10 Awful Versions Of Iconic Video Games You Didn't Know Existed

In many ways, Rare defined the Nintendo 64 almost as much as the company who owned the hardware.

Outputting titles such as Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye and Jetforce Gemini: it was almost as if the developers could do no wrong. In 2000, they released Perfect Dark to critical aplomb… but the game had a handheld version that has been mostly lost to time.

The GameBoy Color port of Perfect Dark, unsurprisingly, has to make huge changes to the formula to even function. Gone is the first person perspective and instead the game acts as sort of Metal Gear-esque isometric top-down action game. However, whilst it might’ve looked decent for the time, it’s certainly not aged well.

More than that, it’s not just fun to play. Perfect Dark asks players to use stealth which is a total headache to operate. With such a restrictive field of view, it’s easy to accidentally trigger alarms or encounters and stealth kills are all based on an arbitrary amount of distance between Joanna and the enemy’s back. With awkward and overstuffed controls, it’s clear that Rare was expecting too much out of the GBC in its twilight years.

With all the goodwill in the world for Rare, the gaming industry moved on from this poor Perfect Dark port quickly to save them the embarrassment.