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| Erwin's Pages Central > Articles > Games Reviews > No One Lives Forever | |||
   
  
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James Bond meets Austin Powers meets Liv Tyler Genre: 3D FPS Developed by: Monolith Published by: Fox Interactive/EA Groovy baby! That's the catch phrase I murmured for months after I say Austin Powers. Shaken, not stirred. That's the sentence repeated many times with my most convincing James Connery accent. Jezus god! Jezus Holy Mary God! That's what I shouted hysterically after I saw Liv Tyler in "One Night at McCool's". No One Lives Forever (NOLF) combines the best elements of stated movies. Can you imagine the length of my stay at Intensive Care after I played NOLF? In NOLF you are Cate Archer, a saucy new operative of the international security agency UNITY. You are to oppose the evil HARM terrorist organization. But actually, they're kinda pathetic. The setting of this game is a retro sixties Austin Powers scene. Totally groovy. Every mission starts with a briefing and intro cutscene. These are done btw ingame. Talking graphics, NOLF really is sweet. Resolutions of up to 1600x1200 in 32 bit, great character animation including facials, and highres textures. The 2.5 LithTech game engine runs very stable and perform quite well. Since its introduction Shogo, the LithTech engine has become one of the mainstays amongst bigtime 3D engines like Unreal/UT, Quake3 and MaxFX. But graphics are really only a part of what makes an FPS popular. Either you create a game that rules the multiplayer scene (Mods like Coutner-Strike) or you make a game that offers a singleplayer campagn that is so involving and superb, that everybody will remember it (Half-Life). Counter examples are Soldier of Fortune (fun but no depth), Reqiuem (sucky overall) and Quake III Arena (graphics standard but shallow multiplayer). No One Lives Forever boasts an excellent singleplayer campaign, truly involving and fun to play. Like I said, all the cutscenes are ingame. With lipsyncing and great voice-acting, conversations are quite interesting. The missions are very varied and throughly scripted. It'll happen quite a lot that "something comes up". This only makes the missions more interesting and intriguing. Missions include diving out of an airplane without parachute, infiltrating a construction site, scuba diving, etc. Here you see many influences of James Bond movies. What's also fun are the gadgets and weapons. Each mission more will become available. At the beginning of every mission, you can choose your equipment. Of course, you can't take all the gadgets and guns that are available with you. Although much equipment can be obtained in the mission itself, but you still need to balance what you'll take with you. The weapons include small revolvers and pistols, to nice SMGs and the AK47 to more exotic rifles like a silent sniperifle, a harpoon, a small grenade launcher and a a rocket launcher hid inside a briefcase. What's more, the bullet based guns support other types of bullets. Full Metal Jackets are standard bullets, but other types of ammo like dumdums, phosphorous coated and cynaide coated bullets have different effects. Dumdums have a bonus against unarmoured targets and cyanide tipped ammo poisons targets. The gadgets are also very fun. They are indeed cunning thingies disguised in an equally cunnning form. Perfumes for example come in many forms and odours, but Cate's perfumes will really knock you out. Literally. Stun, poison and sleep perfumes can prove quite effective. Also, your standard everyday cigarette lighter can perform as a welding torch. A coin can also be used as a distraction for guards. And camera disablers can turn off those nasty security cameras. Indeed you'll need to be a real spy. Some missions require you that you remain undetected. Security cameras will sound alarms if they lock on to you, as well as innocent bystanders. Guards can be stopped from sounding alarms by headshoting them, but civilians must remain unharmed. Another gameplay novelty are the intelligence items. These are things like briefcases, microfilms, loose files, etc. The more you collect, the higher your rank at the end of a mission. It's kinda silly actually, but fun none the less. Enemy AI is quite adequate. If a guard spots you, he'll probably sound the alarm and alert his fellow guards. They'll dodge your shots and take cover behind crates and other objects. They'll even roll out of the way to get to that cover. Aiming btw is done a bit like in Counter-strike: Running, jumping,etc decreases your accuracy. Accordingly your crooshair will widen. No One Lives Forever is shipped on two cds. You can full install the game, but that'll take + 1GB. Without it though, loading times are quite long, and sometimes irritating. Luckily this only occurs at the beginning of a mission, which can be quite large. The music is real groovy sixties style. Cool and never annoying. As I already said, the voice-acting is superb. The British accent are wonderful. Other accents like Scottish, German and American also pass the revue...Gunshots are also good, loud and short for the large sniper rifle and muted for the silenced SMGs. Oh and btw, the second cd of NOLF is packed with sixties music tracks. Perfect if you want to have a groove party. Multiplayer is not very extended, with only deathmatch and a HARM vs. UNITY co-op mode, where you need to photograph the other party's intel items. The maps are nice and the gadgets can be useful, but NOLF really is more of a singleplayer game, so multiplayer feels a bit like it's been added bacause it is obligatory. EP sez: No One Lives Forever really is quite refreshing. Just as we thought we've seen everything in FPS land and we vowed not to be surprised by any script since Half-Life, NOLF boasts an excellent overall experience. The groovy atmosphere, the cool graphics, the smooth and innovating gameplay. There actually is no real reason to skip this game. Try the demo and see for yourself. Pros and Cons + Great graphics + Innovative gameplay + Excellent scripting - Loading times (c) 2001 Erwin's Pages Erwin "Reaper" Husin Score Gameplay: 9,5 Graphics: 8,5 Sound & Music: 8,5 Addictiviness: 9 Overall: 91% Links: > Official NOLF Site > Monolith |
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