 |
| Biology of a DarkSim |
|
Don't like the background eh. Click on one of these buttons to change the white bit. I recommend the blue or the grey. |
| One of the best pages on my website by far! For those of you who have never lived the terror of a DarkSim - lucky you! I'll explain. In Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64 you can play against bots (computer controlled opponents) in multiplayer mode. There are several difficulties to choose from. Please bear in mind that these descriptions are coming from one of the best Perfect Dark players on the planet. I don't mean to brag but if you were to take on these opponents you would probably find them a lot harder to beat than I do (MeatSim being the only exception - they're piss no matter who you are). Here are the descriptions: |
| 1 - MeatSim: The easiest opponent by far. The only times you are allowed to be killed by one of these is... erm...... never, and... err... never! OK. I get killed once or twice when I take on 8 of them, all on a team against me, with one hit kills on, when I don't have a gun, when they all shoot at me at once! I know! I'll have to go and hang myself! But seriously. Except in very extreme cases (like the one just mentioned) you should be able to put your controller down, have a snack, read your favourite book a few times and chisel out the bible onto stone tablets before a MeatSim even notices you're there. You get the picture. |
| 2 - EasySim: Ever so slightly harder than a MeatSim but still too easy. This one is a good game for a complete beginner who has never even held an N64 controller. They can aim - just, but it still takes them about 3 seconds to shoot. To a veteran these things are just walking targets! |
| 3 - NormalSim: These things are meant to be about as good as an average human player. They have basic aim and reaction times and should not be underestimated in a one-hit-kill situation. These are good for adding more fun to human vs human matches. Just throw in these for a few more targets. From here on you will begin to notice the sims 'cheat'. Examples are superhuman ladder climbing, and faster reloading than you. They can also disarm a man at 20 paces. |
| 4 - HardSim: Similar to a good human player. They have a very good aim, reasonable - ish reaction times, they use the radar and know how to set up simple traps. I usually play 8 of them in complex with one hit kills, all Falcon 2s and every man for himself settings. I am about as good as them in these settings. They certainly should not be underestimated by excellent players as taking one of these on usually ends up with you face down in a pool of blood! From here on the phrase "for gods sake whats the f*cking point" will be commonplace. |
| 5 - PerfectSim: They have about 99% accuracy, can run, climb and shoot about as fast as an excellent player, have very fast reaction times, use the radar very well and can certainly use any situation to their advantage. Prepare to die!! |
| DarkSims |
| "Prototype cyborg developed by dataDyne to counteract Carrington operatives. Remember that this simulant, unlike all the others, is not human. This means that it may be able to do things which a human cannot." The in-game description. |
| Accuracy - A DarkSim could probably shoot the balls off a flea that was travelling on a speeding bullet without slowing the bullet down or hurting the flea! Oh yeah. The DarkSim is blindfolded and only has a bow and arrow. But seriously. They are about as accurate as PerfectSims except they always shoot for the head. This makes them easier in one-hit-kill situations because they have a smaller target to aim for, as opposed to PerfectSims who can hit you anywhere with 99% accuracy. |
| Reaction time - Practically zero. In some cases it goes into the minus numbers! There have been some cases where I have been waiting around a corner for one of them and it has started to shoot before it could actually see me! If you play them on one-hit-kills settings their combination of accuracy and reactions means that if you see one you have almost zero time to aim and shoot. If you miss - you die. If you take longer than about 0.1 seconds to aim - you die. Simple. |
| Speed - Only about the top 20 players in the world can out-run, out-shoot and out-climb one of these things so watch out! If anyone has ever watched one of these run around the radar you will see them shoot across it at blinding speeds. |
| Intelligence - These things are super intelligent. They use radar perfectly and can set up very complex traps which even the best players in the world fall for. They must have some kind of built in map of every level stored inside their brains because they always seem to know where you are and where you are going to respawn after they kill you. Their intelligence even gets to the level of being scary! It's sick! Sometimes Andy Checkley and I play against 2 of them in Felicity. We get together our guns and fortify ourselves into the toilets. Because the sims know how well protected we are they don't touch us. They just sit and wait outside the door. They then lose the game because they sat there doing nothing so next game they start rushing us trying to break our defences and they beat us because they have perfection on their side. They actually learn from you and your mistakes during the game!!! So next game we put up some laptop sentry guns to protect us even more. They rush us and we slaughter them. So what do they do next game? They run to the opposite end of the level as far away from us and our guns as they can get. Basically they are scared of us! (Either that or they know we'll set sentry guns so they stay away from them). The only way you can stop their intelligence and set them back to normal is to reset the machine and restart the game!! Sick. |
| Cheating - All simulants cheat to a certain extent. MeatSims cheat by being so crap that we fall asleep and then using this moment to try and kill us. HardSims upward can generally do things that us human players can't do. For example: they can re-load guns faster than humans, they can disarm enemies from a lot further than any human player can and they can do that annoying bullet dodge thing that makes them impossible to hit. That's nothing compared to a DarkSim. The main difference is that DarkSims cheat as much as an Argentinian football team. If you watch on the radar you can see them run at impossible speeds accross the terrain, moving through walls, just to kill you. Note that you never see them do this, but according to the radar, and popular belief, they do. Killing one of these pays you off with the 'buzz factor'. That feeling which reminds you of the time you burnt your homework diary on the last day of school. |
| DarkSim Vision |
|
 |
| Human Vision: |
| It takes about 2 seconds to aim and shoot with average accuracy. The shot misses. |
| DarkSim Vision: |
 |
| It takes about 0.01 seconds to calculate wher the player will be in about 0.16 seconds, about 0.1 seconds to aim the gun and about 0.05 seconds to fire the shot which hits the other player between the eyes and the DarkSim gets an instant kill! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Features of a DarkSim |
|
| Magnetic hands: To pick up a gun from 5 metres away. |
| Extended arms: To disarm players from across the room. |
| Molecular structure modifiers: To walk through walls and float through non existent terrain. |
| Special radar in brain: Notifies simulant where player is about to spawn. |
| Eyes in back of head: To detect players trying to surprise it. |
| Hands coming out of arse: To open doors without turning a around and exposing its back. |
| Location modulator: Allows the simulant to resonate at impossible frequencies in order to avoid fire. |
| Super human legs: Allows simulant to turn run and climb faster then physically possible. |
|
|