Anyway... here's the most recent edition of the mailbag!
The new special at perfect dark prophecy is really interesting. It tells about the new death animations in pd, it also compares pd to metal gear solid. Anyways onto my Q, I think I may have asked this before but I'm not sure it was this site, will perfect dark include silenced weapons? If it didn't that would take the spy stealth thing right out of it. Also do you know when or if there will be any pd movies going on the net soon for our viewing pleasure. Thanx! -- Eric
Doak: Perfect Dark already has the sniper rifle, which is silenced, and I'm sure there will be silenced pistols and automatics, like the PP7 and the D5K.
Recently there were five PD movies released, thanks to IGN, for your entertainment. Go here to see them.
Tweek: The question about the silenced weapons was a good one, and I'm not really too sure about it. In all of the movies I haven't seen a silenced gun, and out of everything on the weapons page there aren't any silenced pistols. It's a safe bet that the sniper rifle will have a silencer, and remember that out of the 40 or so weapons in PD we've only been given details on about half of them. I can't be sure, but I think there'll be silenced guns. There would have to be... it's what made GoldenEye so good.
Do you know if Rare are working harder on PD's framerates than they did with goldeneye 'cause the massive slowdown when you walk in smoke or when there was too much detail on the screen sometimes made the game frustrating. Also, I hope rare are working on the realism of the soldier AI a lot, because, for example,in Facility in Goldeneye,as soon as the alarm goes off when you are with Trevellyan, rush back up to tha lab area and no more enemies will appear as long as you keep the three main lab doors on the screen.Will there be a limited amount of enemies in each level? -- Perfect Dark Freak
Doak: With the help of the N64 expansion pack, which is compatible with Perfect Dark, framerate can be improved drastically. The expansion pack provides an extra 4 Megabytes of RAM, providing a total of 8 MB for the N64.
As with the AI, it has been designed so that enemies and Bots act like real players, assessing dangers and then responding. It has not been said whether there will be a fixed amount of enemies in each level, which would save on memory, or whether enemies will "spawn", like in Goldeneye, which allows a larger number of enemies.
Tweek: The AI in Perfect Dark is going to be a thousand times better than GoldenEye's. It's something that excites me the most about PD's one player missions. The soldiers will run away from you, fear you, yell at you, and anything else you can imagine a real person would do. Expect the enemies in PD to be a lot more unpredictable and more intelligent than in GoldenEye... it will put GoldenEye's enemies to shame.
Hey, here's a question for your mail bag. I heard a rumor from a site (and from a friend who also went to the site) that there will be an option to create your own multiplayer levels. I don't really know if I should believe or disagree with it, so could you look inside that to find out. Thanks for the help. -- Mr. Pacco
Doak: Creating your own levels is hard enough on the PC, and I don't see how it would happen in the near future on a console. Maybe in its own cartridge, but not as an add on to the game. It is too complicated to introduce this at a late stage, and as it would be a large part of the game, I think we would have heard of it already.
Besides, there will be plenty of good levels, including the oldies but goldies (pun!), so you won't need to make your own.
Tweek: As good as it would be to be able to create your own levels... it's not going to happen.
From what I read of PD, it looks awesome; 007 and more so. What I may not like of PD is the falling over the edges. This is one area that really turned me off that other shooters had; Doom, Turok 1 & 2, and Shadows of the Empire. I'm sure Rare is just trying to add reality, but don't do it! Just like Goldeneye's "auto-aim" helps compensate human reflexes in a 2-dimension medium in a field-of-view of a television, "edge-falling" would place gameplay back to the frustrating shooters. If Rare goes with that "edge falling," I hope at least it could be optioned on/off. I hope that PD has sensible and real world based floorplans. That was one big plus with Goldeneye; it wasn't a nonsensical maze. For example, the Frigate was layed out like a real frigate; all rooms and corridors served a purpose as like a real ship. As was other arenas of Goldeneye. Mazes make most people nauseous. Other and old shooters have mazes, and I absolutely hate them. My point being; Rare I hope intergrates what does work and ditches what doesn't work. Just look at the previous shooters losers. I also hope its not too late for changes. -- James Songco
Doak: I don't actually see any questions, but I agree with what your saying.
Edge falling should be only in places where you can't die from falling, because there is a good side to it; you can make quick getaways or detours. But, I don't think there would be the option to turn this off as I'm sure there will be some levels that depend on it to complete the mission.
Rare will be designing the levels immaculately, and I've heard there's some expert architects on the design team, so your levels will be pretty realistic, unlike some shooters.
Rare is sure to work there hardest to include what the public wants, but people's views change quickly, and it can be hard to keep up.
Cool site man, but i was wondering, have you ever played goldeneye on 4 player for a while, and then all of a sudden it starts lagging. Well,if perfect dark has all these new features, wont it make it lag even more? The reason that im asking is that i want to know if I have to go and buy the 6 or 8 bits to upgrade it? Please e-mail me back if you know or whatever. Thanx. -- LJ What's
Doak: The game will be playable without the N64 expansion pack, but, as can be seen with some other games that use the expansion pack, gameplay suffers without it. If you want to play the game it was supposed to be played, buy the upgrade. It's sure to be worth it.
Tweek: Buy the expansion pack... no matter what. Save up and get it, I'm going to. It's not worth paying all that money for a game like PD if you're not going to play it how it was designed to be played. If you can't afford to, then don't buy it... but I really do think it's a must have item for Perfect Dark -- and other N64 games in the future for that matter.
I was wondering if I wanted to write a thank-you letter to the Rare team that designed Golden Eye/Perfect Dark. . . where would I send it and to whom? Thank-you for your time... -- Sir Methic
Tweek: I think that on the Rare Website you should be able to contact someone from Rare who could then give you that information. Sorry, none of us here really know how you could contact the GoldenEye team directly... Although I remember there was a chat session on the Rare site with GoldenEye team member Ken Lobb. There might be some more like that, but as I said we're really not sure. Once again... try the Rare Website for the info you want.
Will the bad guys in PD be able to fly over rails and stuff because it really annoyed the hell out of me in GE when they didn't no matter how high they flew! -- John Kulprits
Doak: The physics in Perfect Dark will be greatly improved compared to Goldeneye, and the lifelike movements of enemies has been motion captured in some of Rare's labs, so when bodies do go flying, not only it will be funny, but very realistic.
Is Perfect Dark going to use the N64 expansion pack? -- Jed Donaldson
Doak: It has been confirmed that Perfect Dark will use the N64 expansion pack, which means games can have a higher frame rate, sharper graphics, improved AI, and a number of other possibilities.
In Perfect Dark, will there be a big cheat option menu like Goldeneye 007. The cheats and multiplayer is what made 007 the best game for N64. So will Perfect Dark have a really big cheat menu like 007? -- Andrew A
Doak: I agree, the large cheat menu was one of the deciding factors of Goldeneye's success, and I'll be very surprised if there is no cheat menu, and mildly surprised if it doesn't beat Goldeneye's cheat menu in all aspects. In other words, expect an amazing cheat menu, because Rare knows it will be really successful, just look at the long lasting gameplay that Goldeneye had, thanks to the cheats.
Do you know what Perfect Dark will be rated? -- Adam Holt
Doak: Perfect Dark is said to be rated Mature, but ratings aren't given until the game is completely finished, so there is a possibility of change.
I have noticed that many weapons from GoldenEye will appear in PD. However, I havenot seen Proximity Mines. Is Rare leaving these from the game purposefully or will these mines in fact be in PD? Thanks. -- Tyler
Doak: The only weapon that is said to be the same from Goldeneye is the sniper rifle, and I'm hoping they change the graphic for that, and increase the zoom range. You may have seen some of the media released at E3, where PD was still in primitive stages and many features of Goldeneye still existed, such as the cougar magnum and the death animations for enemies. I heard somewhere that all the three different mines, remote, timed and proxies, will all be included in PD. That seems like a reasonable assumption, with the mines being some of the favorite weapons from Goldeneye. I'm pretty sure they'll all be included, with some slight variations, of course.
Tweek: I wouldn't be ruling out proximity mines yet... I thought they were already confirmed to be in it...? But anyway... remember but PD has over 40 weapons. We only have the names and details of about half this. Expect anything to be in PD.
What will PD be rated? -- Dk64PD
Doak: Perfect Dark is said to be rated Mature, but ratings aren't given until the game is completely finished, so there is a possibility of change.
Rare's perfect
Goldeneye is perfect
perfect dark is .........-- Barrie de Mier
Doak: Please note: Limericks and/or riddles are not valid questions, but in an attempt to answer, perfect dark will be umm... pretty good?
Tweek: Weirdo... heh heh.
I just want to know if anyone out there craves a multiplayer that keeps running STATISTICS like I want. If you could keep recordsof kills, wins, head shots, awards, etc., it would be the most amazing feature. You could prove who is the true player. Is there any way they could make it happen? -- David
Doak: It is quite possible to keep statistics such as kills, wins, etc. The information could be saved on cartridge or on memory card, but players would have to use the same character or player statistics log each time they played, and things would get complicated. Though it seems like a promising feature, I don't see it happening, but the game is a long way away yet. A simplified version may be included as a late change, such as only just kills, so keep your fingers crossed.
Tweek: Well, that brings us to an end of this week's mailbag. Start sendiong in your letters now! Go to the mailbag page.
By the way, next edition will have a bit of a letter or the week award, so try your hardest in asking us the best question.
