I could just sum things up and say I find Half-life’s Single-Player side a boring game that makes me suffer from motion sickness in under 10 minutes, and that No One Lives Forever(NOLF) seems to be the cure. This would make for a short, albeit TRUTHFUL, review, and I think there’s so much more to tell about this particular game, and it’s lineage.The Lithtech engine is a wonderful little gem, and in the past, Jason Hall, the CEO of Monolith, has gotten the LithTech coders to conjure up some wonderful bits of magic to show what this monster is capable of. 1998 brought us a Lithtech 1.0 engine game called Shogo:Mobile Armored Division. The game was wonderful, rich, had a FUN yet immersive story, and it’s fans were rabid for more. Due to what I believe was an unfortunate release date(a hair prior to Half-Life, see my recent article on Planetquake), it was overshadowed in the mainstream press.

But out of darkness came wisdom, and using that wisdom, Monolith kept developing their Lithtech engine, to it’s current 2.5 level. They increased the engine Licensee base, tweaked more, and arrived at the here and now. NOLF is MORE than just a showcase for LithTech technology. Technology is a TOOL for making a good game. Technology by itself does not make the game, and it’s gameplay, great, good, or even passable: it’s the work put in by game coders, script writers, voice actors, modelers, texture artists, mappers, and a ton of people backing them up to craft a STORY. This is where Monolith REALLY shines: although I believe they could pull off MOST of a game like NOLF without Lithtech, I’d rather it were done WITH the Lithtech engine.

The Lithtech 2.5 engine provides a amazing framework to produce many different TYPES of games, from FPS’s to 3rd-Person Perspective RPG’s. If you’ve never played a LithTech game, I’d advise you STRONGLY to go and download the demos for NOLF and SHOGO from their website. While the demos cover very little of the FULL story of the game, it does let you see how the game looks, and feels, and runs on your machine, and is well worth the download.

Enough about the ENGINE though, let’s look at THIS game, and see what makes it tick:
NOLF sets us in the end of the ’60’s as Cate Archer, former thief, and now agent for UNITY, a world-wide “Organization for Good”. Their primary enemies are the agents of HARM. The characters, on BOTH sides are over the top, deadly, AND FUN. Take, for instance, Magnus Armstrong, a former Scottish Army Seargant, now freelance operative working for HARM. He may be a “bad guy”, but he refuses to kill agent Archer when given the chance due to his own sense of morality which doesn’t allow him to kill a fellow Scot. Magnus has his own agenda, as do the other villians, and heroes, in this story. This is not a flat, linear world, so pay attention.

The game intermixes bits of Cold-War era terminology and mentions of real-life spy organizations into the dialogue to better give you a feeling of “being there in that time”. The plots (yes there are MANY plots and subplots to the overall storyline),all seem pretty well fleshed out. We’ve got bits of vengeance(for the death of your mentor), a mole hunt(traitor within the UNITY organization), a plot for world domination(what ELSE would a ’60s era spy game be about? EVERYONE wants to rule the world, especially the maniacal sickos!), an insidious weapon of mass destruction(ah, the wonders of German Science!), sexism(our heroine is afterall a WOMEN SPY in the ’60s, and her supervisors aren’t too keen entrusting the fate of the world to an inexperienced former thief!), as well as other issues.
Let it be HAY!!(click to enlarge)
After completing certain stages, agent Archer gets the opportunity to go to “Santa’s Workshop”, the games’ equivelant of “Q Section”, to be trained in the latest modifcations to your spy gear, as well as additional new equipment. The training sequences in themselves are entertaining as well as informative. When testing the Robotic Poodle(armed with pheremones) on a caged guard dog, I nearly laughed myself out of the seat when little red hearts started flying off the male dog. All the usual elements are there(cigarette lighter later gets upgraded with a welding attachment, knockout gas perfume sprayers, belt grappling hooks(I see a CTF mod in the making in my head folks!), explosive lipsticks, weapons with silencers, to name a few I’ve seen so far).

Cate’s missions will take you across a diverse series of terrain: skydiving, swimming, a mini-tour of Europe, and others. The buildings are well laid out, the texture work is beautiful. I found myself stopping in the midst of a gunfight(bad thing I know) to check out the cool posters/pictures on walls, as well as the detail in the general map textures. While falling from a exploding airplane, trying to get a chute from a HARM agent, I heard a bloodcurdling screen… Suddenly, a airplane seat with some guy still seat belted in falls past me. A funny distraction at the least, a bit of comic genius I think.

This game has elements of stealth management which remind me of Thief, a bit of Tomb Raider, the gadgetry and spy stuff of the Avengers(yummy Diana Rigg) and James Bond combined, with the light-heartedness of Austin Powers all rolled into one. Sometimes the dialogue sections between missions CAN be a bit wordy, so I enabled the subtitles so I could read ahead, and hit the spacebar to jump past the section when *I* finished reading it.

Game controls are pretty straightforward, with key/mouse button assignments being the same as most first-person shooters. Personal recommendation, turn left and turn right are useless, set the left/right arrows to left/right SIDESTEPPING for circle-strafing! When the feces hits the fan, run circles around your opponents!

Every game has to have a weak spot, and NOLF is no different. Out of the box, the netcode for multiplayer gaming is lag-happy. This happened before when Shogo was released, but since both games were really designed to shine primarily in SINGLE PLAYER mode, it’s fairly forgivable. Shogo released a patch shortly after it went to market which addressed most of the netcode issues, and enhanced the multiplayer experience overall. I’m fairly sure Monolith is already aware of the netcode issues, and is dutifully focusing on a patch for NOLF which will smooth out network play.

The multiplayer game has two modes, deathmatch(you against everyone), and Good vs Evil. Good vs Evil centers not around flags, but spy related items. Each team must infiltrate the enemy base to photograph intelligence items within the enemy controlled area, while keeping their opponent away from the intelligence items in their base. It’s more of a Defend and Control style scenario, which I like playing in Tribes, by Dynamix.

Expandability:
Lithtech games usually have an editor for maps/models as well as a version of the game source, which can be used to make mods, available soon after release. Hopefully, once Monolith/Fox release a netcode patch to stabilize that part of the game, they’ll assemble all the source for third party authors to create mission packs, new modes of gameplay, character models, and maps for the online community to enjoy. I have info, from a very reliable industry insider, that the tools WILL most likely be released in the near future, but it’s Fox Interactive’s call and they could decide otherwise. In my opinion this would be a mistake, for once you’ve explored the singleplayer storylines, and their variations, the 3rd party additions are going to be where most people will be playing the game. The more options, the longer the life of the product.

Final word:
Brit-Spy tv shows have a special kinda of wit to them, and that has been captured faithfully in NOLF. You get the sight-gags, but you get so much more: An in-depth story, fleshed out characters, gobs of terrain and buildings to run over, and crawl/swim inside, and vehicles to drive over people (running down a badguy while riding a motorcycle kicks arse!). By the time you FINISH the single-player storyline, the multiplayer patch should hopefully be out and we’ll hopefully see coders getting to work on the mods we’ll be playing afterwards.
Verdict: 95%

Good:

FUN!
Visually stimulating
Agent Archer is sexy!
Challenging stealth-oriented missions
Not just a shoot-em-up!
Bad:

Netcode weak in initial shipping version
Had problems using Detonator drivers with this game