I think you two are confusing the N64 remaster with the prequel that came out at launch, Perfect Dark Zero?
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Perfect Dark is /pretty/ bad nowadays.
- Thread starter Silky
- Start date
I think you two are confusing the N64 remaster with the prequel that came out at launch, Perfect Dark Zero?
Rare games I have played recently that hold up better than Battletoads:
Slalom, Wizards and Warriors, RC Pro Am, Cobra Triangle, Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Kameo Elements of Power
That's a pretty narrow margin.
The only good PD is the N64 one, although it's not as good as GoldenEye. Sure, it has cooler weapons, but the maps were terrible IMO.
TouchMyBox
Member
Halo CE is pretty bad nowadays and that's an order of magnitude better than perfect dark.
m_shortpants
Member
I still think they're fun, but it could be the nostalgia.
Legato.Reborn-
Member
Perfect Dark. Man those were the days.
I remember fighting alongside freinds against hordes of disarm bots that also drug you
About as fun as it gets for gaming when a kid (setting aside bomberman64 mp of course)
I remember fighting alongside freinds against hordes of disarm bots that also drug you
About as fun as it gets for gaming when a kid (setting aside bomberman64 mp of course)
Kevin Shields
Member
Ugh. What go you consider good nowadays?
Kydd BlaZe
Member
Perfect Dark 64 was amazing.
This thread is full of lies....
This thread is full of lies....
Poimandres
Member
Doom? Exhumed/Powerslave? Quake 2? I dunno, haven't played any of these games in years.
4th Chamber
Banned
Such a good game.
Can't forget the opening theme with the transforming N64 logo.
Best level was Grid with its glass floor. Try it in slow mo with crossbows. Favorite guns were dual Falcon 2s or the Laptop Gun. There was a lot of variety in the game, from each gun's alt function to all the various Simulants.
This was the game that justified the N64 Expansion Pack.
WTF happened to the art going from PD to Perfect Dark Zero?
What is this.
Can't forget the opening theme with the transforming N64 logo.
Best level was Grid with its glass floor. Try it in slow mo with crossbows. Favorite guns were dual Falcon 2s or the Laptop Gun. There was a lot of variety in the game, from each gun's alt function to all the various Simulants.
This was the game that justified the N64 Expansion Pack.
WTF happened to the art going from PD to Perfect Dark Zero?
What is this.
"Was" is the keyword here. It hasn't aged very well. Same thing with Goldeneye.
I can tell you it's more likely than not nostalgia. I was a PS1 guy during that time and only got to playing the Goldeneye and PD games when we were deep into the next gen of consoles. Without going into too much detail I'll just say that I was less than impressed by both of them. Granted I didn't experience much of the multiplayer, but even when I did my friends and I canned it in lieu of Halo or Timesplitters.
I don't agree with this sentiment at all. Halo CE has aged beautifully to me, and I still find it to be a whole lot of fun. But I suppose that's just a matter of opinion. I do agree that Perfect Dark hasn't aged well, though.
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
except gameplay
I think Perfect Dark suffers a bit from attempting realism when realism wasn't really possible at the time. The AI is poor, the level design simple and often unclear, and things don't always function as they should. Take the first part of Chicago, for instance - it's supposed to be some sort of a stealth mission but the AI isn't designed to accommodate that as they have only two states of awareness. It was an ambitious game, though, and I still think it does a lot of neat things.
On N64, I just replayed quite a bit of Turok Dinosaur Hunter and feel that it holds up pretty nicely. Beautiful animation, a great feel to player movement, and generally satisfying action combined with exploration. The fog sucks but the game itself is quite enjoyable. Unlike so many other 3D games from that era the game just FEELS good to play and that is critical.
Of course games such as Doom and Quake hold up brilliantly as well.
I do think Halo CE still holds up as well but it's true that most FPS games before that didn't really work particularly well. Look at Red Faction, for instance, which was released in 2001 for PS2 (and PC). It feels like a clunky piece of shit these days. It's aged horribly. Compare that to Halo and the difference is monumental.
On N64, I just replayed quite a bit of Turok Dinosaur Hunter and feel that it holds up pretty nicely. Beautiful animation, a great feel to player movement, and generally satisfying action combined with exploration. The fog sucks but the game itself is quite enjoyable. Unlike so many other 3D games from that era the game just FEELS good to play and that is critical.
Of course games such as Doom and Quake hold up brilliantly as well.
I do think Halo CE still holds up as well but it's true that most FPS games before that didn't really work particularly well. Look at Red Faction, for instance, which was released in 2001 for PS2 (and PC). It feels like a clunky piece of shit these days. It's aged horribly. Compare that to Halo and the difference is monumental.
This is weird, because even in 1996 I felt like Turok was terrible, especially compared to stuff like System Shock or Quake. I especially hated the platforming.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
^^ The AI for PD was amazing at the time. I still remember wounding enemies, following the blood trail to where they had retreated, shooting the weapon out of their hands, forcing them into their knees, and killing them. Absolutely blew my mind that the time. For N64 it was pretty darned impressive.
I agree that Red Faction and Halo was a huge gulf though. I thought Red Faction was amazing at the time, then I picked up my Xbox and a copy of Halo and my face melted. It was such a leap in detail, quality, AI, gameplay, and immersion.
I agree that Red Faction and Halo was a huge gulf though. I thought Red Faction was amazing at the time, then I picked up my Xbox and a copy of Halo and my face melted. It was such a leap in detail, quality, AI, gameplay, and immersion.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I found the 360 version really really good. Brought the original to a more playable by today's standards level.
Is this one of those "I'm going to say something controversial to sound edgy things that I'm not aware of? Or is my sarcasm metre broken? Bit of column A and Column B? Halo holds up incredibly for a 13 year old game. Which is what happens when you effectively form and or revolutionise an entire genre on home console single handedly.
Is this one of those "I'm going to say something controversial to sound edgy things that I'm not aware of? Or is my sarcasm metre broken? Bit of column A and Column B? Halo holds up incredibly for a 13 year old game. Which is what happens when you effectively form and or revolutionise an entire genre on home console single handedly.
nkarafo
Member
You know, you don't have to play on the easiest difficulty. Higher levels don't use auto aim. Play on Secret Agent mode for a truly hardcore experience.
Strange. When Halo released i lost my enthusiasm about console FPSes. Game felt a huge step backwards with the linear design and hand holding.
The shooters I played on the PC at the time were really nothing like PD or Goldeneye. They had more in common with future stuff like Half Life or Halo than Goldeneye. Even at the time I dug Goldeneye's mission/objective based gameplay. It felt sort of like an open world game even back then. The levels were non-linear in design.
Yes, stuff like System Shock was far ahead of what PD or Goldeneye were doing compared to games that would come after. But the gameplay style of PD and Goldeneye has always been pretty unique. It's one of the reasons I was able to still dig PDZ despite it's flaws.
nkarafo
Member
Its funny how people compare Goldeneye/PD with the likes of Quake 2 and Halflife in order to prove PC superiority in the genre. Yet Halflife felt archaic to me when i shot an enemy on the leg and it didn't make a difference than shooting him somewhere else. That shit should have become standard after Goldeneye made it so great. On PD you could even shoot the weapons out of the enemies hands with various different reactions.
Half Life wasn't really all that new in what it did. Unreal does a lot of the same things in terms of progression that Half Life did. It's just that Half Life was probably the single best put together FPS until Half Life 2. It was, essentially, the bar that all other FPSes were compared to. And it spawned counterstrike.
I find Half Life 2 to be much more revolutionary than the original. I think calling HL "archaic" is a bit hyperbole, though. Even if it didn't employ animations for specific areas being hit, HL was still extremely well put together in other areas. No single game does everything right.
The feel of the guns is one of my favorite parts of Half Life and especially half life 2. I love the way the pistol feels and sounds in HL2, it's got such a pop.
As for decoupling aiming from view - it was really more of a crutch in GE and PD to account for most people playing with single analog sticks. If you use the dual stick setup for either game, they control like modern first person shooters and decoupling the aim becomes rather pointless, as it nails you to the ground. That's why the game is so slow in the first place, to compensate for your inability to move and aim at the same time unless you use the dual analog setup.
if you like decoupled controls, however, you should check out our mod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RehCTRrWM0
nkarafo
Member
I just state how it felt to me. After Goldeneye, it felt that way. But of course HL has other things like a truly superior AI for the enemy soldiers, its just that it took me some time to appreciate.
Anyway, shooting in HL felt like a step backwards though, in Goldeneye and PD it was very detailed with small hit boxes and many different reactions/results. I also loved how you could move the weapon/sight independently from the camera. In all other FPSes the camera felt like it was strapped on the gun. It still feels this way on most modern shooters and it sucks.
I know a lot of people say that but it just FEELS great to play in a way that nothing else from that time did. They absolutely nailed the animation and camera movement.
System Shock was an amazing game but in terms of feel? It was one of the most rigid games of that era. It felt awful to play even though the game itself was quite captivating.
Unreal was still super new by the end of 1998 when Half-Life released. It was only 6 months old.
I played the hell out of Unreal and loved it but Half-Life was a VERY different game. I'm not sure where you're seeing the similarities.
I thought System Shock felt awesome at the time. It was like a mix of FPS and first person adventure games. I felt an amazing amount of freedom in SS. Obviously, once SS2 was released, the first became obsolete.
I wasn't saying Half Life was antiquated upon release, only that a lot of the things it did well, had been seen in previous games already at that point. I don't see how you can't see the similarities in the progression of Unreal vs Half Life. They both utilize the same directed approach - no real levels, all one big ever expanding set piece. Compare this to Quake or Doom which, to me, felt like an arcade game played in First Person.
nkarafo
Member
SS and Quake are based on closed/indoor environments. Turok was one of the first games to attempt a HUGE outdoor environment (with great looking foliage at the time too) and at the same time having smoothly animated 3D enemies. I mean look at Quake and it's pathetic looking enemies. Turok is miles ahead in this aspect. That's why the fog was kind of necessary as no other system at the time could do all these things without some kind of pop-up.
Turok was also miles ahead in weapon visual effects and particles.
I do agree about the platforming though.
Franchuzas87
Member
I totally disagree. I replay the N64 version from time to time and, aside from the framerate, I still think it's one of the best FPS ever.
I'd love to see it again in Xbox One. Not just an enhanced port like the 360 one, but a proper remake like, well, REmake.
I'd love to see it again in Xbox One. Not just an enhanced port like the 360 one, but a proper remake like, well, REmake.
Turok has huge outdoor environments that are empty and uninteresting. And, most importantly, it's not fun to play.
Turok also has the benefit of releasing 2 years after system shock on a system that has actual 3D hardware. It would have been shocking if it didn't best SS visually.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Heretic.
PD on N64 was perfectly fine with 4 ppl as long as you didn't go overboard with the simulants and explosive weapons. 4 players and anything above 2 simulants meant playing at 10 fps. 4 players and the maximum of 8 simulants meant a power point presentation.
4 player only with few or none explosive weapons/mines made it almost butter smooth and as good as any N64 game could aspire to be.
nkarafo
Member
They were filled with impressive looking enemies and there was lots of space to try all the ridiculous weapons. Well, it was fun to me. Very fun actually.
Of course level design is something that iD games were hard to beat so Quake was ahead in this.
I only mentioned SS because you compared it first. Of course these games are very different.
Turok still had better looking, smoother animated enemies than both Quake 2 and Unreal though.
Well obviously taste is subjective, I was speaking for myself. Clearly there were those who did enjoy it at the time, as it was a high profile release and Darkl0x up there brought it up as an enjoyable game in the first place.
I dunno, it just felt so slow and clunky to me. It reminded me a lot of the original Tomb Raider in that I got that it was extremely advanced, but didn't match the finely tuned 2D games I was used to playing at the time. For various reasons - many of which you've mentioned already - Turok just didn't feel as smooth as something like Quake. Which is to say that I don't think the technology - both hardware and software advances - were in place yet to do the sort of things Turok wanted to do at that time. By the time Goldeneye rolled around, things had gotten much better to a point where the technical limitations of the game didn't prevent me from enjoying what it had to offer.
Now I'm going to sound like a negative nancy because, outside of a few levels, I pretty much disliked most of Quake's level design, lol.
right, but it still bore mentioning. All N64 games could count on 3D hardware being present. Even Quake I had to be designed with Software rendering in mind. That really accounts for a lot of the jank with those games graphics.
Quake on a Voodoo card of the time is still really nice looking, though. Those voodoo cards had a unique look to them, sort of in the same way the N64 and Dreamcast have unique looks as well. I can look at a game, and just from the way it renders, tell you if it's running on an N64, Dreamcast, or Voodoo card. Playing the game on a modern card loses that quality.
Eh, I'll take your word for it, because I haven't played the original turok in a long time, but Quake 2 and Unreal definitely did everything else better. The particle effects in Unreal are still pretty crazy today with dual Voodoo 2 cards. That opening flyover the castle still looks good, especially with the crazy reflective stone effect turned on.
I'm not sure you get what I mean when I say "feel". I'm specifically talking about things like animation, camera sway, weapon animations, enemy hit reactions, etc. System Shock was absolutely awful in this regard. It was poorly animated and very stiff.
It was the better game for sure but it didn't FEEL good to play. That's what I'm talking about.
I don't even know what System Shock is part of this conversation. It's a totally different type of game.
Whether you enjoyed Turok or not it was extremely well animated and still holds up in that regard today. It moves better than any of its contemporaries on the PC or otherwise.
I don't even know what to say to this. I absolutely love Quake's level design. :\ It's Quake 2 that's terrible in SP these days.
nkarafo
Member
Yeah, i think we can all agree that at least animation and movement were amazing in this game.
Here is another little touch i liked:
Weapons that did had movable mechanical parts "unfolding" when selected while making cool mechanical sounds.
I thought it was pretty cool.
Alex_Mexico
Member
I have to agree with the guy saying Halo CE is shit by today's standards as long as he was talking about the campaign. The multiplayer of course holds up incredibly well still to this day and was so ahead of its time it took Call of Duty 4 to surpass it 6 years later.
I never owned an OG Xbox, 360 or X1 so my extent of Halo exposure meant multiplayer only with friends. I never got too much opportunity to really sink time to the campaigns. Especially Halo CE's. Recently a cousin lent me his 360 with Halo 1 anniversary and for the first time, and without rose colored nostalgic glasses, I'm playing through its campaign and for the most part I have to say, yes, it's shit. Especially the second half.
Halo CE's campaign, unlike PD's short missions, is the perfect example of the game that overstays its welcome. The second half is nothing but endless corridors and the same 2-3 rooms copy/pasted over and over and over and over again filled with the same enemies and traps.
I'm sure playing it co-op wouldve made it more fun but playing it solo frustrated me to no end and bored me to tears! Especially during the stupidly long Attack on the Control Center and the boring as shit Library. And after the Library they made me play AotCC again but BACKWARDS on the next mission called Two Betrayals!
Look, when a developer thinks they need to add freaking arrows on floors and walls to tell the player which way is the right path you know you're made some bad design choices. Reviewers and fans gave Perfect Dark Zero (a mediocre game for sure) so much shit for its campaign needing arrows to point the player in the right direction it boggles my mind why Halo 1 got a free pass here. The levels are so same-y that if it weren't for the arrows you could be going back without knowing! And I'm playing the anniversary edition which has even more arrows that the original didn't have (like in the damn Library) better and more colorful graphics and the much improved lightning!
Halo CE's campaign is shit nowadays for someone with no nostalgia factor. It aged horribly, is repetitive as all hell and heaven, and that second half suffers from a major case of copy/paste syndrome with a dose of heavy backtracking.
Halo CE multiplayer is an entirely different beast. The next step in the FPS revolution after Goldeneye. I'm firmly in the camp that thinks PD was better in every way than Goldeneye (it was also made 3 years later), but even I will admit PD was more of an evolution and perfection of what Goldeneye started. Halo CE was the next step revolution but that doesn't mean it has aged horribly in some aspects.
I'm talking about the controls. It utilized the mouse heavily in ways games did not utilize mice yet. Back then, for example, mouse controls for Doom meant that pushing the mouse forward made you physically walk forward.
By contrast, Turok's controls never clicked with me. Something about the way the C-buttons accelerate the camera. These controls made doing things like platforming a chore in the game. While SS may have been stiff, I always felt like I had a good grip on whatever I was doing.
Because, inevitably, when people start talking about games aging poorly, you will begin to compare it to its contemporaries. It shouldn't be surprising to see other FPS games of the day being discussed in a topic like this, even if they play differently. Further, you were the first person to compare turok to other games of the time.
That's fine to think that, but your original post didn't clarify what "feel" means and you commented on other things, like it's action.
I still didn't enjoy Turok. At all.
nkarafo
Member
Contols in Turok were spot on for me. I used the D-Pad to move and the analog to look around. It was the closest thing to a WASD-Mouse. Not to mention i was shooting with my right index finger, which felt amazing.
Jumping on platforms was crap, but not because of the controls. It was crap because the camera should pad down, just like it does in Metroid Prime. It didn't so you couldn't see where you land. Jumping Flash also had the camera looking straight down after the mid-air jump. That's why it worked. Because you could see where you land.
Jumping on platforms was crap, but not because of the controls. It was crap because the camera should pad down, just like it does in Metroid Prime. It didn't so you couldn't see where you land. Jumping Flash also had the camera looking straight down after the mid-air jump. That's why it worked. Because you could see where you land.
I can see where you're coming from, and yes, the repetitive level design is quite an inherent flaw, but I still find the core gameplay to be fun and satisfying, and the adversarial A.I. still holds up extremely well to me, making the combat all the more rewarding.
Soodanim
Member
Perfect Dark is the only game I wish I had a 360 for. No other game has made me and 2 friends stay up all night playing multiplayer with bots. We didn't realise it was morning until we heard kids walking to school. And I never owned another game that did have local multi as good as that. I once bought Metroid Prime for the multi, and we tried it once then took it back (of course if I played the single player I would have kept it, but it's okay because I own the trilogy now).
Core gameplay is my main argument as well. For me, PD and Goldeneye were a chore to play, it wasn't fun to move and shoot, it's that simple. Mission and level design is cool and all, but I can't be assed to struggle through 20 FPS tops with shit controls and mediocre core mechanics.
We were talking about console games, I thought.
I was primarily a PC gamer at that time and, in fact, played Turok on PC first (where it controlled worse than N64 due to a bad mouse implementation - had to play it with keyboard only). I still enjoyed it greatly. I never owned an N64 until a few years ago, in fact, and dislike most of the library. Turok is one of the only games I think still holds up on the system which is why I mentioned it (since discussion was started with Perfect Dark). It's like a precursor to Metroid Prime (since some of the people that worked on Turok 1 and 2 went to work for Retro on Metroid Prime it's no coincidence). Metroid Prime is much better, of course, but Turok laid the ground work.
Sorry, I got off-topic and was actually responding to a post talking about Halo CE, not Perfect Dark or Goldeneye.
nkarafo
Member
For me Perfect Dark MUST be played on Perfect Agent mode to be enjoyable. The slower paced, more strategic gameplay forces you to kill enemies one by one before they accumulate and cause frame rate drops. Plus, you are actually use some stealth. Also, the Auto aim is disabled making head-shots easier to do, as you should in order to bring down your enemies fast, before they do. You also get all the mission objectives so the level design makes more sense.
If you play PD in the same way you play Doom or Serious Sam, on the easiest difficulty level, its going to look/feel bad.
If you play PD in the same way you play Doom or Serious Sam, on the easiest difficulty level, its going to look/feel bad.
Er, you brought up Doom and Quake.
I played Turok right after I got my N64, near launch. My PC didn't have a 3D accelerator card in it at the time, but I had a saturn. I bought quake and ran it in software mode.
Coreda
Member
I own this Japanese version. Literally bought that version for the box and cartridge art.
Haven't played the Xbox version of PD, but did once try using a 360 controller via emulation and it was nowhere near as usable as the original controller. '1.2' inverted controls and a N64 controller is best, although I only ever enjoyed it for the multiplayer. With the right levels, options, and weapon selections it's a blast.