The series began in 2000 with Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64, a Spiritual Successor to Rare's previous FPS classic GoldenEye, with which it shared a (modified) engine. Joanna Dark, having recently graduated the Carrington Institutes's training program with the first ever "Perfect" score, is sent to meet an insider from the dataDyne corporation. Things rapidly become more complicated and she soon finds herself in the middle of a war between two alien races who have allied themselves with different factions on Earth.In addition to its other merits, the game was one of the few that made use of the N64 Transfer Pak. It was originally meant to have been used to connect to the Game Boy Camera and let players map real faces on to characters in multiplayer mode. After Moral Guardians voiced their objections, Rare's said that the feature was cut for "technical reasons", though they later admitted they wanted to avoid controversy. It was still possible to connect to the Game Boy Color version of the game for extra items. Said Game Boy Color game was a prequel, showing Jo's training and first mission with the Institute.The eagerly anticipated sequel was chronically delayed (originally a GameCube title, it shifted to the original XBox after Microsoft's buyout of Rare and then ended up as a launch title on the 360 in 2005) and eventually became a prequel. Perfect Dark Zero, set 3 years before the original, has Joanna working as a bounty hunter with her dad before getting mixed up with the Carrington Institute. Reviews were good but it was generally seen as not up to the standard set by the previous game. In March of 2010, the original game was rereleased for Xbox Live Arcade, with new features such as updated graphics with 1080p resolution and eight-player online multiplayer.In March of 2011, it was revealed that a sequel to the original Perfect Dark known as Perfect Dark Core was also under development in 2007, but it was canceled before making it past the prototype stage in 2008 after the team developing it was cut down to three people. It was intended to be Darker and Edgier than Perfect Dark Zero, but by the time it was canceled it wasn't even a Perfect Dark game anymore; it was about an unknown male protagonist fighting giant mechs.The time period in between the two games is covered in a pair of novels, Initial Vector and Second Front, as well as the comic series Janus Tears. There's also the aforementioned Game Boy Color game, although since that was released around the same time as the N64 original and long before Zero became a prequel, it's unlikely to still be considered canonical.
Includes examples of:
Action Girl: Joanna, obvious. Some of the guards also qualify.
Action Dress Rip: When fighting to defend the Carrington Institute from the joint Skedar/dataDyne forces, Joanna is wearing a long dress (because she was to attend a three-way meeting between the President, Carrington Institute and the Maians), which she rips towards the end of the intro cutscene.
Adaptation Dye Job: In the original Japanese release Jo was given Asian features, a look that carries over into the XBOX Live release. International versions dropped this and made Jo look more like a British spy to match her accent, and in Zero she is given red hair, invoking similarities to Kim Possible.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. Although Dr. Caroll develops sentience and defects from dataDyne, he retains his moral code throughout.
Alien Abduction: Joanna and Cassandra are taken prisoner by the Skedar near the end of the game.
Alien Autopsy: The Area 51 stage of the original game has a level which involves rescuing an alien from vivisection, and another (bonus) level involves sabotaging the autopsy of an already dead alien.
Alien Blood: Maians have green blood. Averted by the Skedar, who have red blood.
Skedar blood is also a slightly different tint of red than human blood.
Alien Sky: The Skedar homeworld has a blue sky tinged with pink and three suns.
Aliens Steal Cattle: The Skedar are implied to be behind the "cattle mutilation" phenomenon.
All There in the Manual: The game has an unlockable feature which provides more background information on the game's plot and setting.
All Your Base Are Belong to Us: One of the later levels of the original takes place in the Carrington Institute as dataDyne troops and Skedar soldiers make one last spiteful attack.
A.K.A.-47: A selection of weapons from Golden Eye 1997 are unlockable; and not only are their names different from their Real Life counterparts, they're also different from Golden Eye 1997's own made-up names.
The game also features a few straighter examples; the Falcon 2 is a Colt Double Eagle, the CMP150 is a barely-disguised Steyr TMP, the AR-34 is clearly the French FAMAS assault rifle painted in sci-fi colours, and the DY357 Magnum resembles a Colt Anaconda.
Also the RC-P90 in Zero, which also has a few more straight examples of this (its version of the Superdragon, for instance, is clearly a G36K).
Amazon Brigade: Zhang Li's last line of defense is a platoon of about 20 elite female troopers armed with cloaking devices and plasma rifles. They're super annoying, since getting killed by them kicks you all the way back to about halfway through the level.
Cassandra De Vries' bodyguards are similar. They're all female, and they all have shotguns. Disarming them causes them to pull out a Falcon 2.
Ambiguously Jewish: Jonathan's last name is apparently Steinberg and he has curly hair. Judging by his accent, he's American, so he very well could be Jewish.
Ancient Astronauts: Both the Cetans and the Maians have visited Earth in the past.
Annoying Arrows: Enemies will keep fighting even if they've been turned into a pincushion by crossbow bolts or thrown knives...but since the former are laced with a tranquilizer and the latter are poisoned, they won't be fighting for long.
And there's the fact that the Crossbow has an instant kill function, which kinda averts the trope.
Artificial Brilliance: Elvis is a particularly good shot with the Farsight (which, to be fair, has an auto-targeting system). On "Deep Sea" he can take care of the enemies in the first section all by himself if you let him.
Perfect Sims and Dark Sims seem to know exactly where all the good weapons and shields are on multiplayer and always have perfect aim.
Artificial Stupidity: Meat Sims are the easiest AI enemies you can play against in multiplayer. They wander around drunkenly, ignoring weapons (and oftentimes you), and can barely hit the room they're standing in.
And in an accidental example, none of the AI can detonate Remote Mines. They can throw a Dragon in secondary, but only if it's empty; amusingly, they treat the Laptop Gun the same way, meaning you might sometimes encounter sentry guns that don't fire. They also can't see any form of trap and will walk straight into a proximity mine left in the middle of a corridor.
Generally your 1-player buddies (Jonathan and Elvis) are very handy shots, but they will occasionally wander right into your line of fire or otherwise act like idiots just so you can fail the mission.
Arrow Cam: The Slayer rocket launcher's secondary attack is a fly-by-wire missile you steer while looking through a camera on it. Sadly, it can only be used in one level and weapon training, even with the All Weapons cheat.
And in MP, but using it there will get you killed, because people will look at your section of the screen to see where you were standing when you fired it. N64's non-remote multiplayer makes this less fun.
But, in Zero this is the secondary mode of the rocket launcher.
Awesome yet Practical: Maian weaponry is quite useful. The Phoenix pistol has an explosive round secondary fire, the Callisto NTG machine gun can fire heavy armor-piercing blasts, while the FarSight XR-20 sniper rifle is capable of not only firing through walls but can see through them and track enemies for you. Definitely not Too Awesome to Use.
Add in that the Phoenix can be dual-wielded, and that the only drawback to the secondaries is a lower fire rate. In both cases, hugely increased damage, as well as splash/DoT in the case of the Phoenix, and they both use the same ammo for both firing modes. The only drawback is the reduced firing rate.
The Skedar Mauler is perhaps the only Skedar weapon that isn't crazy. Its secondary fire consumes bullets to power its next shot. Many tricky confrontations are reduced to a string of One Hit Kills
Benevolent Alien Invasion: The Maians planned to do this eventually, but left the humans to develop on their own for a few millennia. The end of the main plot revolves around the Maian ambassadors finally coming down to meet with the authorities in the White House and establish peaceful connections. Then the game plays the evil Alien Invasion straight when the Skedar come rolling along.
Blackout Basement: "dataDyne Central: Extraction" begins with a section in pitch blackness which requires the use of night vision. "Area 51: Rescue", "Deep Sea: Nullify Threat" and "Skedar Ruins" have sections where the lighting flickers on and off.
The "Perfect Darkness" cheat takes this Up to Eleven: every single level will be pitch black (with flickering lighting if indoors). It's impossible to get around without using Night Vision Goggles.
Blasting It Out of Their Hands: If you're skilled or lucky enough, you can shoot firearms right out of enemies' hands, which is often enough to get them to surrender. Sadly, this feature seems like it is too "complicated" to include in most modern games. Same thing with the ability to make the guards limp when you shoot them in the arm or the leg.
Bling Bling Bang: Trent has a gold-plated magnum revolver that has abilities similar to GoldenEye 64's Golden Gun.
Blond Guys are Evil: The Skedar use a holographic disguise of a hulking Scandinavian man named "Mr. Blonde" when they interact with humans.
Boring, but Practical: The Falcon 2 is a surprisingly decent handgun, considering it's the first weapon you get in the game. It's fast, accurate and even comes with a handy little scope. The CMP-150 also qualifies: it's the most common gun in the single-player mode, but it has a high firing rate, plentiful ammo and even a nifty auto-targeting system. It can also be dual-wielded.
Then there's always the option of just disarming an enemy, which works wonders in multiplayer.
Brick Joke: "Not forgetting the President, of course."
Brutal Bonus Level: All of them on Perfect Agent, especially "Maian SOS" (playing as Elvis, beginning with half of your health missing) and "The Duel" (facing Trent who has a One-Hit Kill revolver).
Bullet Proof Human Shield: All NPCs will act as this unless using a weapon with very high penetration, such as the DY357 revolver or the FarSight. This can be handy when one needs to be used as a meat shield.
Charged Attack: The Skedar Mauler's Secondary Fire. Unusual in that the charge happens automatically when not firing: the gun consumes a few extra bullets (up to five) and starts glowing red.
Check Point Starvation: Perfect Dark Zero has only 2 checkpoints per mission; one at the very beginning, and one about 3/4ths through or before the end level boss fight. This is fine for the shorter missions, but very noticeable on the longer ones.
The shield tech item from the second level that dataDyne is working on. Guess what the troops that storm the CI later in the game have?
Chest Monster: The Secondary Fire mode for the Dragon assault rifle turned it into a proximity mine you plopped on the floor. Unless they have one of the game's hazard-detecting items, an opponent in multiplayer is going to be very surprised when they try to pick up their free gun.
Ditto for the UGL Liberator SMG in Zero.
Cherry Tapping: Tranquilizer weapons in the first game. The sedation feature, which causes the screen to blur and darken each time you're punched or hit by a tranq weapon, is one of the quirkier features of the game, largely because your sedation level doesn't drop to zero when you're killed. You'll respawn as trippy as you were before your buddy finished you off. Better hope it wears off before he finds you again!
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: dataDyne troops wear dark blue or black while CI agents wear light blues and greys. Even your crosshairs are colored to reflect this (red for enemies, blue for civilians/friendly fire).
Combat Stilettos: Cassandra's bodyguards wear high-heeled boots for some reason.
Joanna wears heels herself in a few of her outfits, not that seems to slow her down.
Computer Equals Monitor: In Area 51, apparently all records are kept on the monitor (!) of a single computer*
What, no cloud computing in 2023?
. As well, destroying the monitor of a mission-critical computer will result in a failure.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The toughest of the AI opponents you can fight against in multiplayer are Dark Sims, who move faster than you, always get headshots with hitscan weaponry even if they don't actually have a line of sight to your head, spawn armed with the best weapon in the current setup, and teleport when you aren't looking. To be fair, the game tells you this beforehand, leaving them a challenge for masochistic players.
The computers, however, are all cheating bastards. Even the super-easy Meatsims can fire semi-automatic weapons faster than you, reload every weapon at the same speed, use lock-on weapons while moving, and have perfect aim with non-hitscan weapons. Perfectsims also act as if they can see the radar even when it's set to off.
One former Rare developer has said that they were even harder in pre-release builds of the game: in one version, Darksims had the ability to strafe out from behind cover, fire, and move back behind cover - all within the space of three frames!
Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Joanna wears a trench coat in "Chicago: Stealth", as well as all of the CIA and FBI personnel, which ironically makes them stand out even more.
Container Maze: "Area 51: Rescue" begins with a section in a warehouse.
Contemplate Our Navels: Right at the end of Zero, Jo and the final boss all of a sudden get philosophical about the nature of death and decay.
Continuity Nod: Zero has two scientists in a Mayan shrine, arguing over whether the Mayans were visited by Gods or Aliens, and who exactly gifted them with the MacGuffinZhang Li wants so badly. It's clear they are talking about the aliens.
Cool Bike: The hoverbike from Area 51 is surprisingly useful. It can even be used in later levels!
Corridor Cubbyhole Run: "dataDyne: Extraction" has a sequence in which you must sneak past the helicopter outside the building by hiding in the offices. (Or you can just run past it, but you'll take damage.)
Critical Existence Failure: For some reason, being pistol-whipped or punched will cause the player to stumble and their vision to blur, but not being shot multiple times to the point of near death.
Cutscene Incompetence: The ending of "Carrington Institute: Defense". Apparently Joanna can defeat dozens of enemies per level, but can be captured by a single unarmed Skedar which knocks a pile of crates onto her.
The very lame ending to the grueling Maian SOS is Elvis getting hit with a tranquilizer and keeling over.
Cyanide Pill: An actual item for the game's competitive campaign mode - one player is Agent Dark as normal, while the other takes control of one mook at a time, switching if their host is killed. If they take control of someone far away from the action, they can take the "suicide express" to try to get closer.
Darkened Building Shootout: In "dataDyne Central: Extraction", the level begins with the lights turned off, forcing Joanna to use night vision. At the end, Cassandra's bodyguards do the same thing and must be fought in the dark. *
Darker and Edgier: The canceled sequel, Perfect Dark Core. Apparently it would have featured Joanna smoking and flirting. Never mind how out-of-character those would be, in the novels at least her reaction to things such as flirting and strippers ranges from utter revulsion and disgust to violence.
The game itself compared to Golden Eye 1997, considering it had much more gore, as well as swearing. Perfect Dark was rated M while Golden Eye 1997 was rated T (or 18+ and 15+, both BBFC, in the UK).
Dark Reprise: The "Carrington Institute: Defense" theme is a remixed version of the training area BGM.
Even the President gets a few snarks in himself. Eg. if you stand in front of him blocking his path on Air Force One, he will sarcastically comment, "Are you sure this is the way to the escape pod?"
Deal with the Devil: The alliance between dataDyne and the Skedar doesn't work out so well for them in the end.
Deflector Shields: The personal variety. Makes thrown weapons like the Combat Knives bounce off. Also averts One-Hit Kill on the weapons that would normally play it straight, but at the cost of the entire shield's energy.
Fridge Logic comes into play when the Tranquilizer and Crossbow have alt-fire instant kills by chemical/poison means. Why would that take down an energy shield in one shot?
'Elvis: This is the Skedar fanatics' most holy place. They believe this planet is sacred ground. The Battle Shrine is located at the most holy part of this holy planet.
Dressing as the Enemy: In "Area 51: Rescue" and "Air Base: Espionage", Joanna has to acquire and wear uniforms to wear in order to fool security.
Dude, Where's My Respect?: Some of the workers at the Carrington Institute are less than polite towards Joanna, considering she saves their asses in one level.
To be fair, at least one of them dies during that stage, so you can forgive him being a cranky zombieman.
Jo herself comes across as being cranky, particularly in the novels. Going by this she kind of withdraws into herself after failed attempts to socialize by the time of the first game's events.
Dummied Out: There's a piece of cheese in every level of the game, but you can't collect them or do anything with them. Rare admitted that the pieces of cheese are just there to send people insane trying to figure out what they're for.
In the "Chicago Stealth" level, there's a bar which was bowdlerized in the final version of the game. It can be entered in normal gameplay, but there's nothing in it but a guard and a couple of Falcon 2 pistols. A stripper pole is still visible on the table.
Also, the passwords given by Cassandra's necklace and getting rank 1 in multiplayer. It seems they were once intended to do something, but even the defunct dataDyne and Carrington Institute websites didn't accept them.
There are several missing multiplayer modes (touch the crate, destroyable doors, destroyable walls; no, nobody's sure how the last two were supposed to work) and at least one entire missing bonus level, "Retaking The Institute."
Enemy Mine: Joanna and Cassandra after being imprisoned aboard the Skedar ship. It doesn't last long, as Cassandra sacrifices herself to distract the Skedar.
Epic Hail: The distress beacon from "Crash Site: Confrontation".
In "Maian SOS", Elvis must sneak through Area 51's underground base to send one to Mr. Carrington.
Expanded Universe: The novels Initial Vector and Second Front by Greg Rucka, and the Comic Janus Tears by Eric Trautmann.
Expecting Someone Taller: The first thing Joanna says when she sees Air Force One is that it's smaller than she thought, although it's actually pretty damned big.
Expendable Clone: Of the President. The Skedar King has several clones of his own.
Exploring the Evil Lair: Many levels such as "dataDyne Research: Investigation", "Area 51: Rescue" and "Deep Sea: Nullify Threat" have elements of this.
Expy: Dr. Caroll was an erudite AI construct who's basically designed as a pair of floating eyes. He rebelled against his villainous creators to join the heroes... and eventually, he sacrificed himself to save the Earth from total destruction... or am I talking about Floyd from Jet Force Gemini?
An in-game example is Cassandra de Vries' obvious jealousy of the Carrington Institute, to the point where the dataDyne logo is almost exactly the same as the Carrington Institute logo.
Fake Balance: Even though the weapons are supposed to be balanced (eg. the Falcon 2 is a small handgun, but is much more accurate than the AR-43) some are clearly much more powerful than others (the FarSight, Superdragon, anything with explosives etc.).
Fast Roping: A couple of levels begin with Joanna rappelling from a helicopter.
Feminist Fantasy: Both the protagonist and one of the chief antagonists are women, as well as all her bodyguards.
Firing One Handed: Joanna does it in a few cutscenes, with an assault rifle no less.
First Contact: Between humans and Maians, setting up the rest of the story.
The guards say things like "What the hell?", "You bitch!" and "Holy Shhhh--" when they spot you and/or get shot.
Goggles Do Something Unusual: The IR scanner, which can detect enemies using cloaking devices, and even find weak spots in walls. (Needless to say, Real Life infrared technology does not work that way.)
Gondor Calls for Aid: Carrington sends a message to the Maians asking for help in foiling the conspiracy between dataDyne and the Skedar.
Government Agency of Fiction: In the game, the NSA is practically Trent Easton's private army and joins the dataDyne corporation and the Skedar in an attempt to lead a coup against the President. In Real Life, the NSA is the United States government's signals intelligence branch and deals with cryptography and other fairly boring stuff like that.
Groin Attack: A "critical hit" will make the enemy clutch his bereaved area for a few seconds, giving you ample time to put him out of his misery. It even works on female enemies.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Enemy AI is variable in this regard. Some enemies will go immediately for the alarm if you attack, while others you can shoot from behind and make them ask in an astonished voice, "Was that a bullet?" It's also sometimes possible to eliminate almost an entire floor's worth of guards if you're careful, as long as you get rid of each one out of the others' line of sight.
Harder Than Hard: "Dark Agent" is the fan name given to a setting where all the Perfect Dark mode sliders are set to full. Unlike in Golden Eye 1997, a headshot is fatal even when an enemy has 1000% health (as opposed to requiring ten), so it's actually doable.
Heroic Sacrifice: Dr. Caroll destroys the Cetan ship and himself along with it.
Cassandra of all people makes one to save Joanna's life.
Jack Dark pulls one in Zero, and he actually takes out a fair deal of the mooks, and saves Jo but Mai Hem ducks his bullets, and shoots him in the gut, bringing him down. She then aims her Magsec at his head and shoots Jack and Jo shouts a quick, somewhat unconvincing no.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Two doctors attempt to use Area 51's nerve gas system on Joanna...which includes the room they're in. Joanna makes it out, of course.
Hyper Destructive Bouncing Ball: The always entertaining "Proximity Pinball" secondary function for a grenade, which causes the explosive to ricochet around before detonating next to someone-possibly even yourself if you're unlucky.
Hyperspace Arsenal: Though the "quick select" menu only shows up to ten items (weapons and gadgets), they all are still in there somewhere; the rest have to be accessed through the Pause menu. Expect to do so very often if using the "All Guns in Solo" cheat, especially given the very, very diverse arsenal.
Some guards pull guns out of nowhere, even large ones like the Cyclone.
I Can't Reach It: A very lame example when Joanna can't throw a bug onto the antenna in Area 51 without lowering it first. Any fit person should be able to do it. In fact, she can throw it that far, it's just much easier to lower the antenna first.
Impairment Shot: The screen blurs and darkens if you're hit with a weapon causing...
Interface Screw: Poison gas, poison knives, tranquilizer darts, and the dreaded N-Bombs all make it very hard to shoot straight, much less walk in a straight line. Taking more than a few punches from an unarmed foe can result in a similar effect.
Implacable Man: Mr. Blonde, apparently. He doesn't even flinch when Trent points a revolver in his face. Of course, he's actually an alien wearing a holographic disguise, so...
Improbable Aiming Skills: Elvis, to some extent. Jonathan also counts since he's equally deadly with a revolver as enemies are with scoped rifles.
The Infiltration: Numerous levels, including "dataDyne Central: Defection", "G5 Building: Espionage", "Area 51: Infiltration", "Air Base: Espionage", etc.
Insurmountable Waist High Fence: Super spy Joanna Dark lacks any kind of jumping abilities, so her path can be blocked by such trivial things as a handrail, a couch, or a potted plant.
Interservice Rivalry: Apparently the Secret Service is completely loyal to the President while the NSA isn't.
In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: In one level, Joanna must follow little cleaning robots to get into secret passages that only open for them.
Instant Death Bullet: Although guards usually die instantly when shot in the head, this is averted at times when they die slowly and make horrible choking sounds as they expire.
Instant Sedation: With tranquilizers, it only takes a few hits to become completely disoriented. This is particularly egregious in the cutscene where Elvis is hit by one dart and keels over unconscious.
Just Eat Gilligan: The conspirators go through a lot of trouble to get permission from the President of the United States to use a high-tech government submarine to reach a hidden Doomsday Device. They even enact a unnecessarily complicated plan to replace the President with a clone. When that fails, they just steal the submarine anyway; hey, once they've got their hands on the Doomsday Device it's not like anyone will be arguing with them, right?
For obvious reasons, the Skedar weren't exactly forthcoming with their human accomplices about their intentions with the Doomsday Device (namely, using Earth as target-practice), hence all the high-tech espionage.
Law Enforcement, Inc.: The Carrington Institute is a supposed R&D center that secretly conducts espionage and paramilitary operations in league with aliens while killing U.S. government personnel and the security guards of a private corporation. They're the good guys.
Leet Lingo: Perfect Dark includes an unlockable version of the Klobb gun from Golden Eye 1997, renamed the "KL01313". Also, in the Attack Ship level, the information screen for Cassandra de Vries' necklace displays the message "Password: I8MOZYM8NDI8S".
Little Green Men: The Skedar, in contrast to the Maians. The "little" part is especially emphasized by the fact that they're actually tiny, snake-like creatures piloting mid-sized mechas.
Made of Explodium: While not as common as in Golden Eye 1997, things like computers and television monitors will explode when shot. In one level, the flying cars seen outside a tower can be picked off with good enough accuracy, and will go up in a fireball regardless of what type of gun you shoot them with. Any car that blows up after one shot from a handgun at a distance must be very volatile.
Moral Guardians: Nintendo might have geared things back enough to allow blood and mild swearing, but there were still demands made; Nintendo forbade any depictions of alcohol or drug use. The "Combat Boosts" were originally "Adrenaline Pills," and the abandoned, useless basement bar in Chicago was probably a casualty of the same policy that forbade there being a bar in one of the N64 Duke Nukem games.
Then there was the story of using the Game Boy camera to put faces of anybody in the game. Rare at first said this was due to technical limitations; however, they later said it was taken out due to the Columbine massacre and video games being blamed for the shootings.
More Dakka: The Cyclone is a fairly average machine gun with the extraordinary ability to empty its entire clip in a second or two. The Skedar Reaper is horribly inaccurate, but has an incredibly high firing rate best used to clear corridors (not to mention the highest-capacity magazine in the game - it can hold 200 bullets!). Then there's the RC-P120, which can hold 120 rounds per magazine.
Musical Spoiler: At the end of Carrington Institute: Defense, Joanna is overwhelmed and knocked out by the Skedar. Instead of playing the normal 'Mission Complete' music, a slow, ominous tune plays over the level statistics (in addition to the screen going monochrome instead of green with dark-blue background). You knew something bad was going to happen next.
Mission Status: Unknown. Agent Status: Missing.
Mutual Kill: dataDyne and CI soldiers will occasionally do this.
My Friends... and Zoidberg: It becomes something of a Running Gag that nearly every time the President is mentioned by other characters, it's almost like he's an afterthought.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Played straight with the Devastator grenade launcher and Slayer rocket launcher, which really are deadly; averted with the wildly inaccurate Reaper, which might well be the single most useless weapon in the game.
Neutron Bomb: The aptly named N-Bomb, which is essentially a grenade that knocks out everyone in a radius of several meters.
No Fair Cheating: You can use the cheat codes on any level you have access to, but you won't unlock anything while using them.
No-Gear Level: "Attack Ship" begins with Joanna armed with nothing but a knife.
No OSHA Compliance: Clearly nobody in the Perfect Dark universe has ever heard of railings.
No Name Given: Or maybe his name is "Theodore President" and they're just shortening it, who knows?
No Scope: Possible with any of the guns, even with the FarSight (although it's quite difficult).
Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Joanna is supposed to be American, yet she speaks like an authentic Brit in the first game. We know the lads from Rare are Brits, but it's not like any part of the game is set in the UK.
One-Hit Kill: The DY357-LX. The alt-fire modes of the Tranquilizer and Crossbow as well, and especially irritatingly, the FarSight XR-20, which can shoot through walls. Got a shield? Good, now it's just a Two-Hit Kill (draining the shield first with no health damage) and you have about half an extra second to live before you get hit with the next one.
One-Hit Polykill: The DY357, Callisto NTG and particularly the FarSight are capable of this.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The amount of voice acting in the first game was very impressive for its time, but Rare made the mistake of using British actors for a game primarily set in America. This is most apparent with the President, who comes off like a Sean ConneryExpy when it happens.
"You can't make accusations like that without evidence! I a-shume that you have some?"
Daniel Carrington's faux-Scottish accent isn't much better.
Outrun the Fireball: When alien ships are destroyed, some unknown phlebotinum causes them to erupt into massive explosions. This isn't a problem if you run away fast enough.
Palette Swap: The second player's primary character Velvet, in the N64 game, during most of the co-op missions (before the missions where Jonathan or Elvis become the second-player character). Velvet even resembles Ken to Joanna's Ryu.
Parking Garage: In the G5 building. It's where you get ambushed by cloaked guards.
People Jars: The bodies of the Maians being kept in cryogenic storage at Area 51.
The Skedar have cloning tanks which hold warriors in suspended animation.
Punch Clock Villain: Some of the guards say things like "I'm only doing my job!" when they surrender.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: It makes no difference whether you're playing as the skinny Joanna or the hulking Mr. Blonde; everything about the gameplay is exactly the same.
Recurring Riff: The main theme is played (at different tempos and in different arrangements) in just about every piece of music in the single-player campaign.
Red-Headed Hero: Joanna Dark, though art for later games and novels shows blond streaks and highlights - a dye job?
Apparently she was born like that according to the books.
Reliably Unreliable Guns: The enemies' guns will sometimes randomly jam for no reason at all, which is quite convenient for you.
Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Skedar are weird dinosaur-like aliens, whose offspring resemble small lizards (that can jump and bite you).
The Reptilians: The Skedar race appear to be inspired by the Reptilian myth, being aliens that disguise themselves as Scandinavian men.
The Reveal: Mr. Blonde is a Skedar with a holographic disguise.
Revive Kills Zombie: In Zero, the two bosses go down really easily if you know what to pack Pack a Plasma Rifle for Mai Hem, and a Viblade for Zhang Li.
Revolvers Are Just Better - The DY357 Magnum is a beast of a handgun. There's even a gold-plated version, the DY357-LX carried by Trent Easton, which is a One-Hit Kill, as you might expect from it being a GoldenGun and all.
Sapient Ship: The Cetans are implied to be this, although gameplay-wise, the Cetan ship you explore doesn't really do anything special. It's in some kind of Convenient Coma.
Say My Name: Joanna and Elvis seem to do this a lot, particularly in cutscenes.
Schizo Tech: Flying cars and police drones coexist alongside computers that look like they're from 1985 and a "smartphone" of sorts (the Data Uplink) which looks like an old satellite phone.
Schmuck Bait: That Dragon assault rifle lying on the ground there looks awfully tempting...better hope its explosive booby trap alt-fire isn't engaged!
Schrödinger's Gun: Whether you or Jonathan stays behind in Area 51 is determined by whether you bring the hoverbike with you into the hangar or not. If you stay behind, he appears in "Carrington Institute: Defense" and helps you out a bit.
Secondary Fire: Every weapon has a secondary firing mode. Some are basic, like the Falcon 2 and DY357's Pistol Whipping, the Reaper's Grinder mode, the Combat Knife's throw instead of a melee slash, the AR34's scope zoom in non-aim mode, and the Sniper Rifle's crouch (since crouching in the N64 original was done by going into aim mode and pressing down on the D-Pad or C-button layout, except in this case where it adjusts the zoom) to burst-fire modes like the MagSec 4, Cyclone, and shotgun to explosives like the Phoenix's small explosive rounds, the SuperDragon's underslung grenade launcher, and the Dragon's proximity mine booby-trap to the downright exotic like the aforementioned "Proximity Pinball" function on the grenade, the Laptop Gun's sentry mode, the CMP150's aimbot and FarSight XR-20's auto-tracking, the K7 Avenger and explosive mines' threat detector (picks up armed mines and trap Dragons), the Devastator's sticky grenades, and the RC-P120's cloaking device.
Then there's the Laser (Short Range Burst), the Crossbow (Instant Kill), the Mauler (Charged Shot), the Callisto NTG (High-Impact Shells), the Tranquilizer (Lethal Injection), the Rocket Launcher (Homing Rocket), and the Slayer (Fly-By-Wire Missiles). Also, the N-Bomb has a proximity option.
Even when unarmed, you can choose between "Punch" and "Disarm."
Sequence Breaking: Many levels can be completed in more than one way.
Opening the safe door in the G5 building takes 90 seconds while you deal with Demonic Spiders. Or you can trigger the As You Know cutscene right after unlocking the safe, as the door will open but the enemies will not spawn.
The Pelagic II has a hidden entrance to the submersible which allows you to beat the level much more quickly than taking the conventional route.
The sensitive information in Carrington's office can be destroyed with a grenade instead of having to go downstairs, then go back up to open the safe with the laser.
By putting the BombSpy in the other elevator, you can kill the [dataDyne=] captain much more easily in "Mr. Blonde's Revenge".
Short Range Long Range Weapon: Guards will not fire at you past a certain distance, even assault rifles (except snipers). When you get close enough, they try to punch you out instead of shooting you.
As a Call Back to Golden Eye 1997, all of the guns from the game appear in glass cases on the firing range, and some of them can be used in single player with cheats.
It may not be intentional, but a desert planet with more than one sun sounds familiar from somewhere.
One of the weapons might count...the Slayer, a rocket launcher like the one used on the Judge.
Joanna's auto-targeting HUD, and the MagSec machine pistol, both make it clear that somebody on the design team has watched RoboCop before.
Sigil Spam: The weapons-manufacturing Megacorp dataDyne likes plastering their "dD" logo on all their architecture. (Admittedly, it is quite a cool logo.) Not to mention the fact that the Carrington Institute's logo appears on Joanna Dark's Spy Catsuit (I'm sure that would help with her plausible deniability if she was ever captured!).
The Skedar also seem to like etching their symbol into every available surface and sculptures of it appear all over the place in the Battle Shrine.
Showdown at High Noon: The bonus mission "The Duel", complete with back to back stance and scripted steps. Higher difficulties demand you to best more duelists in a row.
Small Name, Big Ego: Trent Easton is head of the NSA (National Security Agency), a high-but-not-that-high position in the US intelligence hierarchy that would make him a report to the Director of National Intelligence. He acts like he is the NSA (National Security Advisor), which is a far more influential position.
Smug Snake: Trent. He almost succeeds in his plan to capture the President, but ends up getting mauled to death by the Skedar.
Sniper Pistol: Joanna's trusty Falcon 2 pistol can be fitted with a scope to make a surprisingly accurate medium-ranged sniper weapon.
Note that the silencer and scope attachments cannot be applied or removed at will; they're treated as separate weapons.
Sniper Scope Sway: The game has this feature for all scoped guns, but it's especially bad on the sniper rifle. To compensate, you can crouch while firing for greater stability.
Sniping Mission: The first part of the Villa. Averted on Perfect Agent; instead of sniping the guards to save the diplomat, you are the diplomat and have to use the laptop gun.
Songs in the Key of Panic: Nearly every level has a faster variant of its music, which plays during critical junctures.
Exaggerated with Carrington Institute: Defense; the normal level music is already more frantic than the Institute's usual theme, and still has an even faster variant.
Speed Run: Time attacking was encouraged by the developers, since not only does the game keep track of the player's best time on each level on each difficulty, but completing particular levels within specific target times (some lenient, some strict) unlocks bonus cheat options.
Some levels essentially must be played as speedruns, because there is no realistic way to complete them otherwise due to the sheer number of enemies. "War!" comes to mind.
Tap on the Head: Punching out civilians is easy and painless. Occasionally, there will be one who puts up a lot more resistance than others though.
A Taste of Power: You can get the K7 Avenger as early as the second level, which doesn't appear again until halfway through the game. It's also possible to get the Phoenix in Area 51, which makes the level much easier. It doesn't appear again until the last few levels.
Timed Mission: Several levels have segments which must be completed in a certain time limit (these are usually Always Close).
"Mr. Blonde's Revenge" must be completed in about four minutes before the bomb you've planted in the basement of dataDyne headquarters goes off. It's possible to do it the long way (see Sequence Breaking) and kill everyone in the building before planting it, but very difficult and time-consuming.
Tranquillizer Dart: The tranquillizer gun, but instead of knocking targets out, it blurs their vision, lowering their accuracy. The alternate fire gives the darts a lethal overdose.
Translation Convention: The mission briefing for the bonus levels is written to reflect the style that the alien races might be expected to use.
Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The original game's lack of mid-level saving of any kind means that if you get killed in ambush, use an expendable gadget in the wrong place, or allow your braindead AI companions to get themselves killed, it's back to the start of the level. More evident on the two higher difficulty settings.
Troperiffic: Rare more or less attempted to cram as many action movie and sci-fi tropes as possible into a single game.
Twenty Minutes into the Future: Apart from the flying cars and alien technology, this could almost be a modern shooter. Canonically, the game is set in 2023.
Unexpected Genre Change: From normal, if futuristic, spies versus evil conglomerates to epic sci-fi action ending with the main characters storming an alien planet.
Unnecessary Combat Roll: It seems like the first day of security guard school is spent teaching cadets how to perform this. Averted in that it's as woefully ineffective as it should be (it leaves guards open to attack for several seconds) but played straight in that Joanna herself performs a few shoulder rolls during cutscenes.
One of the changes made from Golden Eye 1997 involved making the rolling animation interruptible - that is, a guard no longer finishes his roll, stands up and then dies if shot mid-roll.
Zero lets Joanna do this as a command. It breaks enemy lock-ons, forcing them to get their bearing. They are also substantially quicker.
Unorthodox Reload: The Cyclone's bizarre reload animation where the magazine is fed into the side of the gun and passes out the other side.
Maian weapons have a magazine which looks like a greenish ball and is absorbed into the side of the gun like a liquid.
Unusual User Interface: Joanna's headset, which is essentially a wearable computer that deploys over her field of vision when you access the menu.
Updated Rerelease: Re-released for the Xbox Live Arcade on March 17th 2010 with bright, shiny new high-def visuals and online play!
Video Game Caring Potential: If you disarm or surprise some foes, they'll surrender and cause you no further trouble *
And if you save the civilian with the keycard in Area 51, you can get a cool hidden weapon
. But...
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Are you evil enough to shoot an enemy in the groin after they've been disarmed and surrendered? Yes.
In the original, foes who have been knocked out can then be killed rather easily, especially if you like headshots.
In the first mission, you can shoot down flying cars that go by, obviously killing whoever was inside.
Video Game Cruelty Punishment: In some levels there are civilians wandering around. You are not allowed to shoot them, and if you do so you instantly fail the mission.
Walk It Off: Perfect Dark Zero has a unique version where your health only partially regenerates, with a small amount being lost forever every time you get shot. Combined with a complete absence of health kits or other healing items, and you can eventually end up stuck with only a sliver of health towards the end of a level if you get shot a lot.
Furthermore, each weapon has different levels of shock damage. Viblade? Say goodbye to your health permanently. Fall Damage? All Shock Damage.
In the original game, this was how you recover from poison/punching/N-Bomb effects (see Interface Screw, above). In fact, you have to actuallyWalk It Off; the effects don't fade if you just stand still.
Most drone guns in the game can be destroyed without much effort, although the ones in Area 51 can be pretty tough.
Weapon of Choice: The Falcon 2 for Joanna; the Phoenix for Elvis; the DY357 for Jonathan; the DY357-XL for Trent.
Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Some Maian body skins sport stars and stripes outfits and shirts. The Maians really like America.
We Can Rule Together: Cassandra invokes this when Joanna encounters her at the end of the dataDyne mission.
We Need a Distraction: Reprogramming the taxi on Chicago to crash into the police robot.
Cassandra gives her life to make one in "Attack Ship".
We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: Joanna's evidence of the conspiracy is a recording which the President proclaims "overwhelming" after seeing roughly three seconds of it.
What Could Have Been: The original Perfect Dark would have been able to link to the Game Boy Camera. And you would be able to take a picture of your face into game, as an avatar in multiplayer, through a feature called "Perfect Head". Sadly, Rare scraped it due to "technical issues". Later Rare admitted this was because of the Columbine massacre and the concern they and Moral Guardians would have over students and teachers being killed in game.
What Happened to the Mouse?: After being rescued in the Crash Site mission, the President is never heard from again, although a meeting with him is a plot point later on.
The aforementioned abandoned sequel probably would've answered a lot of questions about the plot/s.
What Measure Is a Mook?: Until you run up against the aliens directly, you're mostly mowing down security guards or government employees. Admittedly, they're working for a corrupt corporation and a treacherous NSA respectively, but you still spend a lot of time killing people just doing their jobs, although to be fair, they're under orders to kill you.
However, if you feel like it you can just knock out human enemies if you like in most levels. It's just that this is usually only practical if you can surprise lone guards.
In the level where you have to board Air Force One and the level where you're on Air Force One, you will fail the mission if you kill guards. You can, however, kill NSA troops, since they're part of the conspiracy to kidnap the president.
Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The game is rather vague about the location of most of its settings, aside from Chicago, Alaska and Nevada. Most of the CI staff are British, but the city where dataDyne's headquarters are located isn't named, and Carrington's villa seems to be in Gibraltar or somewhere on the Mediterranean.
A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Whenever there is a group of scientists, one of them will invariably try to screw you over by sounding the alarm or pulling a gun.
Word Salad Title: Aside from being the codename of the main character, the name "Perfect Dark" doesn't mean anything in particular besides that it sounds really cool. Because of the difficulty in localizing the title, the game was going to be renamed Red and Black in Japan for the same reason until they decided to just transliterate the English title.
Why Isn't It Attacking?: When Joanna and Elvis enter the Cetan ship, they comment on how unusual it is that there are no guards around. The reason is that they all have cloaking devices.
You Are Too Late: Joanna rescues Daniel from being held hostage at the villa, but not before dataDyne recovers Dr. Caroll from him.
Trent invokes this when he has the President hostage at gunpoint. Jo has about a half second to shoot him before failing the mission.
You Fool!: Trent seems to love saying this about the President.
You Have Failed Me: When Mr. Blonde kills Trent at the end of the Alaska mission.
You Shall Not Pass: Joanna attempts this during the evacuation of the Carrington Institute. It doesn't work because she gets knocked out and captured.
You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Cassandra rightly claims this. You can still knock her out though.
Zerg Rush: The tiny Skedar in "Deep Sea" are particularly annoying as they just keep spawning and there's nothing to do but shoot them all as they regenerate.
On "War!", the enemies never stop coming; your only hope is to kill as many as you can and run like hell to avoid the rest. Luckily, they're terrible shots. The good news is that your army also respawns. Keeping them alive is pretty much mandatory.
Zeroes and Ones: Dr. Caroll displays this when his backup is installed.
before making it past the prototype stage in 2008 after the team developing it was cut down to three people. It was intended to be Darker and Edgier than Perfect Dark Zero, but by the time it was canceled it wasn't even a Perfect Dark game anymore; it was about an unknown male protagonist fighting giant mechs.The time period in between the two games is covered in a pair of novels, Initial Vector and Second Front, as well as the comic series Janus Tears. There's also the aforementioned Game Boy Color game, although since that was released around the same time as the N64 original and long before Zero became a prequel, it's unlikely to still be considered canonical.
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