A Proposed Perfect Dark

There's many debates about various books/movies/shows head to head. Alien vs Aliens. Terminator vs Terminator 2. LOTR vs GOT. For the limited N64 First Person shooter genre, it was between Goldeneye & Perfect Dark, two games made by the same developer that went on to have very different legacies.

Goldeneye, despite getting a full remake in 2010 for Wii, later re-released for Xbox 360 & PS3 in 2011, is still mostly thought of in the context of the original N64, even as much as the film it's based on.

Perfect Dark meanwhile is thought of in the context of that N64 game, but it was followed up by a fully funded sequel that, while a graphical powerhouse at the time, has become more dated than last week's tictok meme.

Rare were conceiving and even building prototypes for a new Perfect Dark, something with a darker, harder edge than their previous release, but with Halo & Gears of War dominating the sales charts, and the latter certainly having the "grit" checkbox filled, Big M saw no reason to fund another Sci-Fi shooter.

But that to me is the problem, Perfect Dark is seen as a sci-fi shooter, with its overly sleek, shiny, spectacle weapons, neon lit streets, aliens, super natural powers, etc. What I believe needs to be done is use Perfect Dark's Goldeneye routes to rekindle a shooter sub-genre that's been neglected over the years.

It's common for me to get comments on my Nightfire video, and see yet another person hit not just with nostalgia, but also reverence for a "shooter" with so many elements to its gameplay that went beyond shooting. Infiltrating enemy offices, attending parties, parachuting atop castles, driving fully kitted vehicles with missiles.

Being a successor to Goldeneye, Perfect Dark has espionage in its veins, and its Xbox 360 Prequel even emphasizes the futuristic corporate driven world, one ripe for infiltrating, spying, and cold warfare. Granted, Perfect Dark Zero traded that for ancient temples mystical powers by the end of it, but that just means there's more potential.

What stuns me each time I play Nightfire is discovering how unique it actually is in contrast to the modern market. Back in the day, it was just another licensed lock-on shooter, a big budget alternative to Timesplitters. Today however, it falls well outside of the constant remakes of Call of Duty, Uncharted, and Assassin's Creed. So imagining a new Perfect Dark, one that focuses more on the spies than the sci-fi, espionage rather than extraterrestrials, gets me excited, certainly far more so than the next Gears of War.

It still amazes me a little bit that currently, no large gaming company owns the 007 rights, being that the EA games were such a big part of my childhood. However, looking at Bond to day, it makes some deal of sense. For as much as I love Casino Royale, and enjoy Skyfall, Bond today doesn't entail spies, gadgets, epic jobs, it entails more family backstory, backstabbing, grand conspiracies, and "universe" connections.

We've already got our fill of that in games these days.

So similar to how Wolfenstein reignited an early 2000's shooter formula, Perfect Dark has the potential to reignite a Bond adventure. One where Johanna is given a job, not a personal childhood stake in it. One where she's given a selection of tools to assist, not just firearms. One where she's navigating a world of politics, personalities, and perversions, not good vs evil with a bad superpowered boss fight...

Tomb Raider's got that covered.

Rather than keep a known brand dormant, why not use it to rekindle something that from what I see, lots of people remember fondly?