Xbox Live Arcade has fostered a new home for countless classic games, and Nintendo 64-era Rareware titles have aged like fine wine. Alright, maybe it’s more of an acquired taste, but to be brutally honest, replaying Rare’s decade-old back catalogue is more enjoyable than anything it’s released of late. In 2008, the company tidied up its Mario-esque platformer Banjo Kazooie with great success as an incentive for Nuts & Bolts pre-orders (followed by a port of Tooie, its sequel), but Rare upped the ante considerably in March with its latest reissue for Xbox Live Arcade: Perfect Dark.

Handled externally by 4J Studios, the re-release of the seminal 64-bit shooter is more than a mere port — and an obvious labor of love for a company that almost single-handedly proved that first-person shooters could excel on the home console. Any gamer that lived through the mid-1990s will remember the explosive popularity of Rare’s GoldenEye 007 and the all-night splitscreen deathmatch parties that made four controllers a necessity (though I seemed to always end up with that clunky third-party pad with the limp joystick and sticky B button).

Forgive me if I wax nostalgic, but nostalgia is my capital emotion in playing through Perfect Dark again. I know fans are somewhat torn on the original title. It saw release at the backend of the Nintendo 64’s lifecycle, less than half a year before the release of the monolithic PlayStation 2.

It’s probably because less people played it — and played it less — that Perfect Dark isn’t remembered by many as the better game. I remember thinking Perfect Dark improved upon other FPSs in every conceivable way. The single-player campaign wasn’t tethered to a movie tie-in, which freed the developers to have a little more fun with the narrative and level design; and multiplayer, though notably laggier than other FPSs, improved its customization options tenfold.

Everything that made Perfect Dark a great game at the turn of the millennium has survived its Xbox update — with significant improvements as well. To start, the tweaking of the game’s visuals goes above and beyond a glossy HD polish, with environmental textures and character models receiving a significant aesthetic bump, though the actual architecture of the game world remains unchanged.

As far as recreating the feel of the original, the decision is really genius. Said levels still have a sharp, polygonal look to them, and character models retain their inarticulate skeletons and propensity to overcompensate through gesticulation the fact that their mouths won’t sync or even open with speech. So, coated in a more palatable but hardly state-of-the-art graphical blanket, Perfect Dark retains all the antiquated charm of the outdated original while subtly and seamlessly improving the visual experience. It feels like a Nintendo 64 game without the inconvenience or unsightliness of the genuine article.

The issue of control change was a question as well, and with twin-stick shooters now being industry-standard, Perfect Dark ran the risk of not only feeling archaic, but also feeling completely crippled by the Xbox 360 controller. Thankfully, neither is the case, and 4J Studios implemented twin-stick support, though precision aiming is still handled by holding down the left-trigger, locking the player in place and, when applicable, zooming in via scope.

This is really the only part of the game that feels finicky to me, control-wise. The sensitivity of the crosshair in pinpoint aiming leaves a lot to be desired, but Rare has taken a few steps to neutralize the issue. As with the original, the game employs a helpful assisted-aiming system, and apparently, the company is also planning a title update that will add a look-sensitivity option.

Otherwise, selecting your preferred difficulty level and making your way through the game’s many missions couldn’t be simpler. The locales are wildly diverse, and most of the objectives are interesting and fun. There are some vague tasks that rely more on frustrating trial and error than on skill or cunning, however, and even having played the original, I found some of the game’s requests baffling and maddening.

Still, you’ll likely make it through the campaign in only a handful of sittings, but Perfect Dark has a ton of other features that round out the package. Most notably, Rare has taken the multiplayer experience online over Xbox Live, which honestly, I think shows its age far more than the story mode. Without the modern concessions of cover or avatar dexterity, multiplayer deathmatch often devolves into point-blank shoot-offs where best gun wins.

But that goes back to the nostalgia, which is why I, and so many others, downloaded the title in the first place. I question whether gamers growing up on FPSs made for next-gen consoles will get much out of the experience, but for those that still remember what Rare did for console shooters a paltry year and a half before the Xbox launched but missed Perfect Dark the first time around, there’s a lot to love in this reissue.

Perfect Dark for Xbox Live Arcade is the perfect way to play a classic, and for only 800 Microsoft points ($10), you’re getting fine wine at a bottom-shelf price.