The sequel: Before we get started, just let it be known that we're talking about the Nintendo 64 Perfect Dark here. Don't come bothering us with any of that Xbox 360 nonsense - the sequel and remake never happened, okay? Rare had long since gone off the boil at that point. Plus all the people who worked on it had buggered off to make TimeSplitters, aka the second best first person shooter series on Earth. Now all that's out of the way: Perfect Dark was a flawless, perfectly constructed FPS that favoured a stealthy approach and conspiracy theory narrative to going in all guns a-blazing and some jingoistic military nonsense. It was crazy fun. Does the Call Of Duty series let you team up with an alien called Elvis? No it does not. The original: Wanna know why everything about Perfect Dark was so, well, perfect? Because it was the same team using the same engine they'd used for GoldenEye, which is the number one first person shooter on Earth. Again, don't darken our door with any of that remake or sequel piffle - the original GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 was the most satisfying multiplayer gaming experience anybody has ever (and probably will ever) experience, and whilst the developers lost the James Bond licence after the game, they carried on regardless. They just swapped 007 out for special operative Joanna Dark, Russians for extraterrestrials, and kept the multiplayer mechanics pretty much the same. If you can play GoldenEye, you can play Perfect Dark; and you probably should, cos they're both mint.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
