Gamer Banter: Perfect Dark Missing Perfection

For this installment of Gamer Banter, the question was posed:

Has a character redesign ruined how you feel about a character?

Original N64 Character Model.

I can’t think of too many character redesigns. That’s either a good thing or a bad thing. The only character redesign I can think of that ruined a game is the Perfect Dark series. Released on Nintendo 64 about a decade ago, Perfect Dark was one of the best shooting games to ever grace the console, and is perhaps one the best shooting games of all time.

I spent thousands of hours with the game, and thoroughly enjoyed the campaign playing as Joanna Dark (or as her sister, Velvet, when in co-op mode).

Whoever the voice actress was who played Joanna Dark, I immensely enjoyed the dialogue and quality that was embodied into the game.

Perfect Dark Zero Character. Bleh.

So when I heard Perfect Dark Zero was coming to Xbox 360 in 2005, I really wanted to get it. Until I saw the character model. When the game came out, I did purchase it, but the graphic redesign of the game ruined what Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64 had established: a dark and realistic sci-fi shooter with interesting and unique characters.

In Perfect Dark Zero, the characters and their personalities just felt cheesy and made the game’s experience lousy. However, the game was not a total failure as I did enjoy it somewhat and still play it every now and then.

Just recently, Perfect Dark was released for the Xbox 360, available to download on the Games Marketplace through the Arcade portal. The graphics received a facelift, and the characters went through another redesign (as shown on the right-hand side). While not as atrocious as Perfect Dark Zero’s redesign, it still lacked the personality that I enjoyed so much from the original Nintendo 64 version. I was really looking forward to this game, hoping the online mode would be amazing, but unfortunately it turned out to be just a basic generic matchmaking system, which could have been so much better.

Have you played Perfect Dark and Perfect Dark Zero? What’s your thoughts about the character redesigns?

In good news, today is your lucky day as I have a Perfect Dark code to give away. Read all about it here. Good luck!

Check out other articles on the same topic:
Sniping Mizzy, Pioneer Project , Oxcgn,  The Average Gamer, Zath.

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