Only
the best of the best games warrant a strategy guide. Strategy guides are for your favorite
game, the game that has you staying up late into the night trying to devise a plan to
defeat the final guy on the sixth level. Strategy guides are for tough games with lots of
levels, secrets, cheats, extras, multiple modes, and difficulty settings. After shelling
out the big bucks for a video game it's often hard to justify spending another $13 on a
book. Well, in Perfect Dark's case the $13 is well worth it. Perfect Dark is hard enough,
big enough, and cool enough to warrant a guide; in fact it's almost too much to deal with
without a guide.
BradyGames has put out Perfect Dark's nearly complete official
strategy guide. Within minutes of bringing the guide home I was already using its very
complete level strategies. In fact I had already combed the internet looking for a FAQ
that could get me past one of Perfect Dark's final levels, but nothing out there seemed to
help me. The FAQs contradicted one another calling my end goal a spaceship in some and a
helicopter in others, and adding to my frustration none of them gave me directions or
maps. The Brady Games guide on the other hand gave a clear description of my goal's
location as well as a nice screen cap to make sure I knew where I was going.
The
Brady Games' guide doesn't directly deal with the easiest difficulty setting; in the
introduction they explain that a serious player won't need help on the easy setting, but
will definitely need it for the two harder settings. I found this, for the most part, to
be true, but by outlining the harder levels they also outline parts of the easier
settings. The mission guides are thorough, clearly outlining the objectives, revealing
lots of secrets, tips, and hits; there are also detailed maps that are a tad bit confusing
to read (but the levels can get pretty complicated). I found myself wanting a breakdown of
the differences between the difficulty levels at the beginning of each mission section.
Make
no mistake, this guide is more than just a walkthrough. It also includes: game information
(weapons, devices, characters, and vehicles), hidden items, cheats, a combat simulator
guide, and a pin-up poster of Joanna Dark. While the poster and game information have
limited value, the hidden item and cheat info is indispensable, especially for a game so
full of them. I found the combat simulator guide to be less helpful. It clearly describes
all of the arenas, preset games, options, weapon sets, and simulants, but I already knew
all that stuff. Slightly more interesting were the challenge descriptions (which I would
have gotten in the game by unlocking them for competition). I was hoping for some hints or
strategy (or even some maps for that matter) for the combat simulator's challenges. I've
found that the challenges are one of the most exciting and difficult parts of the game and
was quite disappointed to see BradyGames' "complete" muliplayer coverage so
incomplete.
Overall, BradyGames has done a great job of squeezing a ton of info into this guide.
The maps and screen caps make the missions easy as pie (well not quite that easy, but they
sure help a lot). So if you own Perfect Dark and plan on beating, opening, and unlocking
every last thing in it you better get this guide.
