March 17th, 2009 by hylian1

To most people, the franchise of Perfect Dark lost its luster in November of 2005. After a successful outing on the Nintendo 64, expectations for the next entry were indeed high and fans of the series and gamers looking into purchasing the Xbox 360 console were anticipating the first ‘killer app shooter’ for the system to deliver an incredible experience like no other. While Perfect Dark Zero manage to sell over one million units, it unfortunately failed to meet expectations and was met with mixed reviews and utter disappointment from those who played the original.

Many do their best to place blame on the team that developed the game. Many people have left Rare over the years, including employees that were responsible for Goldeneye and Perfect Dark’s development. But the issue with Perfect Dark Zero wasn’t the team that developed the game. Sure, neither David Doak or Martin Hollis were on the development team, but there still remained Goldeneye and Perfect Dark veterans, like Duncan Botwood.

What happened with PDZ was the removal of the core fundamentals that made 007 and PD the incredible games they were. The sheer variety in levels and characters to choose from and most everything from PD was seemlessly removed from the title altogether. I understand Rare’s intentions of wanting to create games that are innovative and bring something new to a particular genre, but that needs to be accomplished by simultaneously keeping intact those things that have made a franchise a success. They failed to deliver that in PDZ.

What Rare did get right with PDZ though was the difficulty. There can be no arguement that, again, just as in GE and PD, it was utterly diffficult to complete the game fully on the Perfect Agent setting. Even today it still remains the most challenging title in that regard on the console, imo.

Now, let’s look ahead. There’s no doubt that a new entry in the franchise is probably in development. What could Rare do to please ensure the security of the franchise? Here’s a little list of suggestions…

-A new graphical direction where the characters don’t appear to be barbie dolls plastered in wax

-16-32 players online, allowing more than just two teams per match. For example, if there are 16 players in the lobby, allow an option to set that up as free-for-all or 4 vs. 4 vs. 4 vs. 4 or all teams of two, etc. etc.

-A deep, incredible story with an emotional impact and no cheesy dialogue

-Many more multiplayer levels that are much smaller than PDZ’s. Nothing worse than running around having to find someone to shoot. Action, action, action!

-Massive array of characters to choose from. Every character in PD and GE were playable, why not bring that back?

-Customization. This is what gamers want more than anything this generation. The ability to be capable of customizing things yourself. Include a level builder, customize your own character, build your own weapons by combining weapons together i.e. put the RC-P90′s secondary function of thermal vision on the Super Dragon

Perfect Dark is an incredible franchise with a lot of potential. Please take everything in this post to heart Rare. Playing something new and innovative is great and I do not doubt that you can deliver in that regard. But please… do not forget what made the first a success again. You are considered the true founders of the FPS genre on a console, so prove to your loyal fans and Xbox gamers across the globe that you’re still the best-of-the-best. :)