{"id":113013,"date":"2020-05-16T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/05\/feature_perfect_dark_turns_20_-_the_definitive_story_behind_the_n64_hit_that_outclassed_james_bond"},"modified":"2020-05-16T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:00:00","slug":"feature-perfect-dark-turns-20-the-definitive-story-behind-the-n64-hit-that-outclassed-james-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/05\/16\/feature-perfect-dark-turns-20-the-definitive-story-behind-the-n64-hit-that-outclassed-james-bond\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Perfect Dark Turns 20 – The Definitive Story Behind The N64 Hit That Outclassed James Bond"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Perfect<\/a>\u00a9 Nintendo Life<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

How do you follow GoldenEye 007<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2000 \u2013 that’s 20 years ago this month \u2013 Rare presented its answer: Perfect Dark<\/a><\/strong>, a sci-fi spy shooter centred around an alien conspiracy. It delivered a cool, competent heroine, a single-player campaign bursting with ambitious ideas, and the most comprehensive multiplayer experience on the Nintendo 64. To this day, it stands as Rare\u2019s highest-rated game on Metacritic<\/a>, achieving an average score of 97. So how did the team not only follow, but surpass GoldenEye 007? For Martin Hollis, the game\u2019s director for the first half of development, the crucial decision was stepping away from Britain’s most famous fictional secret agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first question was, \u2018Did we want to do another Bond game?\u2019 and Nintendo actually offered that option but that was very easily dispatched,\u201d Hollis tells us. \u201cI personally wasn\u2019t interested in doing another game in that universe, we\u2019d spent enough time \u2013 three years, essentially \u2013 in the Bond universe for my taste.”<\/p>\n

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The first question was, \u2018Did we want to do another Bond game?\u2019 I personally wasn\u2019t interested in doing another game in that universe, we\u2019d spent enough time \u2013 three years, essentially \u2013 in the Bond universe for my taste<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

David Doak (yes, the scientist we all<\/em> shot in Facility) adds: \u201cWe were pretty much Bonded-out. There\u2019s only so much Soviet-era stuff you can endure. And at the time we were competing with things like Turok<\/a><\/strong>, and they all had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted with baddies and weapons and so on. If we made another Bond game, it\u2019d be like the second album and people wouldn\u2019t think we\u2019ve really innovated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team didn\u2019t want to abandon everything it had accomplished with GoldenEye 007, of course. For most of them, the James Bond shooter was the first game they had ever made. They had developed a brand new engine, so it made sense to build upon that and create a new title in the same vein, with similar gameplay and the same \u201cweapon centricity,\u201d as Hollis put it.<\/p>\n

From the very beginning, Perfect Dark was planned as a spiritual successor to GoldenEye, with the aim to have the game finished within just one year. In theory, the main effort would go into building new levels that ran on the previous game\u2019s tech. But the team\u2019s ambition expanded throughout the course of the project, and many of GoldenEye\u2019s systems were improved and overhauled.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerfect Dark was like the semi-sequel to GoldenEye, and it\u2019s always difficult making a sequel,\u201d recalls Mark Edmonds, who led development by the end. \u201cCan you make it better than the first one? That should be easy, but generally, it isn\u2019t. So everyone was in the mindset of \u2018What can we do to make this better than GoldenEye?\u2019 There were a lot of ideas for new features and everyone had thoughts about what could have gone into that game but didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spy-fi<\/h3>\n

The team had been reading a lot of science fiction at the time, and posters from films such as Nikita<\/strong> graced the walls of their office. This inspired both the decision to make a sci-fi shooter, and one with a female protagonist. The team were keen to lean into the conspiracy theories that surrounded aliens, drawing inspiration from things like The X-Files<\/strong>, as well as other pillars of the genre such as Blade Runner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But the game was to remain somewhat grounded. This was in part due to the near-future setting (the events of Perfect Dark are supposed to take place in 2023, just around the corner for us), but also stemmed from the GoldenEye tech running in the background. The James Bond game was built to be realistic and this could still be felt in Perfect Dark. That\u2019s partly why the majority of guns still use bullets rather than lasers or other fantastical sci-fi tropes \u2013 with fairly obvious exceptions, such as the X-ray vision FarSight.<\/p>\n

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\"David<\/a>\u00a9 David Doak<\/span><\/div>
David Doak with Martin Hollis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GoldenEye also partly drove the decision to make Perfect Dark a spy shooter. While the team was finished with Bond and his universe, the gameplay possibilities afforded by being a secret agent were too tempting to ignore. \u201cBy the time we got to the end of GoldenEye, we\u2019d built up a feature set of non-combat gameplay, like the sneaking and stealth stuff,\u201d says Doak. \u201cAnd we realised there was a lot of potential there, but there wasn\u2019t time to go back and do more of it in GoldenEye. At the start of GoldenEye, sneaking wasn\u2019t really one of the core gameplay mechanics \u2013 apart from the fact you might set off alarms. It just became a gameplay mechanic as we started to flesh out the level and found that it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also a lot of admiration for 1998\u2019s Metal Gear Solid<\/a><\/strong>, which clearly indicated there was an appetite for a more covert shooter. Duncan Botwood, who helped shape the multiplayer for both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, reveals the team wanted to do more with gadgets, a desire that would eventually lead to the Data Uplink, plus the CamSpy and its variants.<\/p>\n

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Of course, the trouble then was if it wasn\u2019t bloody perfect by the time we finished it, we\u2019d really set ourselves up for a fall<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWith GoldenEye, we used the gadgets in a very perfunctory way because we were building something very quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was very \u2018throw something onto the object and that\u2019s it, objective completed\u2019. We wanted to explore what other stuff we could do that wasn\u2019t gun-related and could help us do other things. We were trying to broaden out the player\u2019s repertoire, let them express themselves in ways that weren\u2019t just shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are games that could do this but don\u2019t often do so, and I think they\u2019re less because of it \u2013 although I still enjoy them. Shooting itself is good when you get it right, and so many games get it right. But if it\u2019s all you do, longevity becomes an issue, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very helpful to the player to only ever do that. As a player, I\u2019d rather be doing other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original working title was Covert Ops<\/strong>, but this evolved over time into Alien Intelligence<\/strong> and eventually Perfect Dark. Brett Jones, who built and animated the majority of the character models and led motion-capture efforts, says this was reached through a highly scientific process: the team wrote down a lot of descriptive words, a lot of nouns, and stuck them on the back of the door in different combinations. They tried hundreds until they found one that felt right. \u201cOf course, the trouble then was if it wasn\u2019t bloody perfect by the time we finished it, we\u2019d really set ourselves up for a fall,\u201d laughs Jones.<\/p>\n

Introducing Joanna Dark<\/h3>\n

With Bond out of the picture, the team set about creating a new spy icon. Determined to have a female lead (but also conscious that a certain Ms Croft was still the standout example of a video game heroine), Doak says there was a real drive to design someone that \u201cwasn\u2019t a ‘tits and arse’ character.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been said in the past that Joanna Dark was modelled on historical figure Joan of Arc, but Doak confesses that\u2019s not entirely true. \u201cI think that\u2019s the thing that just sounds good. I can\u2019t remember whether Joanna Dark or Perfect Dark came first. I think Joanna came first, but as I recall, the Joan of Arc thing was a kind of retro-fit. Joanna Dark sounded like a nice name, and then, \u2018Ooh, it sounds a bit like Joan of Arc. That\u2019s quite good.\u2019 As opposed to it fitting the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defining Joanna Dark was Jones\u2019 first task on the project. In an effort to get away from female heroines with sex appeal central to their design, he aimed for something more utilitarian. \u201cWe\u2019d all been enjoying Ghost In The Shell<\/strong> and the Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd<\/strong> film \u2013 a lot of influence from those,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were heavily influenced by early anime stuff. Even Joanna\u2019s costume is almost directly ripped from Ghost In The Shell. Also, the leather outfit was inspired by Mrs Peel from The Avengers<\/strong>, and the dragon dress actually used the dragon design from Killer Instinct<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"Laurie<\/a>\u00a9 Brett Jones<\/span><\/div>
Laurie Sage performing motion capture for Joanna Dark<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFor Joanna, we also got a female motion capture artist called Laurie Sage. She came in for one day and we did the majority of her stuff then. She was the proper size for Joanna Dark, quite short and petite, so we actually had a woman doing female motion capture, as opposed to Duncan Botwood prancing around [in high heels].\u201d However, Joanna Dark was not modelled on Sage but on a far more famous face.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was completely based on Winona Ryder,\u201d Jones admits. \u201cI was collecting images of faces, had a massive collection of reference images and we just picked her. She had this great pixie haircut and fulfilled the look of what we wanted Joanna to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game\u2019s lead was not the only character modelled on a celebrity. Her boss Daniel Carrington was based on James Robinson Justice, known for movies ranging from The Guns of Navarone<\/strong> to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang<\/strong>. NSA director and secondary villain Trent Easton was modelled on Titanic<\/strong> actor Billy Zane, while the mysterious Mr Blonde was based on G\u00f6tz Otto, who played Tomorrow Never<\/strong> Dies<\/strong> henchman Mr Stamper. Finally, the president of the USA was modelled on Babylon 5<\/strong> star Richard Biggs, who happens to be Jones\u2019 friend.<\/p>\n

There were more humble origins for other characters. The female bodyguards of main villain Cassandra De Vries were based on the promotional girls used in the game\u2019s E3 announcement. Jones designed an appropriate costume for the show and later applied it to the game. Even the girls\u2019 faces were used for the bodyguards. Jonathan, another Carrington Institute agent, was also sourced from E3: he was a man who gave Jones several Star Wars<\/strong> T-shirts as part of the team\u2019s internal competition to see who could get the most merchandise from the show.<\/p>\n

Designs on the future<\/h3>\n

The lengths Jones went to in designing original characters is indicative of one of the biggest challenges the Perfect Dark team faced: creating a new universe. Unshackled from the licence restrictions of the Bond licence and bolstered by the trust earned from Rare\u2019s management, the crew had complete creative freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was huge and intimidating,\u201d says Hollis. \u201cCreating a new universe takes a lot of work. There\u2019s a lot of material and detail to fill in. Authors say this \u2013 you end up creating a lot of background material for your characters and it doesn\u2019t actually make it into the final cut. There was so much we made up that isn\u2019t really visible in the game. We didn\u2019t want long and elaborate cutscenes because it\u2019s really about the action.\u201d<\/p>\n

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There was so much we made up that isn\u2019t really visible in the game. We didn\u2019t want long and elaborate cutscenes because it\u2019s really about the action<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jonathan was a prime example; he was originally Jonathan Dark, Joanna\u2019s brother. Similarly, Velvet Dark \u2013 the second player\u2019s character in co-op, essentially Joanna with a blonde wig \u2013 was also supposed to be developed further as a character but, as with Jonathan, this was left on the cutting room floor.<\/p>\n

Even the aliens weren\u2019t as fully fleshed-out in the game as they were behind the scenes. Botwood had given the evil Skedar a deeper backstory to make them sympathetic, explaining that their planet was collapsing \u2013 hence its ruined appearance in the final mission. Meanwhile, alien ally Elvis originally had even more quirks. \u201cElvis went through so many iterations because originally he was much more of an Elvis fan,\u201d Jones explains. \u201cI had him in blue suede shoes, and he was an anglophile so I have drawings of him in Union Jack waistcoats. But we were getting into all sorts of copyright issues, so we had to tone it down a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some team members recognise that, in hindsight, perhaps they had too<\/em> much<\/em> freedom. The game expanded far beyond its original scope, which made it harder to compress into an N64 cartridge (more on that later). Chris Tilston, who became lead designer by the end, notes that unlike games today, Perfect Dark \u201cdidn’t have a producer telling people when to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n