agent, it's hardly a revelation. The levels still suck. Some, like 'hunt the President', are WORSE.

The worst part about your whole ridiculous position is you're just crying because I think the single player sucks. I *like* PD. It's the best console shooter. But NOOOO I don't love it ENOUGH for Big Tard.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

But NOOOO I don't love it ENOUGH for Big Tard.

He seems to do this a lot in his Star Trek and OSF threads, as well, at least when he's not purely jerking off over Jeri Ryan half the time. Kind of a whore, really.

[Bounty]

(I seem to recall it being more than three. Didn't Rogue Squadron and DK 64 need it?)

Majora's Mask, DK64 and the 64DD wouldn't run without it. PD would, but only in a limited, letterboxed multiplayer mode. SP and full MP needed the Pak.

Rogue Squadron used it for higher-resolution gaphics, as did a couple dozen other games, but it ran fine without the Pak in low-resolution.

[Vendetta]

PDZ is pretty damn average, visual effects make it hard to see, controls feel "weird", and the visual style doesn't mesh that well with the setting. I dropped PDZ the moment DOA4 came out (and I dropped DOA4 the moment Chromehounds came out).

I never had a problem with PDZ's visuals, either their design or execution..

It does have some really nice design elements in there, which are a step forward from the standard post-Halo design, the partially regenerative health bar, for example (when hit you take a small amount of permanent damage and a larger amount of "shock" damage, which comes back if you stop getting shot for a few seconds. So you can do the standard take a few hits and retreat, but not indefinitely like you can in some games). It also has a good evolution of the weapon inventory. Rather than just holding two weapons, you have four weapon slots, and a weapon takes up one, two, or three of them depending on it's size.

Also there's the cover system, whereby you go up to a corner or something to duck behind and can line up around the corner and make pop-out shots. It's not quite standard FPS behaviour, because it pulls you out to third person, but it's a great action movie move.

The real problem is that the core shooting action is simply average, and that drags down the rest of the experience.

It's like Kameo. All the parts are there, and some of them are really shiny parts, but they just don't fit together quite right, and they haven't been oiled properly.

Still, they're better than anything else Rare has made since the N64, being merely average, rather than poor.

I agree though that the Neroimus War is the current experience to be having on Live, even though some things need to be tweaked a little (piles and double cannons need to be heavier, assault rifles need to be lighter, and missile counters need to affect all missiles fired, not just one per counter you mount).

[Big Orange]

Fuck off and die you little cunt. I could remind you that I've already mentioned unlocking things on my first go through - holy shit, maybe I was playing on hard the whole time! But frankly, you've just come right out with 'lolz u suck play on hard rube', with absolutely no evidence. I've finished the whole SP on perfect agent, it's hardly a revelation. The levels still suck. Some, like 'hunt the President', are WORSE.

The worst part about your whole ridiculous position is you're just crying because I think the single player sucks. I *like* PD. It's the best console shooter. But NOOOO I don't love it ENOUGH for Big Tard.

Ok, so you have played Perfect Dark's single player mode on the hardest setting and still not impressed? That's Ok, I can live with that and it's only a video game. I certainly thought GoldenEye's single player was in some ways superior; it seemed much more ground breaking in places and the narrative was more grounded into reality, even though it's a direct adaptation of a fairly standard Bond movie. Perfect Dark's single player is not really it's main selling point, but it's still a mostly solid affair even though it's marred by a stock sci-fi plot involving aliens, evil corporations and government conspiracies (yawn).

And since when does a certain ex-Voyager star have anything to do with Rare shooters, Spanky?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

It has everything to do with the fact that you're a whore.

[Adrian Laguna]

The levels still suck. Some, like 'hunt the President', are WORSE.

That one was fun. It's a huge open space, perfect for getting head-shots with the sniper rifle. And finding the Prez is a piece of cake, I was more difficult trying to survive a bunch of marauding scandinavian freaks. Air Force One is far more of a problem in keeping the Prez alive, and even then it's no big deal, just run ahead and clear a path.

I'd say the hardest levels on Perfect Agent are the Alaskan Base, the Skedar Ship, and the Ctan Ship. Because of (respectively): huge unending horde of NSA troops, Skedar don't die easy, and I can't aim straight when I'm scared. Oh, and the fact that I can't beat them.

BTW - I had the advantage over most of you that the Perfect Dark story was quite original for me. When I first played the game at the age of 10 or 11, the only Sci-Fi I had experience with* did not contain any of the cliches in PD. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

*Star Wars, Foundation's Edge, The Hammer of God, 3001 Final Odyssey

[Big Orange]

I wouldn't say Perfect Dark's story is entirely dire and there are flashes of brilliance; the idea of private enterprise having contact with aliens and not the governments is a fairly rare plot element in sci-fi. And while the Skedar were nasty, I still think the dataDyne/NSA/Area 51 soldiers are far more interesting (why else were the government troops the most memorable baddies on Half-Life and not the Xen aliens?).

[Stark]

That one was fun. It's a huge open space, perfect for getting head-shots with the sniper rifle. And finding the Prez is a piece of cake, I was more difficult trying to survive a bunch of marauding scandinavian freaks. Air Force One is far more of a problem in keeping the Prez alive, and even then it's no big deal, just run ahead and clear a path.

I'm easily frustrated. I liked the Air Force One level, just for the constant 'empty Cyclone' attack.

I'd say the hardest levels on Perfect Agent are the Alaskan Base, the Skedar Ship, and the Ctan Ship. Because of (respectively): huge unending horde of NSA troops, Skedar don't die easy, and I can't aim straight when I'm scared. Oh, and the fact that I can't beat them.

I actually found the Skedar pretty easy. I found the guns you get on those levels good for killing them. You're right though, I'd forgotten the Alaskan base and the hordes of NSA guys.

And Orange, I have no idea why you've suddenly accepted my position. You're all crazy, it's impossible that I don't like it... now you're 'okay'. You're a strange person.

[Big Orange]

And Orange, I have no idea why you've suddenly accepted my position. You're all crazy, it's impossible that I don't like it... now you're 'okay'. You're a strange person.

Indeed I am.

But I'm merely saying that I didn't feel that there was a serious decline in quality between GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, plus after playing FreeRadical's Time Splitters series I still think Perfect Dark is a far superior game (slightly disappointing singleplayer campaign included). And weren't Free Radical founded by ex-Rare members that left during or soon after Perfect Dark's production? That could explain why Rareware went downhill following Conker's Bad Fur Day.

[Big Orange]

The real problem is that the core shooting action is simply average, and that drags down the rest of the experience.

It's like Kameo. All the parts are there, and some of them are really shiny parts, but they just don't fit together quite right, and they haven't been oiled properly.

Still, they're better than anything else Rare has made since the N64, being merely average, rather than poor.

Well both Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo both scored well above average scores and were relatively well received by most gaming critics. So it shows that Rareware is going in the right direction in ironing out it's own bugs in the company departments and starting to acclimatise with Mircrosoft.

[irishmick79]

The one thing that I really liked about Golden Eye's levels were that they were built for close-quarters. With the PD maps, a couple of my friends would routinely get lost because they didnt' play PD that frequently, and whined a lot about not being able to find anything. I guess I just prefer the smaller maps for multi-player, because you can get down to the business of killin' your friends right quick.

Golden Eye was a tad more accessible than PD, I thought. And paintball mode in GE was a lot of fun. I don't remember PD having a similar cheat.

[Big Orange]

Golden Eye was a tad more accessible than PD, I thought. And paintball mode in GE was a lot of fun. I don't remember PD having a similar cheat.

Perfect Dark certainly did have a paint ball mode and it was labelled in options section as the gore free setting.