![]() The upshot of this was that Rare needed to create its own hero (or should I say heroine) – the result was Joanna Dark, a sultry and sexy secret agent who was more than a match for Lara Croft. You see after the phenomenal success of Goldeneye, James Bond became super-cool once more and Rare lost the licence to another developer. In fact Goldeneye was so good, that N64 owners practically counted down each day until Rare released another Bond classic, but unfortunately it never came. Now there’s bound to be loads of Halo fans out there who think I’m insane, but superb as Bungie’s masterpiece is, Goldeneye was, and still is the benchmark. Young Jade was a fool, because this game is wank.Let me get something straight, Goldeneye on the N64 is the Daddy of all console based first person shooters. Everything appeared so lifelike, with gunplay feeling sharp and responsive on a controller no longer appealing to arachnid mutants and nobody else. Environments and characters boasted a level of visual fidelity I’d never seen before. One of them had to be a stinker I suppose, but back then it was almost revolutionary. I got my first taste of Oblivion, Condemned, Amped 3, and finally - Perfect Dark Zero. I remember going to my brother’s place and playing a chipped Xbox 360 shortly after its launch, digging through a folder of blank discs containing all manner of games. Nowadays, everyone and everything in that game looks like it’s made out of clay, existing in a world that doesn’t look or feel real in the slightest. This was before Gears of War came onto the scene and changed our perspective forever, so in that sense, it absolutely got the job done. Before the console’s launch in 2005, Perfect Dark Zero was one of the few games pushed to the forefront as both a graphical and technical showcase for the platform. Goodness me, they made a lot of games back then. The British developer was brought on to help bolster the upcoming Xbox 360 launch line-up, a mission that would result in the production of Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, and the masterful Viva Pinata. It was an expansion of everything GoldenEye managed to achieve with an original setting and more futuristic weaponry, seeking to create an IP that didn’t rely on an increasingly finicky licence. ![]() Let’s be real, that was very much the initial pitch for Joanna Dark when Perfect Dark first arrived on the Nintendo 64 back in 2000. Nevermind! I’d rather those who weren’t happy at the studio depart and pursue more fulfilling creative endeavours than burn themselves out on a shooter that is basically James Bond in the future but except this time it’s a lady. Lacking creative vision and an unwillingness to explore new ideas have seen people leaving in droves, and given the project is still relatively early in its production, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing it anytime soon. A large number of staff members have departed the project, cutting down the studio’s workforce significantly as Crystal Dynamics is allegedly brought in to help pick up the pace. Perfect Dark is coming back! That’s currently the plan anyway, but a recent report from VGC reveals that things aren’t going quite so well at The Initiative.
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