We will discover something like, shock-horror, the corpos actively sped-up and instigated disasters to expand their sphere of influence, and all that. I can easily see a version of this game that plays this relatively straight, as a dark cautionary sci-fi tale about the combination of the ongoing climate apocalypse slow-burn and the unchecked power of corporations, ironically bankrolled by bloody Microsoft.
So far, so good.Īll this could just be a near-future sci-fi story, though, and remain relatively grounded. We see hints of drone surveillance, we catch a glimpse of a laptop gun (itself representative of PD’s brilliant weapon alt-fire modes), and there’s talk of secrets as a camera zips through a clearly top secret laboratory. The planet is ravaged by terrible weather and natural disasters, and humanity now cries out for help from the very mega-corporations that probably caused the problems in the first place. The trailer, though CG and short, lays out a clear sort of world state. What we’ve seen so far of the new Perfect Dark is interesting. We won’t hear you, but you’ll have fun! Get all the podcast episodes here. 30 mins, funny, and you can even play along at home by shouting out your suggestions. It’s brilliant, and that’s not just a view we hold as the people that make it. Get your ears wrapped around VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast. Is this a hint at where our latet story could be set? The closest recent touchstone is IO Interactive’s excellent Hitman reboot series, obviously – and that studio now finds itself working on Bond – so it seems Joanna and James’ futures remain intertwined. More important to me is that this Perfect Dark reboot isn’t just some Tomb Raider-esque aggregation of currently popular trends, but that it examines the structure of the original game (in particular its open-ended but mangeably-sized, multi-objective missions) and finds a way to successfully adapt that into modern game design. This isn’t the be-all, end-all, obviously. At the time, I imagine this was the point – Rare likely wanted to both evoke and differentiate their new hero from Bond and their work on GoldenEye – and the full-fat sci-fi setting and extra-terrestrial shenanigans allowed it to do just that. It uses the spy and espionage stuff as a springboard into a wider, madder story – and in doing so elevates itself beyond being just a Bond clone with a different lead.
Chicago remains my favorite, defined by a highly exploitable level design, a thick rain-soaked atmosphere with unforgettable music, and Jo skulking around in a Deckard cosplay trench coat.īut nevertheless all of this is only part of a wider game, and I genuinely attribute much of what makes Perfect Dark a great game – and a better game than GoldenEye, don’t bother commenting otherwise – is its breadth. The opening trio of DataDyne HQ missions are excellent, as is protecting your boss Carrington in an assault on his private villa. I also think that the traditional espionage-driven missions are the best in the game. Nothing is held back.ĭon’t get me wrong – the spy stuff is a huge part of Perfect Dark. Soon, Perfect Dark feels as much Halo as it does GoldenEye, with Agent Dark finding herself on hostile alien spaceships, ultimately launching an assault on the hostile alien homeworld.
From the visits to Area 51, where you rescue a wise-cracking ‘grey’-style alien called Elvis – who later goes on to wear a stars and stripes waistcoat. Your mission is to rescue a mysterious Doctor in the clutches of an evil corporation – though when you discover the doctor, he’s not a person at all, but rather a sophisticated AI encased in a sort of flying laptop. The game’s opening cutscene takes place on a futuristic flying transport zipping through a neon-lit futuristic city straight out of Blade Runner. It’s not just Bond or Bourne, and that’s even true from the very start. I’m talking, of course, about Perfect Dark being a little bit weird. But that’s both literally and figuratively only part of the story, and any reboot of the franchise needs to embrace all of the original to channel what made it so beloved. Or, to put it another way – Perfect Dark is a spy game, and it is ostensibly about a female James Bond. I think everything that Booty says is accurate… but it’s only accurate for around half of the original Perfect Dark. Are we going to go all ‘immersive sim’ with this, really?
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