Perfect Dark was released Wed on X-Box Live Arcade. I was curious how it would hold up all these years after playing so many other shooters (Modern Warfare 2, various Halo games, other titles) with universal changes like a button specifically for lobbing grenades. But after putting in some time with some friends it's still Perfect Dark so it's still very very awesome. The thing I loved the most about Perfect Dark is unchanged: the guns. I've yet to see a weapon as cool as the Laptop Gun in other games. It's a laptop! It's an assault rifle! It's a stationary turret! It's incredible! The sheer variety of things to waste people with is still impressive. The Phoenix is a pistol that shoots explosive rounds and the reload animation is the gun absorbing the new clip/magazine and almost taking your hand with it. There is a remote control rocket launcher. The Farsight is a notorious weapon that shoots through EVERYTHING and the secondary tracks players through the level. The Mauler pistol charges up Mega Man style and kills people with a satisfying discharge. The Dragon assault rifle reaches jackass heights as the secondary turns it into a proximity mine. It goes on and on.  
 
It was one of the reasons why I was so unimpressed with the original Halo. The stock weapons in that game (space pistol, space rifle, space sniper rifle, a few alien weapons) were really dull compared to the kind of stuff you could whip out in Perfect Dark. Where's my grenade that bounces around like a pinball? Where's the SMG that fires its entire 50 round clip in a few seconds? Once you see that kind of stuff and spend hours messing around with it in multiplayer it's really hard to get excited in a game where the basic pistol beats everything. Perfect Dark also reminds me why I'm so bummed when multiplayer in other games has no music playing in the background. Music in this game always gets me pumped and makes everything slightly more epic than it already is. 
 
There are a few catches. Starting without a gun in multiplayer is hard to go back to. Even with disarm, playing the various challenges in the Combat Simulator will get really frustrating as Sims travel around the map killing you before you can defend yourself. Also the spawning system seems really jacked compared to the N64 version. There are times when I spawned right next to a guy in one hit kill modes where you can throw a punch and kill them instantly as the game starts. One time a guy spawned behind me and punched me dead before I knew what was going on. A few times I spawned right next to a guy with an assault rifle who wasted no time shooting me dead. People who complain about Modern Warfare 2's spawning system will probably hate Perfect Dark more than they can put into words. It was never this bad on the N64 so it's a little hard to tell what happened. Still, that's mostly a complaint on Challenges where the Cheating AI Bastard shows no mercy and turns the clunky Farsight into a weapon of endless destruction. Assholes.
 
The single player campaign is still worth playing. A few highlights is the ability to pistol whip the snotty CEO of an evil corporation of the future in the first level, hanging with an Alien nicknamed Elvis, and putting your hands on the most gaudy gun I've ever seen in an FPS: the DY357-LX. It's a gold revolver with a tiger stripe grip that kills people in one shot. Yeah. Where the Golden Gun was something of a interesting assortment of gold plated accessories snapped together, the DY357-LX is more like "YO! CHECK OUT MY AWESOME SIX SHOOTER, FOOL!". Anyone who uses a gun that kills people in one shot needs to be killed, but the gun's design will make you want to kill them just 'cause.  
 
People who have played this before on the N64 and liked it should definitely get it. Going back to Perfect Dark is like going back to Tetris. It only takes a short while to get back in it and it's just as good as the last time you played it . . . only a little nicer looking.

Perfect Dark was released Wed on X-Box Live Arcade. I was curious how it would hold up all these years after playing so many other shooters (Modern Warfare 2, various Halo games, other titles) with universal changes like a button specifically for lobbing grenades. But after putting in some time with some friends it's still Perfect Dark so it's still very very awesome. The thing I loved the most about Perfect Dark is unchanged: the guns. I've yet to see a weapon as cool as the Laptop Gun in other games. It's a laptop! It's an assault rifle! It's a stationary turret! It's incredible! The sheer variety of things to waste people with is still impressive. The Phoenix is a pistol that shoots explosive rounds and the reload animation is the gun absorbing the new clip/magazine and almost taking your hand with it. There is a remote control rocket launcher. The Farsight is a notorious weapon that shoots through EVERYTHING and the secondary tracks players through the level. The Mauler pistol charges up Mega Man style and kills people with a satisfying discharge. The Dragon assault rifle reaches jackass heights as the secondary turns it into a proximity mine. It goes on and on.  
 
It was one of the reasons why I was so unimpressed with the original Halo. The stock weapons in that game (space pistol, space rifle, space sniper rifle, a few alien weapons) were really dull compared to the kind of stuff you could whip out in Perfect Dark. Where's my grenade that bounces around like a pinball? Where's the SMG that fires its entire 50 round clip in a few seconds? Once you see that kind of stuff and spend hours messing around with it in multiplayer it's really hard to get excited in a game where the basic pistol beats everything. Perfect Dark also reminds me why I'm so bummed when multiplayer in other games has no music playing in the background. Music in this game always gets me pumped and makes everything slightly more epic than it already is. 
 
There are a few catches. Starting without a gun in multiplayer is hard to go back to. Even with disarm, playing the various challenges in the Combat Simulator will get really frustrating as Sims travel around the map killing you before you can defend yourself. Also the spawning system seems really jacked compared to the N64 version. There are times when I spawned right next to a guy in one hit kill modes where you can throw a punch and kill them instantly as the game starts. One time a guy spawned behind me and punched me dead before I knew what was going on. A few times I spawned right next to a guy with an assault rifle who wasted no time shooting me dead. People who complain about Modern Warfare 2's spawning system will probably hate Perfect Dark more than they can put into words. It was never this bad on the N64 so it's a little hard to tell what happened. Still, that's mostly a complaint on Challenges where the Cheating AI Bastard shows no mercy and turns the clunky Farsight into a weapon of endless destruction. Assholes.
 
The single player campaign is still worth playing. A few highlights is the ability to pistol whip the snotty CEO of an evil corporation of the future in the first level, hanging with an Alien nicknamed Elvis, and putting your hands on the most gaudy gun I've ever seen in an FPS: the DY357-LX. It's a gold revolver with a tiger stripe grip that kills people in one shot. Yeah. Where the Golden Gun was something of a interesting assortment of gold plated accessories snapped together, the DY357-LX is more like "YO! CHECK OUT MY AWESOME SIX SHOOTER, FOOL!". Anyone who uses a gun that kills people in one shot needs to be killed, but the gun's design will make you want to kill them just 'cause.  
 
People who have played this before on the N64 and liked it should definitely get it. Going back to Perfect Dark is like going back to Tetris. It only takes a short while to get back in it and it's just as good as the last time you played it . . . only a little nicer looking.

I loved this game on N64. Did not think I would like it now with the Halo's, COD's and Battlefields' in the world. But it still is pretty fun. I LOVE the new controls, dual analog rocks! Overall I think it is still fun and brings me back to my childhood. I don't know that I can say I would be playing it all the time over BFBC:2 but it is still fun.

I just played the first level on perfect agent, there's that bonus objective where you have to force a programmer to unlock a computer or something. It was actually pretty awesome, cause you have to keep your gun pointed at him or he will try and run so it felt like forcing him at gun point to do something. 
 
Also when he does the task, i had totally forgotten about this, he wipes the data and fails your mission! What the hell! that son a bitch, so next time it was execution time for that guy. I remember doing that now, but what kind of game would let you take a hostage,  force them to do something then allow you execute them now a days. 

Did they update the controls with giving it dual joysticks?  If they didn't i don't know if I could honestly go back to the N64 days where everything is only one analog stick.

I purchased it yesterday and damn i have never been so much more happy. I played Perfect Dark non stop from the year 2000 to about the year 2004 or so. Just played the combat simulator against Sims with random weapons and random levels for hours on end. It was heaven. I then had to move to Ireland with the family so my mom said we should sell the N64 :(
 
Missed it so much ever since. I quickly got back into it yesterday though, it took me a few minutes to get used to the feeling and controls of it. Achivements are a nice little addition to it, and got most of them yesterday. The only one that will piss me off is the one that claims you must get to the top of the leader-boards or something? Whoever thought that would be fun. It may be fun in GRAW, but not in this classic shooter.
 
Anyways, i am in love with this XBLA title and will continuously play for the next few years. Excuse me whilst i go and kick some Expert sims asses in the challenges.

I agree, Perfect Dark is still as fun as it ever was to me.

it's better than anything else. 
other shooters seem bland, this one is incredibly diverse.
so many guns, options - still unrivaled after a decade. 

The only thing this game does poorly is the bounding box on certain guns. However, it is necessary with all the auto-aim going on.

How's the online play? I heard it was pretty laggy.

Only problem I have with it is that holding down LT to aim is basically impossible, especially since auto aim does everything for you.

The game is still tons of fun but, damn, precision aiming is really, really hard. Even with the sensitivity turned down, it's extremely hard to hold LT and get headshots. It's just really janky. To be fair, I don't play with autoaim, though.

Not enjoying Perfect Dark at all, give it a miss.

" Not enjoying Perfect Dark at all, give it a miss. "

I have the same experience with the precision aiming, but the original was quite "janky" as well.  I spent some quality time with the XBLA version really for the first time last night and I have to say, I had a blast.  I did the first couple of single player missions, then did all the holo-trainings available (those were different than I remember), then did the firing range with the weapons available (only 5 right now).  Overall I had as much fun as I remember with the firing range, and the gold medals seemed easier than I thought (though I may just have not gotten to the difficult weapons yet).  I found that not using precision aim at all was the best fit for me in the firing range, except possibly with zoom weapons.
 
Seriously though, the new version runs more smoothly than the N64, has superior controls, feels VERY fast after playing more modern shooters, and I just had a blast, even if it was quite easy on special agent difficulty.  Maybe I'll be able to get some of those cheats I never got in the old days...