Area 51
After successfully infiltrating a secret meeting between dataDyne, the NSA, and some unknown entity, our hero, Agent Dark has been tasked with entering the fabled Area 51 and rescuing Daniel Carrington's "friends." The beginning of our first mission consists of fighting our way into the subterranean Area 51 base. With a quick stop to destroy the controls for the air defense radar.
Once we manage to blow up the computers we take a big elevator down to a large hangar bay. After a few more gun fights we work our way deeper into the base, closer to the laboratory facilities. Meeting up with Carrington Institute agent, Jonathan Steinberg, he hands over intel on how to get into the laboratories, while also providing a handy floating crate of explosives. And we aren't talking about the video game glitch variety of floating, more of the Sci-Fi, futuristic Anti-Gravity floating variety. Laborers around the world rejoice!
After we use our crate to explode a weak section of the wall conveniently marked with an 'X,' we question the ability of the guards to detect infiltrators. Reminding ourselves that this is an early first-person shooter, we enter the facility. Conveniently a Scientist on the other side of the wall was taken out by the explosion.
Switching our clothing with the scientist makes for one of the only truly covert sections of a mission in Perfect Dark. We then have to walk unarmed through a hallway of enemies, hoping they don't notice our disguise. As far as my memory serves, you have to basically stand around for an extended period of time or pull out a firearm to trip the guards to your ulterior motives.
The Grand Reveal!
We've been waiting to find out who these "friends" are that Carrington kept mentioning in previous missions. And now we see what they are. Little Grey Men. It appears that there is only one of Daniel Carrington's friends here, so we make our move and grab the little guy. The scientists attempt to use poison gas on us, but unfortunately, they also end up gassing themselves, not realizing the program is intended to destroy every life form, big and small, to prevent infectious diseases from spreading.
We stash our friend near the hangar entrance and head off to find Jonathan, the CI spy that helped us earlier. In my haste to get back to the Alien lying defenseless, I almost blasted Jon in the chest. Please take a close look at the bullet hole texture on the wall, 1/3 of it is floating off the corner! Collecting the CI spy we head back the way we came to collect the Alien.
Greeted by guards, John blows a hole through the wall to help us get back to our helpless companion faster. As we run to the large doorway where our friend lays on his anti-gravity table we see a glimpse of an alien spacecraft, a full-on flying saucer! Unable to process what we're even seeing we fend off a few more enemies before finally reaching the Alien, who promptly wakes up.
Protector One. Although he chooses to go by Elvis, for his love of The King, is a Mayan alien who was sent by his people to help the Carrington Institute as they deal with a looming threat. A threat we will learn more about in the upcoming missions.
Thanks for taking a ride with me through the 3rd set of missions from Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64. This set of missions actually had a LOT of plot holes, inconsistencies, and a generally poor grasp of continuity that I was not able to fully cover in a manner conducive to storytelling. Three major ones that stand out to me are as follows;
Agent Dark is supposed to be a covert spy, but the missions consistently lead us down a path of kill everything THEN do your objective. We enter a highly secure government facility with guns and high explosives, yet they're still acting as if nothing is amiss inside the facility?
When the guards attempt to poison Joanna she just stands there and watches them die, with the game only allowing you to react after both scientists are dead. I don't know if we're supposed to infer that the two cut scenes took place simultaneously, but if you turn to face the scientists once the player gains control, they're already dead.
At the end they discover that the Alien spaceship will only hold 2 people and without even skipping a fucking beat Joanna Dark volunteers Jonathan to stay behind to get out on his own. The sequence of lines is absolutely hilarious!
"Someone will have to stay behind to open the hangar doors" Says Jon.
"But we can't leave you behind!" Jo says exasperated.
"It's okay..."
🤦♂
In the wise words of Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly; "You know, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."
I hate to admit this but I think I'm falling out of love with this game. I'm picking apart too many flaws. And I need to get back to the root of what makes this my favorite game. The pure nostalgia of playing Perfect Dark with my brother and cousin all day Saturday and well into the morning of Sunday.
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