Was a new Perfect Dark shown last month behind closed doors?
Rare patents a rather familiar player deception method
Perfect Dark 2 could be in the making. We mean the third Perfect Dark, not the second. That’s what happens when you start making prequels if you still plan to do sequels: that everything gets fricking confusing at some point. Like Star Wars for the non-believers. Anyway, there are people out there who still want to believe in Joanna Dark because they liked Perfect Dark Zero, so this could be great news for some of us.
According to Surfer Girl, a build of the next instalment in the Perfect Dark series was secretly shown in the E3 and she/he/it was there to see it. The news is several weeks old, because nobody seems the have paid enough attention, including us. Maybe because the story sounds like those about UFO sightings in the Moon as told by septuagenarian astronauts and Pentagon engineers that have nothing better to do with their lives. However, this could be true. “From what I’ve seen, the sequel to Perfect Dark on Xbox 360 is going to right a few wrongs with the first, but it’s really too early to tell if Rare can deliver a shooter to really live up to it’s glory days,” said Surfer Girl.
Rare is always working on stuff that doesn’t ever see the light of day, only as a test for possible future releases. We do know that sometime in the past, they worked with shooter-oriented engines to test the possibilities of either an upcoming Perfect Dark or similar titles. Does that mean that Joanna Dark will be back next year? Surfer Girl may think so. But we will wait for further announcements before assuming anything.
For now, we can say that Rare did actually patent a player deception method for videogames, apparently with Perfect Dark in mind, as it can be seen on a US patent application form with the names of Chris Tilston and Laurence Cheers placed on it. Both guys worked on GoldenEye and Perfect Dark before and the picture included in the application sheet comes from an obvious screenshot from PDZ.
The patent is dated March 15, 2006, and it deals with the ability to monitor other players’ positions on the radar based on the noises they make. This way, if somebody shoots a decoy bullet and it hits a pipeline, the clank of the gunshot would trigger a signal on other peoples’ radar systems. Also, there is possibility of cloaking your own signal and then appearing as a friend on your foes’ interface.
All these cool ideas were actually in Perfect Dark Zero back in 2005, several months before the patent application was filed. As a matter of fact, some of them were even in the original Perfect Dark eight years ago. But, just like everybody seemed to forget that you could take cover on Perfect Dark Zero about a year before Epic Games implemented the movement on Gears of War, perhaps Rare want to make sure that some of their ideas remain theirs in future releases.
Like… Perfect Dark 2?
Somehow related news
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- Wii fans more interested in Battletoads than Twycross’ bosses ()
- Rumours on a second Perfect Dark sequel / prequel arise ()
- It’s the Banjo Countdown ()
- Reggienator wants 007 on Wii ()
4 Comments
I don’t know if PDZ2 is on the works, but anybody (like surfer girl) can guess that sooner or later they are going to make it; and with a bit of luck surfer girl can be right, or not; everyone on the internet would had been able to make that ‘prediction’ too.
Comment by Àlarik — 27.Aug.08 @ 10:20 pm
OMG!! It’s Perfect Dark 2!!
I need This game, pleaseeee!! xD
This is my favorite game!! = )
I really hope that Perfect Dark 2 is going to be more like PD on N64 and im aso hopping a better history than PDZ.
In fact i only bought Xbox 360 for that game and i very got dissapoinment about the multiplayer Stuff… Weapons are awfuly bad(is because is a prequel so weapons are not so tecnologic…Jo hair’s is very awful…i like more n64 hair) and some movements that seems to be cool in 1player mode(like slides or forward slides) in multiplayer is`nt so cool…also the maps are bad good grafics in all but very bad stages, i been thinking a lot and the multiplayer in n64 is a lot better than PDZ; Why?… the complex of movements and the speed of characters are bad done i mean everybody wants to shot well (head shots) and sliding you can`t even shot also playing against 8 easy machines u can play well speed is slow u cant turn fast to shot you cant chase because theres no way to go faster than another so you cant hunt.
Talking about matches pvp is the same think…however i dislike when i die because theres no blood like before in N64 game i cant remember more mistakes in the game by now but they shoul continue with the way that PERFECT DARK in n64 is…I mean the gameplay was very good, With better grafics it could uff… the think is that perfect drk zero was very greed so it dosnt work… anyway i hope next would be like n64 with more cool graphics…more cool stuff…and same weapons please they are great(n64 weapons).
I just hope Perfect dark 2 is more like Perfect Dark 64 and not like PDZ.
Comment by The BS Police — 27.Aug.08 @ 7:19 pm