Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing a little more about Perfect Dark Zero.

If you want to read part one, click HERE.

I mentioned last time that Perfect Dark Zero had a bit of a troubled development, but that seems to be true for all the Perfect Dark games to an extent. Even the first game had its problems, as half the team left Rare to start Free Radical Design and make TimeSplitters.

Somehow Perfect Dark  and TimeSplitters both released in 2000, and both continued the spirit of Rare's legendary GoldenEye 007. But Perfect Dark came out late in the Nintendo 64's life and was made by N64 veterans who'd had years to learn the system inside and out, while TimeSplitters was basically a janky stripped-down PlayStation 2 launch title.

Five years later, both games got sequels but this time the situations were reversed. Free Radical's TimeSplitters: Future Perfect showed off what the venerable PS2-era consoles were capable of in the hands of experts, while Perfect Dark Zero was reworked in a hurry to become a launch title for the shiny new and unfamiliar Xbox 360.

And none of these first-person shooters ever got a release on PC, what the hell guys?

Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360) - Part 1

Developer:

Rare

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Release Date:

2005

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Systems:

Xbox 360

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the last of Rare's Perfect Dark games, Perfect Dark Zero! All that great Perfect Dark taste, zero sugar.

The title's actually indicating that this is a prequel, like Resident Evil Zero and Street Fighter Zero (but not Mega Man Zero). Funny thing is, the series already had a prequel, on the Game Boy Colour, so the plot's been moving in reverse. There was a fourth game in development by The Initiative, announced in 2020, but five years later they made another announcement saying that it had been cancelled. And that The Initiative had been cancelled too. (To be fair it seems like the developer barely existed to begin with, as it was shedding staff like crazy.)

Perfect Dark Zero was also in development for five years, which was pretty long for a game back in the early 2000s. It was originally going to be on GameCube, but then Microsoft bought Rare so they had to switch to Xbox. Then it needed a quick next gen upgrade to become an Xbox 360 launch title!

There were 18 games available for the Xbox 360 at launch, including Call of Duty 2, Quake 4, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, so not a bad list. Though the most successful game by a Microsoft-owned studio... was this! I always assumed the game bombed, but nope it did fine. It sold over a million copies and made four times its money back.

Okay I'm going to be playing the game with Xbox One backwards compatibility, which promises higher resolutions, faster frame rates and improved texture clarity, so hopefully this will be a more pleasant experience for me than people had back in 2005.

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (Xbox) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a little more TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. I've only played two levels so far and I haven't even tried the multiplayer yet so I need to give it a little more time.

If you want to read part one you can CLICK HERE.

The 'future perfect' part of the title is probably a Perfect Dark reference, as the same people worked on both games... but it also refers to a verb tense that's used for actions that will be carried out before something else in the future. At least, that's the definition I just read. So "Free Radical will have released TimeSplitters 4 before Hell freezes over," would be an example.

Free Radical Design doesn't actually exist at the moment, the latest incarnation fell victim to Embracer Group in 2023, so the chances don't seem good. The new Perfect Dark sequel got the same treatment, as developer The Initiative were closed in 2025. At least James Bond is doing well lately, with First Light being the best received entry since GoldenEye 007. Turns out it helps when developers are allowed to finish what they're working on!

Alright, here's a bit more TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. 

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (Xbox) - Part 1

Developer:

Free Radical

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Release Date:

2005

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Systems:

PS2, Xbox, GameCube

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the third and (to this date) final entry in the TimeSplitters franchise, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. They could've called it TimeSplitters 3 and kept things simple, but they didn't.

Future Perfect was released in 2005, but it was firmly PlayStation 2 generation like its predecessors. In fact the TimeSplitters series spanned the entire era, with TimeSplitters 1 arriving the same time the PS2 made it over to the west, and Future Perfect coming out just before Perfect Dark Zero helped launch the Xbox 360. Wait... Future Perfect, Perfect Dark... that can't be a coincidence.

This was a multiplatform release, so PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox owners all got to play it (though not against each other). But there was one system that didn't get a port: Windows PC! Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 all launched on PC first, all in 2005, so it wouldn't have been an absurd idea, even at a time when consoles were king and ridiculous anti-piracy schemes were driving PC gamers to piracy. We could've had a bit of mouse aiming, maybe even some quicksaves, but no.

Alright, I'm going to load up the Xbox version on an Xbox One and I'll keep playing through the single player until either I have enough screenshots or my enthusiasm runs out. And I suppose there'd be no harm in me playing a few rounds of the multiplayer afterwards.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 26: Gold Box - Gateway to the Savage Frontier (MS-DOS) - Part 3

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing some more of Gateway to the Savage Frontier! Not to be confused with Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire or Journey to the Savage Planet.

It occurs to me that I've got no idea what your opinions are about me dragging games out for two or three parts instead of getting to the point and moving on. If it makes you feel any better, this is still the same amount of words and pictures as a two-parter, I just split them across three pages so it's less of a gruelling marathon to get through (for both of us).

Alright, you're currently reading part 3. You can find part 1 HERE and part 2 HERE. If you decide to stick around then beware of SPOILERS.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 25: Gold Box - Gateway to the Savage Frontier (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still playing the DOS version of Gateway to the Savage Frontier!

Though I decided to show the title screen from the Amiga port this time and I really shouldn't have bothered. It turns out that the only difference between the two is that some of the dots are purple in the Amiga game and green in the PC game.

There's no flashy PC-98 version to show off this time and I already showed the C64 title, so that's it really. We're past the days where there were a dozen competing computer formats, and they didn't go wild and port it to the Phillips CD-i or Atari Lynx or something.

Still, they did alright on PC, at least according to a chart I saw in Computer Gaming World issue #89 which said it was the best selling MS-DOS game in North America in August 1991!

Okay, this is part 2, so if you want to read part 1 you should CLICK HERE. Otherwise carry on reading what you're reading, though I'm getting deeper into the story now so beware of SPOILERS.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 24: Gold Box - Gateway to the Savage Frontier (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Beyond Software

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, C64

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm back to Dungeons & Dragons with Gateway to the Savage Frontier!

The opening titles call it a "Forgotten Realms Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Volume I", and I remember seeing that on a bunch of earlier titles as well. Though Pool of Radiance called itself a 'Fantasy Role-Playing Epic Vol. I' and Eye of the Beyonder was a 'Fantasy Role-Playing Saga Vol. 1' so they're a little different. And Champions of Krynn wasn't even set in the Forgotten Realms!

This is yet another Gold Box RPG, the 7th or 8th of them so far, but this time Strategic Simulations Inc. handed the reins over to Don Daglow's Beyond Software. Daglow was already a veteran RPG game designer at this point, having created one of the first RPGs ever made, Dungeon, in 1975 for PDP-10 mainframes. He also invented the concept of having a circle under the selected player in sports games, apparently.

You could argue that 1991 was the wrong time to start a whole new RPG saga with the ageing Gold Box engine, especially as there were two other D&D series still going and the games were already getting accused of being archaic. I think SSI may have actually agreed the engine was out of date, as they had new engines on the way for the Dark Sun and Ravenloft games. Fans just had to hang in there for a couple more years.

The Gold Box engine had gotten a bit of an update at least, with Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday introducing 256-colour VGA graphics. This is the first D&D RPG to make use of the upgrade, plus it introduces Sound Blaster support for proper sound effects! I'm not getting my hopes up for a soundtrack though.