Perfect Dark

Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter where players complete levels to unlock content and progress through the game's storyline. Players maneuver their character from a first-person perspective and have the ability to lean left or right, look up or down, crouch, crawl, and drop from most ledges; there is no jump ability. Interaction with the environment is via a single button, which can activate computers, operate lifts, and open doors. Players can carry an unlimited number of weapons, ranging from handguns to assault rifles, rocket launchers, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and combat knives.

Besides their primary mode of fire, weapons have a secondary function that enables an alternate fire mode or grants players special abilities. For example, the secondary function of the K7 Avenger assault rifle detects threats like explosive devices. Most weapons have a finite magazine and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. Some can be used in duplicate, one in each hand.

In 2023, there is an interstellar war between two alien races: the Maians, who resemble the archetypal Grey alien, and the Skedar, reptile-like wicked creatures who use a cloaking device to appear human. On Earth, there is an ongoing rivalry between two companies: the Carrington Institute, a research center founded by Daniel Carrington that secretly operates an espionage group in league with the Maians; and dataDyne, a defense contractor corporation headed by Cassandra de Vries. In exchange for creating an AI with code-breaking abilities to access an ancient alien spacecraft at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, the Skedar agree to supply dataDyne with enough alien technology to become the biggest corporation on Earth.

Joanna Dark is an agent of the Carrington Institute whose flawless scores in training have earned her the nickname "Perfect Dark". On her first mission, she is sent to extract a defector known as Dr. Caroll from a dataDyne laboratory. Dr.

Perfect Dark was developed by Rare and originally directed by Martin Hollis as a spiritual successor to the company's 1997 first-person shooter GoldenEye 007. Shortly after GoldenEye 007 was released, Rare was planning to work on a game based on the film Tomorrow Never Dies, but the company was outbid by Electronic Arts, which would release their video game adaptation in 1999. The result did not upset the developers, who felt they had already spent too much time immersed in the James Bond universe. Working titles for the new project included "Covert Ops" and "Alien Intelligence" before the title "Perfect Dark" was decided on.

The word "Dark" was chosen for its association with the game's bleak focus on killing. Hollis noted naming similarities to the 2006 first-person shooter Black by Criterion Games: "Game developers just like black, nihilism, dystopian futures, the number zero, infinity, spheres, perfection—all that kind of stuff". The double slash symbol in the game's logo was inspired by the Japanese writing system, while the bad grammar of the phrase "Perfect Dark" partially alludes to Hollis' affection for the way Japanese developers use English words in their own games and products.

Perfect Dark received critical acclaim from video game publications. The most praised aspects of the game were its graphics, artificial intelligence, and number of multiplayer options. GameSpot claimed that, as a console first-person shooter, Perfect Dark is "unparalleled", while IGN journalist Matt Casamassina remarked that its extensive features set the game apart from its peers. Similarly, N64 Magazine described Perfect Dark as "dauntingly huge", stating that it "takes everything that made its predecessor such an enduring favourite and does it bigger, better and more often".

Edge concluded that, although the game fails to be as revolutionary as its predecessor, it refines its "phenomenal gameplay while massively developing its multiplayer components". Nintendo Power editors called the game "undeniably a work of art", suspenseful, "more compelling than most action movies and much deeper than any video game of its type".

Shortly after Perfect Dark was released, Rare planned to develop a "sister" title, called Velvet Dark, for either the Nintendo 64 or its successor, the GameCube, but the project never moved beyond pre-production and was ultimately abandoned. The name "Velvet Dark" references Joanna Dark's alleged sister in the co-operative mode, who would have been the game's protagonist. Meanwhile, Free Radical Design released TimeSplitters for the PlayStation 2 in October 2000, a first-person shooter based around a completely new engine. TimeSplitters bears several gameplay and presentational similarities to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, including a similar aiming system and unlockable options through quick level completions.

After Rare was purchased by Microsoft in 2002, the company released a prequel, Perfect Dark Zero, as a launch title for the Xbox 360 in 2005. Although the game received generally positive reviews from critics, some publications felt it did not meet their expectations.