Perfect Dark: Encyclopedia II - Perfect Dark - Multiplayer

Perfect Dark - Multiplayer

The Combat Simulator is Perfect Dark's multiplayer mode. It features six game scenarios:

• Combat - Same as the traditional deathmatch mode.
• Capture The Case - Perfect Dark's equivalent of Capture the Flag.
• Hold The Briefcase - Players must take a briefcase and survive with it for as long as possible. One point is received for every set number of seconds the case is held. If the player with the briefcase is killed, they drop the briefcase and it can be picked up by anyone else.
• King of the Hill - One area in the map (or more) is "the hill". Players must locate this highlighted region and stay there for a set number of seconds in order to gain two points. Once this is done, the hill moves to a new location. If the hill is occupied, and a player on an enemy team enters the area, the timer will stop counting down until only one player remains on the hill, either through death or leaving the area. If two (or more) players of the same team are on the hill, the timer speeds up for each added player.
• Hacker Central - Somewhere on the map, a data uplink can be found. The objective of Hacker Central is to capture the data uplink and use it to hack a computer system which can also be found on the map. The data uplink is moved to a new location when the player carrying it is killed. When hacking the computer system, one cannot use weapons, and is thus a sitting duck.
• Pop A Cap - One player is "the cap". All other players gain two points for killing the cap. The cap gains a point every minute alive.

There are many improvements over the GoldenEye multiplayer mode. Almost all the single player weapons are available, with the exception of the Psychosis Gun and the unlockable GoldenEye "classic" weapons. The weapons can be combined in any way, or one can choose to play with one of the pre-set weapon sets. Some features, such as one-hit-kills, were fully fledged modes in GoldenEye, and so couldn't be combined with some other settings. Others, like no-radar or turbo mode, were cheats that had to be unlocked in single player first. In Perfect Dark, these are standard options that can be toggled on and off, allowing a much more customizable game experience.

Players can have multiplayer profiles (separate to their single player save files), containing many statistics that are updated after each game. The profile also contains a ranking, ranging from "21: Beginner" to "Perfect: 1". Rankings are determined based on the accumulation of certain statistics in ten different categories (such as kills, time played and ammunition used), with ten different "milestones" in each category. Each time the player passes five milestones, their rank will increase, and upon reaching the highest rank they will receive a username and password (see the Easter eggs/oddities section). A complete description of the statistics required for each milestone may be found here.

Perfect Dark's Combat Simulator also includes Challenges, pre-set games against bots. There are 30 in all, covering a variety of game types, weapon arrangements and map setups. As a player completes the Challenges, additional features — including new weapons, player models and bot difficulties — are unlocked in the Combat Simulator. Although there are 30 Challenges, the player is only required to beat 24 of them in order to unlock everything. [4]

Perfect Dark - Simulants

Perfect Dark supports bots, or Simulants as they are called in the game. The bots have six levels of difficulty: Meat, Easy, Normal, Hard, Perfect and Dark. MeatSims are moving targets which can often be found running into walls, bumping into each other and swinging from side to side while firing; at the other end of the scale, DarkSims can achieve headshots from any distance and move so fast that they seem to teleport around the level. Bots can also be of one of several special types such as the RocketSim, which favors explosives; the FistSim, which will attack only using its fists and throwing knives; the JudgeSim, who strives to balance the game by targeting whoever is in the lead; the SpeedSim, who can run particularly quickly; the TurtleSim, which spawns with a powerful shield and moves slowly; the PeaceSim, which attempts to gather all the weapons but will not attack; or the VengeSim, who attempts to get revenge on the last player who killed it. The other Simulant types are KazeSims, ShieldSims, CowardSims, PreySims and FeudSims.

During team matches, a player can give game-specific orders to the Simulants on their team, such as "Defend Base" in a Capture the Case match. Other commands include ordering the Simulants to focus their attacks on one member of the opposing team, or to follow the human player around and act as bodyguards.

The most easily exploitable flaw in the artificial intelligence of the Simulants is that they are perfectly willing to walk into enemy fire. Sims at the highest levels have perfect accuracy regardless of distance, so the best tactics are to only engage them in close quarters and to begin firing at the Simulant before it even appears on the screen. Simply camping in a corner and firing when anyone approaches ones position can be a much more effective strategy than aggressively pursuing the Simulants. Gameplay against humans tends to reward more aggressive strategies in racking up as many kills as possible since players continuously respawn, but gameplay against high-level Simulants rewards a very defensive strategy that tries to limit confrontation with opponents so it will always be on the player's terms and to the player's advantage.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Multiplayer", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki