Perfect Dark has mechanics that modern games still grossly lack. Mechanics like being able to shoot the gun out of an enemy's hand with your last bullet, grab his gun, and force him to surrender. Once surrendered, some enemies would even unlock stuff for you in hopes you'll spare them. Other enemies would suddenly bolt when you look away, and either run for an alarm or even another room full of their buddies. Sometimes they'd even pull out a backup handgun and keep fighting you. Perfect Dark also had seriously some of the coolest weapons in any sci-fi anything ever. Such as the ever OP as f*** laptop gun with a cyclical fire rate of about 1,100rpm, a 50 round mag, the ability to be deployed as an automated turret that can stick to almost anything, and even folds up to pose as a laptop - capable of booting up - to pass airport security. It also had the Callisto NT, an alien rifle, and the Phoenix, an alien pistol. Both run on "blob" mags that feed into the weapon's side through what seems to be some sort of osmosis. The Callisto NT's primary fire mode was a very high rate of fire weak ammo, but the secondary mode, at no extra cost to ammo, slowed fire rate substantially, but each round now was high velocity and armor piercing. The Phoenix was similar, except the secondary mode switched to a lower fire rate, but with truly explosive rounds, capable of killing multiple enemies in a single shot. The alien sniper rifle, the "X-Ray," Was an alien sniper rifle that was guaranteed 1 shot kill, and could shoot through ANYTHING. Couple that with a scope that can not only see through anything, focusing on a given plane of focus, but it also had an auto tracking, life seeking mode that would find and track targets for you at great distances, which you could then kill. Also the RCP-180 (I think), which has a cyclical rate of 1,200rpm of armor piercing ammo and I think it was a 120 round mag, but it could also "eat" ammo to fuel a cloaking device, which would hide you until the ammo depleted or you switched it off. Another game play mechanic that I don't think was seen again until Splinter Cell, was the ability to shoot out lights to blind enemies in darkness. There's even a part near the beginning of the game where enemies with NVGs try this on you by shutting off the lights, but if you were quick and clever, you'd remember there was a light switch for that room where you entered, and if you activated it, the troops would be blinded by their NVGs for a moment, long enough to shoot them all. The game also had disguises you could acquire, and be used to infiltrate certain areas. The game also had a secondary melee mode, that instead of punching, you'd attempt to disarm the enemy, something I'm not sure if I've seen since. There was also the really cool aspect of alternative starting locations combined with additional objectives when playing higher difficulties. It also had a split screen single-player co-op that was done really well. Also hidden weapons in certain destructible objects, hidden wedges of cheese, enemies that would taunt you, or curse you as they died, and reacted to being shot, such as limping, clasping an arm, and they would leave a blood trail you could follow. Plus the soundtrack was dope, and they even had a firing range complete with challenges to showcase the awesome weapons, and get you very proficient with them. The rewards for completing the gold star challenges was the unlocking of the classic guns from GoldenEye 64. Oh, and there was the Dragon, my favorite rifle for multiplayer, as the secondary mode causes you to activate a proximity mine built into the gun, and then chuck the gun on the ground. Sure, you lose the gun, but it looked just like a legit weapon pickup to other players. If you got real crafty, you'd pick up the rifle, activate the mine, and toss it right on its ACTUAL weapon spawn. Sneaky as f***. Perfect Dark was so ahead of its time that I can't even list more, because I need to actually get things done today, but I certainly could go on. It's in my #1 spot of "Best FPS Game of All Time." I still judge modern shooters by the very high standards Perfect Dark set, which is why I truly hated Perfect Dark: Zero. PDZ is an okay shooter, but making it a Perfect Dark title was a complete insult to Perfect Dark, and was such a let down. Again, it's an okay game - if you never played the original. Kinda like how I enjoyed the "Avatar: The Last Air Bender" live action movie, because I had never seen the anime. Once I saw the anime, I understood why everyone said the live action movie was total and utter shit. That's how PD fans feel about PDZ, or Conker's Bad Fur Day fans feel about Conker: Live and Reloaded (which was originally called "Live and Uncut," and was gonna be even less censored than the original). What a shit-pit that ended up being.
Going from SNES to N64 was going from butter smooth and super colorful 2D games to very blocky, blurry and sluggish 3D games. But we didn't care back then, 3D games were too impressive for us.
+xyz12345 SNES/Genesis games were not that smooth; the very limited memory made the games not have too many sprites, so the animations were not that fluid. GBA is where the games were super-smooth, because of the additional memory. But the smoothest 2D game is, in my opinion, Wario Land Shake It (Wii). I mean, it is a 2D game that uses sprites only and occupies almost all the space on the disk.
Slippy Toad Yes the GBA was like a "super charged" SNES, it's games still look and run well if you look past the low resolution (except the 3D stuff which looks like a slower and blockier PlayStation). Modern 2D games look great, obviously. Cuphead looks amazing for example.
Me and some of my friends as kids played the hell out of the multiplayer and co-op on Perfect Dark and it was awesome! I really feel that a huge part of what made it so fun and memorable was that we were playing it together in the same room. It was great to be able to see each others reactions in person and also it felt like there was some kind of bond/partnership effect going on. Later when we played co-op on Halo I still had that feeling with it. Later with Halo 2 we had LAN parties for a short time at a friends house and I still had that feeling with it as long as all of my teammates were in the same room or nearby rooms. I rarely if ever got that feeling when playing games online.
@@Silencer83100 yes Perfect Dark was better than Golden Eye in every aspect...except everyone was hooked on Golden Eye because it's James Bond. Perfect Dark was the spiritual successor and it surpassed all expectations. Sadly most of my friends wouldn't try it. Like I said, everyone on playing Golden Eye - which is one of the greatest FPS ever made.
@@atlien1988 yes but only idiots would think GoldenEye was better. fuck the bond factor on that bullshit!!!! I've played both but I Will always gravitate towards better weapons and gear vs popularity. If you can't see that PD's weapons were far greater than goldeneye's then, you can "get the hell out of my office!!!" As Cassandra would say....
In GoldenEye, the map designs were ripped directly from the movie's actual set design floor plans. If you watch the movie and already know the game levels, it's kind of a trip to follow Bond through each area.
Right?! I marked out so hard when I finally saw the movie after playing through the game and he took the speedrun route through the archives - out the door, turn right, to the end of the corridor, up the stairs... I was like "good luck! Invisibility is a nightmare to get in time!"
But the whole junk yard level was different bond never met Valentin zukovski a second time. The events never really matched up to the movie to me. I mean the helicopter wasn't even there
I don't care what anyone say nor what these performance test say perfect dark is the GOAT of multiplayer of the early days..... Me & my friends & family used to play that multiplayer til the wheels fell off WITH the bots & we didn't give no fucks about no frame rates all we cared about was FUN & we had PLENTY
played the same way but believe me with the max amount of bots it was very unplayable we would stick to I think it was 2 bots per team, we also tried the challenges which had various amounts of bots but at a point it got pretty unplayable
Zero Cool we played 4 player split screen plus about 5 to 6 bots (sometimes more) & we had no problems playing the game NEVER was the game "unplayable" for us back in the day
Yeah! I started caring about framerate somewhere around the end of vanilla World of Warcraft. Before that, I didn't care. My guild friend started talking about performance and how everything below 60 is unplayable to him. I remember I told him that I don't have that problem, I enabled FPS counter, wandered around Stranglethorn Vale (jungle area in WoW) and told him that above 45 I don't see the difference XD Now it's horrible, 2-3 frames drop below 60 and I notice it immediately, I started to feel VSync input lag, I notice bad frame pacing, I think about getting newer and newer GPU to maintain stable FPS, I'm considering getting G-Sync monitor (or switching to AMD + FreeSync) and all that BS. I tweak games more than I actually play them. One thing that is important, though, in comparison to old days with CRT TVs we are much more susceptible to FPS fluctuations, input lags and frame pacing issues because of LCD/LED screens. CRT TVs were free from that problems, lower resolution games looked MUCH better, there was no input lag and so on. So it helped - a lot. If we played on LCDs back then, then we wouldn't be able to enjoy these games as much as we did back in the days, I think.
Love these games to bits today and always knew the frame rate was sub par especially in multi player coupled with explosive weapons, but I had no idea it was so low even in the single player, it really didn't seem that bad, probably because it was so much fun.
A lot of PD fans disagree to some extent, however... Strangely echo-y audio, really out-of-tune soundtrack, super high deadzone, and removal of customization features in Combat Simulator (such as the ability to mix and match male/female/alien heads and bodies on characters). Nowadays the fan PC port is definitely the best PD experience imo, and mods let us even have GoldenEye and PD mission maps in multiplayer, in one awesome package! (I've got some videos on this YT channel showcasing that)
I was really lucky, the first time I got to play GoldenEye on the N64 I was at a friends house on their 50" CRT. This doesn't seem that amazing now, but back then, the only places that usually had a TV that big was large pubs and clubs for Football on Sky. These Televisions cost upwards of £2000 - and that's £2000 in 1997 money, which must be what, £4000 today? Well, anyway, that's a lot of cash. I never knew it had such a low FPS though. It was still awesome.
I don't think it has ever existed a CRT biogger than 40", not even as a prototype. And the 40" model I know wieghs at 300kg. It was probably a retro-projection tv the one you played on.
Goldeneye though isn't not all that frantic so a low framerate isn't too much of an issue. Also the controls are really stiff so you aren't making rapid moves or complex maneuvers anyway that would be impacted by a low framerate.
Invisible War is very consolized. The breaking up of levels to fit the limited memory of consoles was the deal breaker for me when I played it on PC way back. Not even 5 minutes I was in the area, the game shows another loading screen to load a portion of the level.
DF avoiding pc version of nms? waiting until release has come and been long gone or just waiting for them to fix it while many other games dont have that luxury at launch.. what gives?
Or MGS3 - how the PS2 pulled that off with 32MB of RAM is too much for me to comprehend. Grass blades react individually to Snake's movement, animations were nothing short of brilliant (CQC was amazing to watch) and the incredible graphics... don't get me started. MGS2 was very impressive though, running at 60FPS with some very nice, detailed models and particles - although this was probably aided by the fixed camera.
A technical masterpiece? MGS 2 was an unplayable mess with the most awkward controls I ever seen. The mouse was only there to shoot, you could only move the camera with the keyboard and it only got amd card support with a patch that konami released some time after release. It came out in march 27 of 2003 and it had much worse graphics and controls than splinter cell that was released one month earlier.
Deranfan Seriously dude? I was specifically talking about the PS2 version (which came out 2 years earlier than the PC version by the way.) For the hardware that it was on, that game was a technical masterpiece, yes. The leap in AI with things like tracking blood trails, reacting to environment, interaction with things like stick-up: the dynamic lighting and shadows, the physics in the environment. It was a revolutionary game in the console market when it first released. And all that at 60fps. Splinter Cell would not have existed if it was for this franchise.
MGsubbie But how could they mess up the pc version so bad? It's one of the worst pc ports ever made and the full installation is 7.6 GB big by the way.
It's amazing how passionate you guys are with these retro videos!! It really hits home for those of us in our 40's. Thank you and keep up the good work!
Those where the times, when devs actually gave their lives to bring content to games... nowdays "ok we will release this brand new game, AND we ALREADY have some dlc ready" wtf?
"gave their lives" We must pay our respects to those who lost their lives on the game development battlefield.... they didn't give their lives... calm down.
Kevin Zelaya now its like "oh shit these train rails have 90 degree turns, ill fix it before launc-" "no you wont fix it, we can patch later" Not kidding: www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/watch-dogs-developer-opens-up-about-butchered-game-design-9454511.html
As someone who loves video games, I really enjoy your channel. However, as someone who enjoys technology and science even more, I really have respect for you due to your scientific approach to them, especially videos like this where you look at not only the technology used in games, but also its impact on the technological space and paradigm of its time. You guys are very meticulous and the attention to detail is impeccable in all of your videos I have seen. Keep doing what you guys are doing, it really is top-notch quality.
I am also adding - it's disgusting how publications and the Internet worldwide are trying to rewrite history - GoldenEye being described as only a console defining shooter is a disgrace - it received nearly 100 awards I believe in 1998 including Graphics technology and best game. In 1997 GoldeneEye redefined FPS on console AND PC, it's list of innovations is incredible - GE did it all first, games like Halo AND Half life are all credited with innovations which were lifted straight out of GoldenEye 007. GE was the reason for tearing so many of us away from Quake - Many N64 consoles were bought purely for GoldenEye, it was lavished with praise in multiplatform and PC magazines - it's sandbox level design, texturing, animations, environmental effects, particle effects, weapon animations, bullet holes in walls, damage modelling, sound, mission structures, stealth, dual wielding weapons, sniper scopes, cover system, artifical intelligence, NPC animation, escort missions, sky box, multiple ways of taking on missions, hit detection, level interaction, realistic explosions, console multiplayer were all way ahead of its time and thats just a small part of what GE brought in - it is still one of the most fun and playable shooters to this day. If Goldeneye was a Sony PlayStation game by Naughty Dog, or produced by Valve, ID or some other major developer praise would be rained from the rooftops, it would be the number one PlayStation game - there is a reason why GOLDENEYE is the BEST FPS/STEALTH game in its generation - because it is.
Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are the rare and possibly only times when console FPS games actually caught up with and arguably surpassed what the PC was doing at the time. Certainly no console shooter afterwards has even come close to the amount of customization and replayability of those two shooters. I liked Halo, but I still don't know what was revolutionary about it. It's two-weapon carrying limit was one of the worst things ever introduced to the genre, let alone checkpoints and regenerating health.
I am also adding - it's disgusting how nostalgiafags give this game way more recognition than it deserves; Innovantion =/= good game desing. I recently finish Goldeneye and as a person who has no nostalgia for this game, it is sub-par. The vague objectives and sandbox-like level desing don't do much good for the game. It's easy to get lost and the lack of an in-game map makes it even worse. The game really shines when all it is is just mindless action, the shooting is really solid, but most of the time it's just clunky stealth that barely manages to work. The graphics haven't aged very well and they weren't the best for 1997 either. Of course, you mostly played the multiplayer so you ignore these flaws, but in retrospect - Goldeneye is not a masterpiece. It may be a good game but it's nowhere near perfect. Perfect Dark on the other hand is a far better shooter and it can arguably be called a masterpiece. Oh and don't start on the performance, it is worse in PD but both games suffer greatly from it and GE suffers the most
@@AlphaZeroX96 Perfect Dark aged well? I do not understand how a game that reaches unplayable sub-10fps framerates frequently can be in any way a well aging game. It would've been a fantastic game if they waited a generation, but as it is Perfect Dark is practically a tech demo. Play it on an emulator with upscaling and a framerate that's actually functional, or don't play it at all. And Goldeneye isn't much better either.
@@olzhas1one755 Dude, the fact that you had objectives set it apart from the rest of the field in 1997. It was a novel concept to have to actually click on a computer to activate something than to just shoot it. Goldeneye's single-player campaign was one of the best gaming experiences you could have on the N64.
Goldeneye is one of the absolute greatest FPS games ever i beat the entire game on 00Agent as a 9 year old and then perfect dark came and it was better than goldeney in almost every way, perfect dark imo is the greatest FPS of all time
You can switch the controls to Turok movement (move using the C-buttons and aim using the Analog Stick.) A lot of people don't really point that out with GoldenEye or Perfect Dark. So if you use default movement the games did not age very well at all, but if you use Turok's movement the games aged very well. Can still drop shot and melee but its harder in this gen compared to now
Fantastic vid, probably the best DF Retro yet! I loved GoldenEye back in the day and I've actually been replaying it recently. It is mega hard on 00 Agent and I'm currently stuck on the Control level, even if I survive to the end I struggle to protect Natalya while she's sabotaging the GoldenEye satellite. I seem to have forgotten a lot of the tricks I developed for beating the game back in the day... The framerate is definitely dodgy but it is still playable. I could have sworn it hits 60fps when you go through the grate at the top of the Control level, but maybe 30fps feels like 60fps when the games runs at 15fps for so much of the time? One thing I was hoping to know is if using the 16:9 mode helps the framerate at all. I remember I always used to play the game in 16:9 with the music off because I felt cropping the picture slightly gave it a bit of a performance boost. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case or if it was just in my head! It might actually have given a wider field of view in which case the framerate could have been lower but the wider image helped in other ways. I definitely agree that Perfect Dark's framerate just took things too far. I remember I always used to play it in low-res mode because it was smoother but even then it was hard to play. That said I was playing the PAL version and if it had a higher default vertical resolution maybe that also hindered the framerate compared to the NTSC version. I remember back in the day Rare were very proud they'd made a version of the game for PAL territories that didn't have unsightly borders on a 4:3 TV.
Fantastic breakdown of what made these games so fun and important in their day. I really enjoyed seeing the performance numbers. The crashing frame rates were something every player recognized at the time, but it was oddly acceptable. Well done!
I feel that Spyro The Dragon is hugely underestimated in the technical department. Sure it didn't have Multiplayer l, but it had high frame-rates (30FPS most of the time), 3D everything, Good soundtrack and sounds, large open environments with long draw distances, seemingly seamlessly loading via the clever use of portals and smooth animations to name a few. Spyro 2 added 3D water effects interactive ambient AI (does it's own thing and yet you can still interact with them directly shooting fish for example), cheats, replayability, more transparency effects 3D explosion effects... Spyro 3 added more complex AI and even larger levels.
Thanks, John! Completely agree with you about design innovations and replayability of the levels in GoldenEye. I'd never played it before until finally got the opportunity to experience this game recently this year when I bought the original cartridge and played on the real hardware. And man, this game is INCREDIBLE! I've got so much FUN which is hardly available nowadays! And of course, we should pay homage to the original DEUS EX in the next episode first.
Today I stumbled upon your videos, man I got to say you've got a new suscriber, each video you upload is better than the one that came before it. Lot of knowledge there, keep up the good work.
I spent an embarrassing amount of my life playing perfect dark's bot multiplayer without the expansion pack when I was a kid. Probably because bots were the only friends I had.
Goldeneye is a perfect example of how much more fun local multiplayer can be. To this day I haven't enjoyed an online multiplayer game quite like I did Goldeneye back then. It's a totally different experience, playing with only four players, who are in the room with you, and whose screens are plainly visible. It's just so much fun. 4-player spitscreen games could be a thing if developers made them and controllers didn't cost an arm and a leg. Just sayin'.
You can get a used 360 for about the price of a new AAA game, if you're lucky. For me it was worth it. I have hundreds of PC games, but there are a small number of console exclusives (like Red Dead Redemption for example) that I missed last gen and a cheap used 360 allows me to gain access to these titles.
Definitely buy the Xbox 1. You can stream Perfect Dark on twitch with the Xbox 1, and capture video/screenshots, and people can view and comment on your vids, which leads to more people to play with. I play with friends online occasionally, it's nostalgia heaven, especially while in a party and streaming. Rare Replay is my favorite game for X1. Definitely worth the buy to play all those classics in HD. It also includes extra features, extra modes, unlockable videos and soundtracks, fancy art for every game etc. Killer Instinct Gold, RC Pro Am 1 & 2, Jet Force Gemini, BattleToads NES and the Arcade version, Conker, Perfect Dark...it's amazing.
This is a fantastic retrospective. There's dozens of others out there looking at GE/PD on UA-cam, but this is the most balanced, detailed and hyperbole-free I've seen yet. Impressive work, subscribed!
Very interesting. I never knew the framerates were so bad. I think I remember slowdown in split screen MP, or just a general sense of sluggishness but I had no idea it was 10fps. Goldeneye Source 5.0 is fucking amazing btw. Also, you've convinced me to buy the 360 remake of Perfect Dark
Goldeneye Source is amazing until you spend some hours on it Then its a fucking bad mess because you can always headshot perfectly, which means it can't and won't play like the original.
It's so sad that the 360 version of the original Goldeneye never came out. It would be so good with the graphics mode toggle, modern controls, online play and 60f/s
Not sure if you'll see this comment after so long, but a beta build of the 360 version got leaked last year and is getting patched by fans to fix up the bugs.
Growing up with these games and levels of performance is the reason why I don't care about 30 vs 60 fps. High framerates add to the experience, but great gameplay trumps everything else.
Perfect Dark pushed the N64 too hard tbh, it should have been a NGC game but since the console was not out yet it got released on the N64. Rare's games in general were known to push systems to there limits which resulted in pretty but sluggish games, especially on the N64 which was bottlenecked in many ways.
Yes, the PlayStation and Saturn were also bottle necked in many ways - that is the problem with first gen 3D systems - but we can look at each generation and point out bottlenecks - deal with it. You could argue that Rare were going too far in matching features only reserved for high end PC's/arcades but on an actual N64 with hi res mode disabled Perfect Dark is incredibly playable to this day. Perfect Dark, even now has graphical features not seen even in many modern FPS games - no mean feat. Rare made the right decisions at the time and the games certainly do not feel sluggish. Julian Eggbrecht (F5) actually stated that Factor 5 could have had Perfect Dark running with a locked 30FPS and 640x480 - he said Rare's problem was the fact that PD was running on a modified GE engine.
@Jason Scarpace > Julian Eggbrecht (F5) actually stated that Factor 5 could have had Perfect Dark running with a locked 30FPS and 640x480 Do you have a source for that? I'm quite interested in learning more about Factor 5 and the technology they had developed.
The 360 port of Perfect Dark is why I even still have my 360, lol! Rare was also working on a remaster of Jet Force Gemini, but sadly, it seems Microsoft wanted them to focus on that awful Viva Pinata series and the 360 avatars.
Same thing with the goldeneye remake in the XBLA, but it got cancelled and the game was nearly finished. And even if nintendo and microsoft are good buddies now. MGM has changed and become worse...
The problem with Perfect Dark was that it had already been massively out-innovated my games like Half-Life before it was even released, so it wasn't just obsolete from day one, but it didn't even run well on its intended hardware.
What a fantastic episode! You mentioned different platforms, mods, abandoned projects, etc. Very complete stuff, I'm very impressed! Congrats, DF! And for the people who enjoyed these fantastic spy games, I recommend giving *No One Lives Forever 1* and *2* a try.
You would be surprised. Even games like Sonic 2 and Super Mario World chug heavily at points on native hardware (And the PAL version of Mario Word is awful at times for this). Playing the Android version of Sonic 2 is kinda freaky because if you know the points where the framerate dives on the Mega Drive version (And there some really easy ways to trigger it on Chemical Plant early) as they don't appear on the Android version so it messes with your muscle memory. Ignoring the fanboy toolshed that started the conversation (With the most obvious bait ever). That's something I'd love to see DF Retro have a look at, especially with the advent of Speedrunning and how they optimise based on different versions of the game. Even going back to Rare, there was often significant differences between the NTSC US and NTSC JP versions of the Donkey Kong Country/Super Donkey Kong games as the Japan version was released later on and had more optimisation to reduce "Lag" (Or the speedrunner term for FPS drops).
Oh shit... I thought Golden Eye was put into Rare Replay as an update and you were comparing the original to the Xbox One release... Well, back into depression I go! :p
Also that was an incredible episode. Thanks for posting this. I was born in 1995, but I do remember the fact that I played it. Don't remember much about it, but some stuff in this video definitely hits that "oh ya" spot. Definitely going to plug in my N64 and play it again. Thanks for the video. I really, really appreciate it! :)
Thanks John, what a great look back episode covering both games! When you mentioned how maybe PD should have arrived on NGC instead got me think'in... Now that both of these have been covered. It would make an excellent companion piece, if you could do an episode on the Goldeneye/Perfect dark teams final chapter. With what came next when they left and formed.....Free Radical Design. In what i consider to be, those games spiritual successor..... .. . The Timesplitters trilogy! Maybe not right now as you're busy with other stuff but, at any rate....It's never to late for some "TIIIME TUH SPLIT!!!" ;)
One of the reasons why Hi-res perfect dark is so much sharper and clearer is because the higher resolution effectively means the VI can’t blur the image, usually it scales the game from 320x240 to 640x240 and makes a real mess of it, but when the game natively runs at 640x240 no scaling is needed.
Superior analog sticks? I'm afraid I don't agree. When I got the xbox360 perfect dark, the very first enemy proved to me how much superior the N64 analog was the 360. Walk up to the ledge, look down, pull out your aimer.....and then try your best to even get near the guy. On an N64, it was so natural and easy because there was more travel in the stick, making your aiming more accurate.
Chris Thiessen I don't know about that. Dual sticks are proven to give better accuracy than a single analog stick, but GE and PD had copious amounts of auto aim to make up for any drawbacks. PD on the 360 is pretty difficult to aim on because aim assist wasn't tweaked tight and the controls felt floaty.
While I enjoyed replaying HD Perfect Dark, I can't aim as well as I did on the N64 (so I won't be able to unlock cheats without autoaim or master the shooting range again...bummer). As winlover37 said, the aiming was too floaty; I turned down the sensitivity as low as it could go, and even just nudging the aim stick made it go too far. Still, it's always nice to play my favorite game regardless of console.
Perfect Dark has mechanics that modern games still grossly lack. Mechanics like being able to shoot the gun out of an enemy's hand with your last bullet, grab his gun, and force him to surrender. Once surrendered, some enemies would even unlock stuff for you in hopes you'll spare them. Other enemies would suddenly bolt when you look away, and either run for an alarm or even another room full of their buddies. Sometimes they'd even pull out a backup handgun and keep fighting you.
Perfect Dark also had seriously some of the coolest weapons in any sci-fi anything ever. Such as the ever OP as f*** laptop gun with a cyclical fire rate of about 1,100rpm, a 50 round mag, the ability to be deployed as an automated turret that can stick to almost anything, and even folds up to pose as a laptop - capable of booting up - to pass airport security. It also had the Callisto NT, an alien rifle, and the Phoenix, an alien pistol. Both run on "blob" mags that feed into the weapon's side through what seems to be some sort of osmosis. The Callisto NT's primary fire mode was a very high rate of fire weak ammo, but the secondary mode, at no extra cost to ammo, slowed fire rate substantially, but each round now was high velocity and armor piercing. The Phoenix was similar, except the secondary mode switched to a lower fire rate, but with truly explosive rounds, capable of killing multiple enemies in a single shot.
The alien sniper rifle, the "X-Ray," Was an alien sniper rifle that was guaranteed 1 shot kill, and could shoot through ANYTHING. Couple that with a scope that can not only see through anything, focusing on a given plane of focus, but it also had an auto tracking, life seeking mode that would find and track targets for you at great distances, which you could then kill. Also the RCP-180 (I think), which has a cyclical rate of 1,200rpm of armor piercing ammo and I think it was a 120 round mag, but it could also "eat" ammo to fuel a cloaking device, which would hide you until the ammo depleted or you switched it off.
Another game play mechanic that I don't think was seen again until Splinter Cell, was the ability to shoot out lights to blind enemies in darkness. There's even a part near the beginning of the game where enemies with NVGs try this on you by shutting off the lights, but if you were quick and clever, you'd remember there was a light switch for that room where you entered, and if you activated it, the troops would be blinded by their NVGs for a moment, long enough to shoot them all. The game also had disguises you could acquire, and be used to infiltrate certain areas. The game also had a secondary melee mode, that instead of punching, you'd attempt to disarm the enemy, something I'm not sure if I've seen since.
There was also the really cool aspect of alternative starting locations combined with additional objectives when playing higher difficulties. It also had a split screen single-player co-op that was done really well. Also hidden weapons in certain destructible objects, hidden wedges of cheese, enemies that would taunt you, or curse you as they died, and reacted to being shot, such as limping, clasping an arm, and they would leave a blood trail you could follow.
Plus the soundtrack was dope, and they even had a firing range complete with challenges to showcase the awesome weapons, and get you very proficient with them. The rewards for completing the gold star challenges was the unlocking of the classic guns from GoldenEye 64.
Oh, and there was the Dragon, my favorite rifle for multiplayer, as the secondary mode causes you to activate a proximity mine built into the gun, and then chuck the gun on the ground. Sure, you lose the gun, but it looked just like a legit weapon pickup to other players. If you got real crafty, you'd pick up the rifle, activate the mine, and toss it right on its ACTUAL weapon spawn. Sneaky as f***.
Perfect Dark was so ahead of its time that I can't even list more, because I need to actually get things done today, but I certainly could go on. It's in my #1 spot of "Best FPS Game of All Time." I still judge modern shooters by the very high standards Perfect Dark set, which is why I truly hated Perfect Dark: Zero. PDZ is an okay shooter, but making it a Perfect Dark title was a complete insult to Perfect Dark, and was such a let down. Again, it's an okay game - if you never played the original. Kinda like how I enjoyed the "Avatar: The Last Air Bender" live action movie, because I had never seen the anime. Once I saw the anime, I understood why everyone said the live action movie was total and utter shit. That's how PD fans feel about PDZ, or Conker's Bad Fur Day fans feel about Conker: Live and Reloaded (which was originally called "Live and Uncut," and was gonna be even less censored than the original). What a shit-pit that ended up being.
Thank you for taking the time to write this! Very informative and entertaining :) cheers
Mucho texto
Dam... I'm not that woke.
Agreed. Perfect dark will never be duplicated
@facelessninetytwo aka Man of the Rain It ran fine and pissed all over anything the competition had at the time, as did Goldeneye, Turok etc.
7 fps is more cinematic
Xeno Tone it’s better than 6...
LOL
I loved the order 1886, but that statement from the developer was bs.
6 fps is twice as cinematic
7 ate 9
perfect dark in my opinion is one of the best fps games ever created
Amen
Ever...period...if only the Switch could nab it
@@heavyhittersirl You can play it on xbox 360, xbox one and xbox one x, at 60fps and even 4k, who needs the game on switch?
It's called portability Mr. I'm too mature for a kiddie system.....
Have you heard of Arcane Dimensions?
everyone remembers this game man. was awesome, and perfect dark. cant believe how the low the frames were, never realised back then
Going from SNES to N64 was going from butter smooth and super colorful 2D games to very blocky, blurry and sluggish 3D games. But we didn't care back then, 3D games were too impressive for us.
+xyz12345 SNES/Genesis games were not that smooth; the very limited memory made the games not have too many sprites, so the animations were not that fluid. GBA is where the games were super-smooth, because of the additional memory. But the smoothest 2D game is, in my opinion, Wario Land Shake It (Wii). I mean, it is a 2D game that uses sprites only and occupies almost all the space on the disk.
Slippy Toad Yes the GBA was like a "super charged" SNES, it's games still look and run well if you look past the low resolution (except the 3D stuff which looks like a slower and blockier PlayStation).
Modern 2D games look great, obviously. Cuphead looks amazing for example.
+Slippy Toad That's not really true, most games on the 16 bit consoles ran at 60fps, with exceptions of course
+xyz12345 nope, thats bullshit
to be honest, I really miss split screen multi-player matches, the good old days when we used to trash talk each other face to face...
I agree. It was a lot more fun to play with friends in the same room.
Its also seemingly a lot harder to do these days. Everyone's become " too busy"
@@Matanumi i honestly think 80% bullshit
I hate playing online with friends,so I either play mostly single player games alone or games like mario party with a good friend side by side
Me and some of my friends as kids played the hell out of the multiplayer and co-op on Perfect Dark and it was awesome! I really feel that a huge part of what made it so fun and memorable was that we were playing it together in the same room. It was great to be able to see each others reactions in person and also it felt like there was some kind of bond/partnership effect going on.
Later when we played co-op on Halo I still had that feeling with it. Later with Halo 2 we had LAN parties for a short time at a friends house and I still had that feeling with it as long as all of my teammates were in the same room or nearby rooms. I rarely if ever got that feeling when playing games online.
Never had problems with the low Fps back then. Golden Eye was epic
Only one I ever use the rocket launcher both games that I get FPS slow down
But perfect dark was better..........
@Synx yes it fucking was!!
definitely more to offer. Everything GoldenEye plus what it already had.
@@Silencer83100 yes Perfect Dark was better than Golden Eye in every aspect...except everyone was hooked on Golden Eye because it's James Bond.
Perfect Dark was the spiritual successor and it surpassed all expectations. Sadly most of my friends wouldn't try it. Like I said, everyone on playing Golden Eye - which is one of the greatest FPS ever made.
@@atlien1988 yes but only idiots would think GoldenEye was better.
fuck the bond factor on that bullshit!!!!
I've played both but I Will always gravitate towards better weapons and gear vs popularity.
If you can't see that PD's weapons were far greater than goldeneye's then, you can "get the hell out of my office!!!" As Cassandra would say....
In GoldenEye, the map designs were ripped directly from the movie's actual set design floor plans. If you watch the movie and already know the game levels, it's kind of a trip to follow Bond through each area.
Right?! I marked out so hard when I finally saw the movie after playing through the game and he took the speedrun route through the archives - out the door, turn right, to the end of the corridor, up the stairs... I was like "good luck! Invisibility is a nightmare to get in time!"
But the whole junk yard level was different bond never met Valentin zukovski a second time.
The events never really matched up to the movie to me. I mean the helicopter wasn't even there
That Goldeneye soundtrack...
I would like but you have 64 likes already.
And perfect dark!
Grant kirkhope.
you're welcome.
Ikr Goldeneye had non stop bangers
@Matanumi p
PD music was cool but can't compare to GE. It was just too cool
To those people who claim that 30FPS is unplayable, some of your childhood gaming was partly defined by a game that ran at 10FPS...
And yet there are games all the way back in the 80s that could run at 60fps...
@@SandF3DPrinting that didnt look like Goldeneye...
And you didn't hear anyone complaining back then!
XBOXRULES the framerate drops are really noticeable and they can sometimes make playing it a chore
XBOXRULES the console is from the 90s what did you expect for a first person shooter
I don't care what anyone say nor what these performance test say perfect dark is the GOAT of multiplayer of the early days..... Me & my friends & family used to play that multiplayer til the wheels fell off WITH the bots & we didn't give no fucks about no frame rates all we cared about was FUN & we had PLENTY
played the same way but believe me with the max amount of bots it was very unplayable we would stick to I think it was 2 bots per team, we also tried the challenges which had various amounts of bots but at a point it got pretty unplayable
Zero Cool we played 4 player split screen plus about 5 to 6 bots (sometimes more) & we had no problems playing the game NEVER was the game "unplayable" for us back in the day
I think you just had a higher tolerance to it when you were young. 5 FPS is by no means playable in a competitive shooter.
***** when I was younger I didn't know what 10 FPS even meant all I knew was WE WAS HAVING FUN & that is what gaming is about
Tonio5100 But you would have had more fun if it was 60.
I didn't even know what a frame rate was back then, such a great generation to play games.
Yeah! I started caring about framerate somewhere around the end of vanilla World of Warcraft. Before that, I didn't care. My guild friend started talking about performance and how everything below 60 is unplayable to him. I remember I told him that I don't have that problem, I enabled FPS counter, wandered around Stranglethorn Vale (jungle area in WoW) and told him that above 45 I don't see the difference XD Now it's horrible, 2-3 frames drop below 60 and I notice it immediately, I started to feel VSync input lag, I notice bad frame pacing, I think about getting newer and newer GPU to maintain stable FPS, I'm considering getting G-Sync monitor (or switching to AMD + FreeSync) and all that BS. I tweak games more than I actually play them. One thing that is important, though, in comparison to old days with CRT TVs we are much more susceptible to FPS fluctuations, input lags and frame pacing issues because of LCD/LED screens. CRT TVs were free from that problems, lower resolution games looked MUCH better, there was no input lag and so on. So it helped - a lot. If we played on LCDs back then, then we wouldn't be able to enjoy these games as much as we did back in the days, I think.
Love these games to bits today and always knew the frame rate was sub par especially in multi player coupled with explosive weapons, but I had no idea it was so low even in the single player, it really didn't seem that bad, probably because it was so much fun.
Wow. That 360 remake of Perfect Dark has to be the best example of how to do a faithful remake I've ever seen.
Most people hold RE1 remake as the top remake
A lot of PD fans disagree to some extent, however... Strangely echo-y audio, really out-of-tune soundtrack, super high deadzone, and removal of customization features in Combat Simulator (such as the ability to mix and match male/female/alien heads and bodies on characters). Nowadays the fan PC port is definitely the best PD experience imo, and mods let us even have GoldenEye and PD mission maps in multiplayer, in one awesome package! (I've got some videos on this YT channel showcasing that)
@@Atari-Dude Was talking about the graphics, I actually never played it.
I love the DF Retros!!!
I was really lucky, the first time I got to play GoldenEye on the N64 I was at a friends house on their 50" CRT. This doesn't seem that amazing now, but back then, the only places that usually had a TV that big was large pubs and clubs for Football on Sky. These Televisions cost upwards of £2000 - and that's £2000 in 1997 money, which must be what, £4000 today? Well, anyway, that's a lot of cash.
I never knew it had such a low FPS though. It was still awesome.
I don't think it has ever existed a CRT biogger than 40", not even as a prototype. And the 40" model I know wieghs at 300kg. It was probably a retro-projection tv the one you played on.
Gabriele Riva It would’ve been a Rear-Projection CRT, yes.
Goldeneye though isn't not all that frantic so a low framerate isn't too much of an issue. Also the controls are really stiff so you aren't making rapid moves or complex maneuvers anyway that would be impacted by a low framerate.
Man, these two games used to fill my entire summers as a kid... and I still play til this very day
Original Deus Ex for the next episode would be perfect.
Original Deus ex +1
Invisible War is very consolized. The breaking up of levels to fit the limited memory of consoles was the deal breaker for me when I played it on PC way back. Not even 5 minutes I was in the area, the game shows another loading screen to load a portion of the level.
You could white an essay on the first level of that game alone.
DF avoiding pc version of nms? waiting until release has come and been long gone or just waiting for them to fix it while many other games dont have that luxury at launch.. what gives?
A bomb!
i do not need cocaine anymore just DF retro
Another awesome retro-analysis. I would love for you guys to do one on Metal Gear Solid 2. That was a technical masterpiece.
Or MGS3 - how the PS2 pulled that off with 32MB of RAM is too much for me to comprehend. Grass blades react individually to Snake's movement, animations were nothing short of brilliant (CQC was amazing to watch) and the incredible graphics... don't get me started.
MGS2 was very impressive though, running at 60FPS with some very nice, detailed models and particles - although this was probably aided by the fixed camera.
I'd like to see the original Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation first.
A technical masterpiece? MGS 2 was an unplayable mess with the most awkward controls I ever seen. The mouse was only there to shoot, you could only move the camera with the keyboard and it only got amd card support with a patch that konami released some time after release. It came out in march 27 of 2003 and it had much worse graphics and controls than splinter cell that was released one month earlier.
Deranfan
Seriously dude? I was specifically talking about the PS2 version (which came out 2 years earlier than the PC version by the way.)
For the hardware that it was on, that game was a technical masterpiece, yes. The leap in AI with things like tracking blood trails, reacting to environment, interaction with things like stick-up: the dynamic lighting and shadows, the physics in the environment. It was a revolutionary game in the console market when it first released. And all that at 60fps.
Splinter Cell would not have existed if it was for this franchise.
MGsubbie
But how could they mess up the pc version so bad? It's one of the worst pc ports ever made and the full installation is 7.6 GB big by the way.
It's amazing how passionate you guys are with these retro videos!! It really hits home for those of us in our 40's. Thank you and keep up the good work!
3:43 heh.. never noticed this error before. That's not DOOM - that's DOOM 2 1994
Fantastic break down and analysis, DF Retro keeps getting better and better, can't wait for the next one.
Perfect Dark was lagging all right, but back in the day it was awesome
This has become one of my most favorite series on UA-cam.
Those where the times, when devs actually gave their lives to bring content to games... nowdays "ok we will release this brand new game, AND we ALREADY have some dlc ready" wtf?
***** i didn't complained about updates, only the dlc bullshit.
"gave their lives" We must pay our respects to those who lost their lives on the game development battlefield.... they didn't give their lives... calm down.
StoreBrand the deadlines, the fanbase, the dev kits, its vietnam all over again
bc u were stuck with what they gave you, developers usually gave more of a shit when it came to bugs
Kevin Zelaya now its like "oh shit these train rails have 90 degree turns, ill fix it before launc-" "no you wont fix it, we can patch later"
Not kidding: www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/watch-dogs-developer-opens-up-about-butchered-game-design-9454511.html
As someone who loves video games, I really enjoy your channel. However, as someone who enjoys technology and science even more, I really have respect for you due to your scientific approach to them, especially videos like this where you look at not only the technology used in games, but also its impact on the technological space and paradigm of its time. You guys are very meticulous and the attention to detail is impeccable in all of your videos I have seen. Keep doing what you guys are doing, it really is top-notch quality.
I am also adding - it's disgusting how publications and the Internet worldwide are trying to rewrite history - GoldenEye being described as only a console defining shooter is a disgrace - it received nearly 100 awards I believe in 1998 including Graphics technology and best game. In 1997 GoldeneEye redefined FPS on console AND PC, it's list of innovations is incredible - GE did it all first, games like Halo AND Half life are all credited with innovations which were lifted straight out of GoldenEye 007. GE was the reason for tearing so many of us away from Quake - Many N64 consoles were bought purely for GoldenEye, it was lavished with praise in multiplatform and PC magazines - it's sandbox level design, texturing, animations, environmental effects, particle effects, weapon animations, bullet holes in walls, damage modelling, sound, mission structures, stealth, dual wielding weapons, sniper scopes, cover system, artifical intelligence, NPC animation, escort missions, sky box, multiple ways of taking on missions, hit detection, level interaction, realistic explosions, console multiplayer were all way ahead of its time and thats just a small part of what GE brought in - it is still one of the most fun and playable shooters to this day. If Goldeneye was a Sony PlayStation game by Naughty Dog, or produced by Valve, ID or some other major developer praise would be rained from the rooftops, it would be the number one PlayStation game - there is a reason why GOLDENEYE is the BEST FPS/STEALTH game in its generation - because it is.
Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are the rare and possibly only times when console FPS games actually caught up with and arguably surpassed what the PC was doing at the time. Certainly no console shooter afterwards has even come close to the amount of customization and replayability of those two shooters. I liked Halo, but I still don't know what was revolutionary about it. It's two-weapon carrying limit was one of the worst things ever introduced to the genre, let alone checkpoints and regenerating health.
I am also adding - it's disgusting how nostalgiafags give this game way more recognition than it deserves; Innovantion =/= good game desing. I recently finish Goldeneye and as a person who has no nostalgia for this game, it is sub-par. The vague objectives and sandbox-like level desing don't do much good for the game. It's easy to get lost and the lack of an in-game map makes it even worse. The game really shines when all it is is just mindless action, the shooting is really solid, but most of the time it's just clunky stealth that barely manages to work. The graphics haven't aged very well and they weren't the best for 1997 either. Of course, you mostly played the multiplayer so you ignore these flaws, but in retrospect - Goldeneye is not a masterpiece. It may be a good game but it's nowhere near perfect. Perfect Dark on the other hand is a far better shooter and it can arguably be called a masterpiece. Oh and don't start on the performance, it is worse in PD but both games suffer greatly from it and GE suffers the most
+Olzhas1one Goldeneye and Perfect Dark aged well.
@@AlphaZeroX96 Perfect Dark aged well? I do not understand how a game that reaches unplayable sub-10fps framerates frequently can be in any way a well aging game. It would've been a fantastic game if they waited a generation, but as it is Perfect Dark is practically a tech demo. Play it on an emulator with upscaling and a framerate that's actually functional, or don't play it at all.
And Goldeneye isn't much better either.
@@olzhas1one755 Dude, the fact that you had objectives set it apart from the rest of the field in 1997. It was a novel concept to have to actually click on a computer to activate something than to just shoot it. Goldeneye's single-player campaign was one of the best gaming experiences you could have on the N64.
This was beautiful. An exploration of the games and studio and what made them great in many ways. I hope more DF Retro follows this sort of format.
I still play goldeneye with friends.
Too bad my friends are too stupid to play
Goldeneye XBLA leaked a few weeks ago, but you probably knew that, with multiplayer available ;)
That's pure quality YT and one of the best retro series ever created. Keep up the fantastic work!
Very good episode.
Nice work John, these retro videos are quickly becoming one of my favourite series on UA-cam.
I Really Like The Xbox 360 Version Of Perfect Dark Because The Framerate Is Great. Shame That Goldeneye Was Cancelled :(
Goldeneye is unfortunately stuck in licensing hell
@@Matanumi Goldeneye XBLA leaked a few weeks ago, but you probably knew that ;)
@@Matanumi Well now it's available on Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S on Game Pass or digital Rare Replay, and Nintendo Switch through the Expansion Pass
DF retro is by far my favorites youtube videos right now. i really like your work and i really hope it continue!
These framerates are very close to current gen consoles.
You are an idiot
@ CrimsonGear80 You are correct.
Lichdom: Battlemage comes to mind.
these frame rates are close to current gen Xboxes. I fixed it for you
StillFreshhhKen No you didn't.
Come for benchmarks stay for DF Retro.
I'm digging the stuff you're putting out John .
Update: Goldeneye is no longer N64 exclusive and Remake unfinished Rom has been leaked ever since.
I want u guys you know that this retro series is my favorite thing on UA-cam these days. keep up the great work!!
DigitalFoundry should analyze real life sometime.
It really pushed the limits of what the developers could do with the brain
Daniel Welch It would make a cool April's fool joke, lol
"The absence of lens flares and chromatic abberation in many scenes really takes away from the cinematic feel of real life".
but runs at locked 30 fps what unfortunately seems to drop when ever you take damage to your head or by using certain "medicine"
Motion blur is a nice touch when under the effects of alcohol, but image quality drops really low after a while
This channel keeps getting better and better. So glad I subscribed.
Goldeneye is one of the absolute greatest FPS games ever i beat the entire game on 00Agent as a 9 year old and then perfect dark came and it was better than goldeney in almost every way, perfect dark imo is the greatest FPS of all time
Yes, agreed. 00 and Perfect Agent were hard but very fun.
goldeneye was the better single player game imo, and perfect dark was the better multi player game imo.
@@Vereid unlocking the cheats were harder them beating the game.
2021 and I still play PD an hour a day, 7 days a week. Been playing since 2000.
@@Minong_Manitou_Mishepeshu I hope you're still out there playing PD bruh.
This video series is one of the best on the channel! Keep the good work!
GoldenEye N64 best game ever !
It's aged really badly though. I want a remaster not a remake so it will be more playable.
Yep! But damn if you play it today the controller is horrible
they could make the joystick for aim but no they did it with the dpad
Did you not watch the end of the video?, /watch?v=-E4XtdEnWx4
You can switch the controls to Turok movement (move using the C-buttons and aim using the Analog Stick.) A lot of people don't really point that out with GoldenEye or Perfect Dark. So if you use default movement the games did not age very well at all, but if you use Turok's movement the games aged very well. Can still drop shot and melee but its harder in this gen compared to now
These two games were some of the best gaming moments of my life. I can still go back to them and get that same magical feeling all these years later.
Fantastic vid, probably the best DF Retro yet! I loved GoldenEye back in the day and I've actually been replaying it recently. It is mega hard on 00 Agent and I'm currently stuck on the Control level, even if I survive to the end I struggle to protect Natalya while she's sabotaging the GoldenEye satellite. I seem to have forgotten a lot of the tricks I developed for beating the game back in the day...
The framerate is definitely dodgy but it is still playable. I could have sworn it hits 60fps when you go through the grate at the top of the Control level, but maybe 30fps feels like 60fps when the games runs at 15fps for so much of the time?
One thing I was hoping to know is if using the 16:9 mode helps the framerate at all. I remember I always used to play the game in 16:9 with the music off because I felt cropping the picture slightly gave it a bit of a performance boost. I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case or if it was just in my head! It might actually have given a wider field of view in which case the framerate could have been lower but the wider image helped in other ways.
I definitely agree that Perfect Dark's framerate just took things too far. I remember I always used to play it in low-res mode because it was smoother but even then it was hard to play. That said I was playing the PAL version and if it had a higher default vertical resolution maybe that also hindered the framerate compared to the NTSC version. I remember back in the day Rare were very proud they'd made a version of the game for PAL territories that didn't have unsightly borders on a 4:3 TV.
This is truly gold, thank you guys! =)
this guy looks like avgn and paul from newegg had a baby
hahahaha holy shit you are right
lol
Except that this guy crushes all.
Brutal!
+shaggybuddzz just to clarify, I didn't say it as an insult just as a drunken observation
Fantastic breakdown of what made these games so fun and important in their day. I really enjoyed seeing the performance numbers. The crashing frame rates were something every player recognized at the time, but it was oddly acceptable. Well done!
I feel that Spyro The Dragon is hugely underestimated in the technical department. Sure it didn't have Multiplayer l, but it had high frame-rates (30FPS most of the time), 3D everything, Good soundtrack and sounds, large open environments with long draw distances, seemingly seamlessly loading via the clever use of portals and smooth animations to name a few.
Spyro 2 added 3D water effects interactive ambient AI (does it's own thing and yet you can still interact with them directly shooting fish for example), cheats, replayability, more transparency effects 3D explosion effects... Spyro 3 added more complex AI and even larger levels.
Thanks, John!
Completely agree with you about design innovations and replayability of the levels in GoldenEye.
I'd never played it before until finally got the opportunity to experience this game recently this year when I bought the original cartridge and played on the real hardware. And man, this game is INCREDIBLE! I've got so much FUN which is hardly available nowadays!
And of course, we should pay homage to the original DEUS EX in the next episode first.
GoldenEye 007 is great, but it still can't beat Perfect Dark, as that game improved upon the general mechanics.
Today I stumbled upon your videos, man I got to say you've got a new suscriber, each video you upload is better than the one that came before it. Lot of knowledge there, keep up the good work.
I spent an embarrassing amount of my life playing perfect dark's bot multiplayer without the expansion pack when I was a kid.
Probably because bots were the only friends I had.
Bot mod in Killzone Mercenary on Vita is the best way to play!
...Because I have no friends either.
Did you ever get the Expansion Pack?
Did you ever get the Expansion Pack? I remember without it you couldn’t even play more than 2 player splitscreen.
Lmao
Killing it again with the DF Retro videos, awesomeeee!
Goldeneye is a perfect example of how much more fun local multiplayer can be. To this day I haven't enjoyed an online multiplayer game quite like I did Goldeneye back then. It's a totally different experience, playing with only four players, who are in the room with you, and whose screens are plainly visible. It's just so much fun. 4-player spitscreen games could be a thing if developers made them and controllers didn't cost an arm and a leg. Just sayin'.
I was about to write you guys a note suggesting you made this exact video! Great minds think alike
do OCARINA OF TIME
So 4 years ago, you indirectly suggested that IO Interactive would be the ideal developers to create a Bond game. Well played 👏
Do a Timesplitters DF Retro
One can hope
A very well written and interesting video. Probably the best DF Retro I've watched, thanks for that!
OMG i'm just have to buy a Xbox One. With RARE Replay and experience Perfect Dark like i did when it came out when i was 8 years old.
Just use a 360 and play PD that way - cheaper and you're spared the Xbox One's embarrassing UI and irritating Windows tie-ins too
+Ioannis Stf 360 is far cheaper for a few less pixels and has a bigger library anyway, it's a no brainer for me
+A Kappamellow and? i already own a pc
You can get a used 360 for about the price of a new AAA game, if you're lucky. For me it was worth it. I have hundreds of PC games, but there are a small number of console exclusives (like Red Dead Redemption for example) that I missed last gen and a cheap used 360 allows me to gain access to these titles.
Definitely buy the Xbox 1. You can stream Perfect Dark on twitch with the Xbox 1, and capture video/screenshots, and people can view and comment on your vids, which leads to more people to play with.
I play with friends online occasionally, it's nostalgia heaven, especially while in a party and streaming.
Rare Replay is my favorite game for X1. Definitely worth the buy to play all those classics in HD. It also includes extra features, extra modes, unlockable videos and soundtracks, fancy art for every game etc. Killer Instinct Gold, RC Pro Am 1 & 2, Jet Force Gemini, BattleToads NES and the Arcade version, Conker, Perfect Dark...it's amazing.
This is a fantastic retrospective. There's dozens of others out there looking at GE/PD on UA-cam, but this is the most balanced, detailed and hyperbole-free I've seen yet. Impressive work, subscribed!
Very interesting. I never knew the framerates were so bad. I think I remember slowdown in split screen MP, or just a general sense of sluggishness but I had no idea it was 10fps.
Goldeneye Source 5.0 is fucking amazing btw. Also, you've convinced me to buy the 360 remake of Perfect Dark
Goldeneye Source is amazing until you spend some hours on it
Then its a fucking bad mess because you can always headshot perfectly, which means it can't and won't play like the original.
God I love these, keep it up and bonus points for that extended bond smile in the picture frame during the intro.
It's so sad that the 360 version of the original Goldeneye never came out. It would be so good with the graphics mode toggle, modern controls, online play and 60f/s
Not sure if you'll see this comment after so long, but a beta build of the 360 version got leaked last year and is getting patched by fans to fix up the bugs.
Great deep dive on a couple of console classics. Keep up the great work!
Growing up with these games and levels of performance is the reason why I don't care about 30 vs 60 fps. High framerates add to the experience, but great gameplay trumps everything else.
this is astounding, excellent work!
Perfect Dark pushed the N64 too hard tbh, it should have been a NGC game but since the console was not out yet it got released on the N64. Rare's games in general were known to push systems to there limits which resulted in pretty but sluggish games, especially on the N64 which was bottlenecked in many ways.
It was a bit of a "double edged sword", it was one of the most impressive N64 games but it ran pretty badly.
It came out in May 2000 in the US while the GC was launched in Sept and Nov 2001 in Japan then the US.
Yes, the PlayStation and Saturn were also bottle necked in many ways - that is the problem with first gen 3D systems - but we can look at each generation and point out bottlenecks - deal with it. You could argue that Rare were going too far in matching features only reserved for high end PC's/arcades but on an actual N64 with hi res mode disabled Perfect Dark is incredibly playable to this day. Perfect Dark, even now has graphical features not seen even in many modern FPS games - no mean feat. Rare made the right decisions at the time and the games certainly do not feel sluggish. Julian Eggbrecht (F5) actually stated that Factor 5 could have had Perfect Dark running with a locked 30FPS and 640x480 - he said Rare's problem was the fact that PD was running on a modified GE engine.
@Jason Scarpace
> Julian Eggbrecht (F5) actually stated that Factor 5 could have had Perfect Dark running with a locked 30FPS and 640x480
Do you have a source for that? I'm quite interested in learning more about Factor 5 and the technology they had developed.
Week after week my opinion just gets more and more solid, THIS IS THE BEST CHANNEL ON UA-cam!
AMAZING Video guys, congrats!
The 360 port of Perfect Dark is why I even still have my 360, lol!
Rare was also working on a remaster of Jet Force Gemini, but sadly, it seems Microsoft wanted them to focus on that awful Viva Pinata series and the 360 avatars.
Same thing with the goldeneye remake in the XBLA, but it got cancelled and the game was nearly finished. And even if nintendo and microsoft are good buddies now. MGM has changed and become worse...
Viva Pinata was amazing! The hell are on about?
That's beautiful!
Nice video as always.
The problem with Perfect Dark was that it had already been massively out-innovated my games like Half-Life before it was even released, so it wasn't just obsolete from day one, but it didn't even run well on its intended hardware.
Another amazing DF Retro video, once again! Brilliant work, John! :)
Ahhh those days when a nitendo console was not only to play mario and zelda
Hey, look at the Switch, seems like the good old times are back!
Katomaster nope, switch is still a zelda machine
YoMama BinFarten and a nba fifa doom wolfenstein skyrim machine too! Good times ahead!
Katomaster all these games are on pc and other Console
YoMama BinFarten yeah but you cant play them on the go dude. I have a ps4 and a gaming pc.
I love your passion John. My gaming passion started in 98’ and it was also PC phase for me: TOCA 2, Colin 2, Age of Empires 2, Captain Claw.
lowkey he should've talked about timesplitters
What a fantastic episode! You mentioned different platforms, mods, abandoned projects, etc. Very complete stuff, I'm very impressed! Congrats, DF!
And for the people who enjoyed these fantastic spy games, I recommend giving *No One Lives Forever 1* and *2* a try.
what about the fan remake of golden eye on the Source engine?
That only covers the multiplayer. It should have gotten a nod though.
Umm did you watch the whole video? He mentioned it near the end. Goldeneye Source 5.0
Whatever happened to watching then commenting. Oh yeah its the first mentality. SMH
DF Retro videos are literally the only videos I give a thumbs up on UA-cam :D
Nintendo 64 has the same frame rate as the ps4!
PS64
Well, to be fair, even supernintendo and megadrive usually ran at 60 fps.
yeah but at less than 360p
You would be surprised. Even games like Sonic 2 and Super Mario World chug heavily at points on native hardware (And the PAL version of Mario Word is awful at times for this). Playing the Android version of Sonic 2 is kinda freaky because if you know the points where the framerate dives on the Mega Drive version (And there some really easy ways to trigger it on Chemical Plant early) as they don't appear on the Android version so it messes with your muscle memory.
Ignoring the fanboy toolshed that started the conversation (With the most obvious bait ever). That's something I'd love to see DF Retro have a look at, especially with the advent of Speedrunning and how they optimise based on different versions of the game. Even going back to Rare, there was often significant differences between the NTSC US and NTSC JP versions of the Donkey Kong Country/Super Donkey Kong games as the Japan version was released later on and had more optimisation to reduce "Lag" (Or the speedrunner term for FPS drops).
Illuminati confirmed.
and frames than the Xbone. bot
Kudos for that awesome Brosnan's portrait. No matter how much I try, I ALWAYS SEE THE COVER ART LIKE THAT
Oh shit... I thought Golden Eye was put into Rare Replay as an update and you were comparing the original to the Xbox One release...
Well, back into depression I go! :p
Also that was an incredible episode. Thanks for posting this. I was born in 1995, but I do remember the fact that I played it. Don't remember much about it, but some stuff in this video definitely hits that "oh ya" spot.
Definitely going to plug in my N64 and play it again. Thanks for the video. I really, really appreciate it! :)
Thanks John, what a great look back episode covering both games!
When you mentioned how maybe PD should have arrived on NGC instead got me think'in...
Now that both of these have been covered. It would make an excellent companion piece, if you could do an episode on the Goldeneye/Perfect dark teams final chapter. With what came next when they left and formed.....Free Radical Design.
In what i consider to be, those games spiritual successor..... .. . The Timesplitters trilogy!
Maybe not right now as you're busy with other stuff but, at any rate....It's never to late for some "TIIIME TUH SPLIT!!!" ;)
Oh yeah! The Time Splitters series is one of my all time favorite game series.
Oh yeah! The Time Splitters series is one of my all time favorite game series.
Saying Goldeneye was "borderline unplayable" is tantamount to blasphemy. *Spanish Inquisition player enters*
I love that he shows the cancelled version of Goldeneye for 360, which is now finally out there for everyone to play. I love it! :D
FYI: The Japanese version of perfect dark doesn't even boot without an expansion pak. Don't ask me why.
Love these retro look backs. Keep them coming!
Who is here after the XBLA Golden Eye leak?
One of the reasons why Hi-res perfect dark is so much sharper and clearer is because the higher resolution effectively means the VI can’t blur the image, usually it scales the game from 320x240 to 640x240 and makes a real mess of it, but when the game natively runs at 640x240 no scaling is needed.
I wonder how well Perfect Dark and GE007 would have ran if Factor 5 made the game.
Im so glad I'm the age I am now to have played these games as a kid. So much nostalgia for these games, the 90s were just awesome
So many nemories....
I was happy with 10 ~ 20 FPS.. '.'
Well done, great work! Nice nostalgic trip down memory lane too.
Superior analog sticks? I'm afraid I don't agree. When I got the xbox360 perfect dark, the very first enemy proved to me how much superior the N64 analog was the 360. Walk up to the ledge, look down, pull out your aimer.....and then try your best to even get near the guy. On an N64, it was so natural and easy because there was more travel in the stick, making your aiming more accurate.
Chris Thiessen I don't know about that. Dual sticks are proven to give better accuracy than a single analog stick, but GE and PD had copious amounts of auto aim to make up for any drawbacks. PD on the 360 is pretty difficult to aim on because aim assist wasn't tweaked tight and the controls felt floaty.
While I enjoyed replaying HD Perfect Dark, I can't aim as well as I did on the N64 (so I won't be able to unlock cheats without autoaim or master the shooting range again...bummer). As winlover37 said, the aiming was too floaty; I turned down the sensitivity as low as it could go, and even just nudging the aim stick made it go too far.
Still, it's always nice to play my favorite game regardless of console.
I agree, i hate dual stick aiming. It's why i can't play an FPS on console nowadays...
Amazingly interesting video, thanks so much John! Loving this series!
Below 20 fps?!
Pre order cancelled
I love this series. pls never stop making them
Imagine if Goldeneye was remade for Xbox One by Rare. Damn.
why xbox one? wanna preserve the original frame rate?
Sure why not?
If you didn't get it, that was a joke that the XB1 usually has framerates like in Goldeneye
Daniel Welch I get the joke. Should've been resolution though.
Witcher 3 drops to like 14.
pretty close to Goldeneye
Really loving this series, John. Keep it up!