This game will be graded on a 1-10 scale, 10 being best.

Story: 6

The story is kind of hard to understand. It takes place in the future. An alien race called the Skedar have made a deal with Datadyne to uncover a spaceship that was a weapon that can destroy the Earth. So Joanna Dark of the Carrington Institute most stop them by completing missions.

Graphics: 9

This game has really great graphics. The levels look very realistic, as well as the guns and explosions. This category lost a point because the faces of the characters have pretty terrible expressions and you can barely tell who's who. The Skedar looked really nice though. Also, the sky has no sun except in the Skedar Ruins (which isn't even on Earth). Most objects are still cardboard. The water was just plain terrible. You shoot it, and nothing happens. One of the best N64 games as far as graphics go.

Levels: 8

The levels are great! They range in size, most being big. Unfortunately, you can't play any of the solo mission levels in multiplayer expect for different versions of some of them. Good levels include the Ravine, Temple, Area 52, and Ruins. There could have been more multiplayer levels and less repeats of levels in solo.

Music: 10

Yes. This is a Rare game, and as always, Rare games have great music. This game is no exception. I loved the music in this game and for the most part, they matched the mood of the level. My personal favorites are Datadyne Action, Datadyne Central, and Deep Sea. Also in the solo levels, when your character is in danger, a remix of the course level will begin to play, nearly doubling the amount of music.

Characters: 3

This is kind of where the game suffers a little. There are lots of characters, but very few are memorable. You will probably only remember Joanna Dark and Elvis, who are pretty much the only people you see more than once. At least in multiplayer, you can choose from several kinds and difficulties of simulants.

Difficulty: 6

This game is definitely challenging for anyone. The problem is, it's too challenging, at least in solo. Agent is easy enough for most, but Special Agent is very hard and Perfect Agent is impossible. I am considered an elite in this game, but I haven't beat a single level on Perfect Agent yet. The difficulty on multiplayer, however, is about perfect. You can set simulants at any of six difficulties; meat, easy, normal, hard, perfect, and dark. The simulants are morons though and will occasionally walk off a cliff and almost always walk into an explosion. They have an obvious difference in speed, aim, awareness, and knowledge of weapon location. There isn't much of a difference between perfect and dark. The higher sims may skip a bad weapon for a good weapon and die on the way, because they were unarmed. The sims have also been known to cheat. They can somehow shoot a gun almost before they pick it up and they can reload faster. Overall the sims are a good challenge but are sometimes easy due to their stupidity. Overall this game is, if anything, too hard.

Controls: 7

The controls are fairly easy. They are exactly the same as Goldeneye. Z is to shoot, A is to change weapons, B is to reload and open doors, R is to aim and zoom in if your weapon has that ability. Some people may never find out how to crouch because it requires several buttons. C up and C down make you look up and down and C left and right make you dash to the left and right. It takes some getting used to, but with C left and right you can run faster, which helps a lot in unlocking those secrets.

Secrets: 4

This game has a lot of secrets. A real lot. The problem is, most are extremely difficult to get. Most are in solo missions and you have to beat a level within a certain amount of time which is near impossible. In multiplayer, you have to beat challenges to unlock levels and guns. Much easier than solo, but still quite a challenge.

Modes: 5

This was dropped mostly because without the expansion pack, you can only play one mode. Each mode will be graded separately.

Carrington Institute: 2

Pretty boring. You get training here. The only really fun part is the target tests. They're fairly challenging and you unlock some guns for beating them.

Solo Missions: 5

This follows the storyline. This is where you complete missions. You unlock a majority of the secrets here. This can get boring after a while, as agent is too easy the other modes are too hard. Has lots of levels, characters, and great music though.

Multiplayer: 10

By far the best mode, and also the only one you can use without the expansion pack. This has its own modes. Challenges for unlocking stuff, quick play for when you're in a hurry, and advanced setup for hours of fun. You can have up to four players and eight simulants in a level at a time. There are six game types, several levels, several sims to choose as your enemies or teammates, and a huge arsenal of guns to choose from. I personally enjoy capture the case with darksims. In options, you can look at your stats. You will be given a level based on your skill and you will continue to go up until you reach 1, which I don't know what it is yet. It will take a VERY long time to get to 1 as I've been playing on my character for thousands of hours and I'm only on four which is (hint hint) elite. Also in options, you can choose what music you want to play and the names of each team. Of course, I change the team names to Koopaling names.

Co-operative: 6

Exact same thing as solo missions but with two players. You can't unlock anything in Co-operative.

Counter Operative: 7

This is a bit more fun. It's in Solo Mission mode, but instead of player two being your teammate, they are your enemy! They will take control of a guard in the level. That can make the first player have more of a challenge or an easier one if player two wants to be traitorous and shoot his fellow guards.

Replayabilty: 10

You will definitely be playing this again to unlock the secrets and for multiplayer which never gets boring. I've been playing this game for three years and I'm still not bored.

Fun Factor!: 10

Like I said before, this game never gets boring in multiplayer. Although you may get bored of the other modes due to difficulty.

Overall: 9

This is definitely a great game. It is my favorite and possibly the best one on N64. Solo missions may bore some due to its difficulty, but multiplayer alone would have made this game a classic.

Recommendation: Buy this game! It's definitely worth the expansion pack and is almost worth buying a N64 just for this game.

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