Perfect Dark (N64)

This game was probably my most anticipated N64 game along with Zelda, and even with my high expectations I was pleasantly surprised. If you enjoyed GoldenEye, Rare's other FPS on N64, then you'll love this. To start with, the graphics are the best on N64 with rooms lighting up with gunshots and really nicely animated characters. The sounds are perfect- the music suits the level or situation and the thing missing from GoldenEye- voices are now there and it all sounds natural.
The thing that makes it stand out from lots of other games is that it has features like real time lighting so you can shoot out the lights, and shoot weapons out of people's hands etc. that aren't there to make the mission progress, they're just there to enjoy and mess around with (unlike Splinter Cell etc. where its necessary and feels forced and just there as a feature to show off about).
The single player main game is really good and an improvement on GoldenEye in most ways except theres less stealth, and I'm not a big fan of the aliens on the later levels, but even these I enjoy alot, I just find it less satisfying. Aside from the main game, there are the multiplayer modes and challenges you can do alone too because now up to 8 "simulants" can play too- either for or against you. Having them on your team is better than games now even, because you can give orders to individual simulants, telling them specifically who to attack or defend or to complete an objective, and its all really easy to do. The challenges are get really hard towards the end and could be a game in themselves, so you will have alot to do even if no-one elso wants to play(!!!).
Multiplayer is where its really fun though, 2 players can do a co-operative or counter operative version of the single player missons (a single player can do co-op with a simulant too), and while this is very fun, the game gets a little jerky on some of the bigger levels. Up to 4 players can do the challenges too, but the main attraction is a deathmatch where you can all (+up to 8 simulants) can just compete like GoldenEye for the most kills. The objective can be changed to other things like pop a cap (killing a specific target), one hit kills, data uplink, and other things, also you can have teams split how you want, and weapons individually selected. Also the simulants can be changed to a variety of personalities- vengeful, going for the weakest player, coward etc. as well as meat-easy-normal-hard-perfect-dark difficulty settings. The multiplayer games are the most customisable I've seen- even more than TimeSplitters2 so you can play alot of variations.
With the masses of weapons, levels, challenges, cheats to unlock, etc. (even a target shooting game) this will last for ages and ages, I still play it now sometimes and its several years after its release!
Graphics 5/5
Sound 5/5 meaty weapons, great music, and good voice acting
Lifespan 5/5
Minuses- needs N64 expansion pak to work the main game, I don't like the aliens that much, but theyre a very minor complaint.
My verdict= get, get, GET!!!

This game is fantastic. I'm saying this, and yet 65% of the game isn't available to me, as I'm still waiting on an expansion pack. Even so, both the challenges and 2 player mode are great. The challenges give you something... well, challenging; both for one player or two. Other than that, you can set up everything and play. By this i mean you can select which weapons, which arena, how many baddies, how many team mates, mission objectives.... Basically, set it up how you want, grab a friend and get playing. I can't wait until i finally get this ellusive expansion pack and get to check out the other 65% of the game i'm unable to play now. Expansion pack or no, you need to buy this game. If you thought Golden Eye was good, wait until you see just how much better Perfect Dark is!

When Rare's GoldenEye came out everyone thought it was probably the best shoot 'em up of all time. But now with Perfect Dark here everything has changed. With better music, graphics, gameplay and options, this is without a doubt the best of Rare's many games. It has everything you hoped for and more. If you had to get only one game for your Nintendo 64, this would have to be it!