Perfect Dark

Perfect Dark took the GoldenEye formula and just went nuclear with it. Rare basically said «You liked that? Hold my beer » and made a whole new beast that's crammed with so much stuff it's kind of insane it even runs on the Nintendo 64. You step into the shoes of Joanna Dark, a super agent for the Carrington Institute and at first, it's all cool corporate espionage: hacking, sneaking and taking out guards, but halfway through the story just veers off into deep sci-fi territory, you're breaking into Area 51, rescuing a grey named Elvis and getting tangled in an intergalactic war. It's a bit cheesy, yeah, but it's charming as hell.

Gameplay-wise, it feels like GoldenEye but with more polish: the shooting is tight, the autoaim is a lifesaver and the enemy AI is way smarter but what really sets it apart are the missions, instead of just running and gunning, you've got these awesome objectives like planting bombs, photographing secret meetings and escorting people. The best part is that bumping up the difficulty doesn't just make enemies tougher, it adds whole new objectives to complete, which gives you a real reason to replay every level. Plus, every single gun has a secondary fire mode, you can have a laptop that turns into a sentry gun or rockets you can pilot around corners. The sheer variety is crazy and messing around with all the cool gadgets and guns never gets old.

Visually and sonically, it's a huge step up from GoldenEye. The lighting effects are awesome, the character models are more detailed and there are full reload animations for every weapon. The voice acting is a mixed bag of pros and Rare devs, which gives it some quirky charm. It's not without its rough edges tho, some of the level design can get confusing and you'll find yourself running in circles trying to figure out what to do next. Also, failing an objective means restarting the whole mission, which is a real pain. It's the kind of game that expects you to mess up and learn from your mistakes.

And get this, an absolute madlad named Colby Shores actually got the full Perfect Dark running on the 3DS, and I don't mean some emulator or inject, I mean an actual native port. He completely rewrote the graphics backend to talk directly to the 3DS hardware, it runs smoother than the N64 original, hitting around 45 FPS compared to the original's 25 and it even has the stereoscopic 3D working perfectly. The audio is handled on a dedicated core too, so even when the action gets heavy, the sound doesn't get all choppy, which is an issue still today. The dev has been super active, patching in stuff like stick sensitivity sliders, fixing bugs and even adding a controller option to swap the Circle Pad and C-Stick so you can have a proper dual stick setup. Might be the best way to play it portably and mayor props to Colby for making this.

Download

The dataDyne files are in your hands, agent. You've already read the intel, you've seen the schematics and now there's only one move left to make: extracting this package onto your system. First, ensure your 3DS is running CFW, once that's squared away, boot up the FBI app from your HOME Menu and point your camera at the QR code below and the data will surge through your system. When it's all done, Joanna will settle on your HOME Menu, right alongside your other icons. She's got a Falcon 2 in one hand and a mission briefing in the other. So don't keep her waiting, the Skedar aren't going to stop themselves. Carrington out.