For many years now, PC gamers who needed to take a look at Uncommon’s seminal 2000 shooter masterpiece Excellent Darkish had been caught with the compromises inherent in emulating an getting older title designed for very totally different {hardware}. Now, over 23 years after its launch, Excellent Darkish has gotten the total PC port it so richly deserves, full with graphics and management updates that make the expertise far more pleasing for a contemporary viewers.

The “work-in-progress” port from GitHub consumer fgsfdsfgs is described as “largely practical,” with “minor graphics- and gameplay-related points, and probably occasional crashes.” However these are a small worth to pay for a model of the sport that comes full with full mouse-and-keyboard controls for the primary time, alongside a 60 fps body price, assist for contemporary widescreen monitor resolutions, and even the flexibility to load customized ranges.

After some fast testing, we will say that is simply one of the best ways to play Excellent Darkish right now. The mouse-and-keyboard controls specifically make this model of the sport stand out from the standard 2010 Xbox 360 port. And whereas the character fashions and degree designs can really feel a bit repetitive and blocky from a contemporary viewpoint, the added decision and upscaling signify a giant enchancment over the muddiness of the N64 unique (regardless of the enhancements enabled by the then-massive 4MB RAM growth pack).

The brand new port is an outgrowth of a months-long decompilation mission that was accomplished simply over a yr in the past. On the time, mission lead Ryan Dwyer famous a handful of decompiled features weren’t an ideal byte-for-byte match for the unique N64 code however ended up “functionally the identical” because the supply materials.

As with earlier N64 decompilation tasks like Tremendous Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, the reverse-engineered PC code doesn’t embody any copyrighted picture visible or audio information. Gamers should present their very own legitimate ROM file containing these belongings for the port to work.

Elsewhere on the earth of N64 decompilation, a mission searching for to recreate the code of Uncommon’s Banjo-Kazooie has been sitting just a few proportion factors from completion for months with no obvious progress. An effort to decompile GoldenEye 007 has equally stalled wanting the end line. Parallel efforts to decompile Mario Kart 64 and Majora’s Masks have been making steadier progress in current weeks, although each are nonetheless some time away from completion.

Should you’re on the lookout for different traditional console video games which have gained new life via unofficial PC ports recently, could we advise testing the unofficial tasks for Jak and Daxter and WipeOut.