The Operative: No One Lives Forever

"Amazingly Varied and Entertaining Action Game"

A few years ago, games like Half-Life and Unreal tried to infuse innovative and creepy FPS games with a strong story element. These games were high quality and popular long after their releases. Later, the genre was advanced by games like System Shock 2 and Thief: The Dark Project. You didn't go around shooting everything in these games. They were more about stealth. Deus Ex added stronger RPG elements. The leap forward in FPS games is brought to us by Monolith, makers of the superb Shogo: Mobile Armor Division.

No One Lives Forever seems at first glance to be some sort of cheap Austin Powers knockoff. Even after playing it for awhile, it does get a little cheezy, but most of the damage is diffused by the storyline's self awareness. NOLF never takes itself seriously, which allows you to sit back and actualy ENJOY the storyline for once.

The missions you will play in this game are all from the first person perspective, but most of them are as varied and unique as any PC game since Thief. Some levels are mostly exploratory, some are shootouts, some are stealthy. Some really interesting novelty missions are thrown in for good measure, and they are all spectacular. Especially notable are the snowmobile, the skydiving mission, and the creepy atmospheric diving mission.

The game is powered by the new Lithtech engine (the new version of the same engine that powered Shogo), so if you've seen Shogo, you know how powerful it was five years ago. Monolith has certainly created something amazing and unbelievably extensible with the Lithtech engine, and are a true success story of independent game makers. (and just wait until NOLF2 for the LithTech 3.0). The downside of LithTech is that it isn't extremely optimized, so you need a powerful box to run this game well, maybe even a Pentium 800, with the settings up high.

Graphically, the game is beautiful, and the light sourcing is the best in any current PC engine. The colors are bright and extremely tacky, which adds to the appeal of the game. The environments you play in are extremely varied, including extended water and snow levels.

The music for the game is good, if a bit too derivative of every other spy parody (or movie in general). The voice acting in the game is hilarious (you will laugh too when you hear the H.A.R.M. puppet), and never too intrusive. Most of the dialogues between NPCs are genuinely funny.

The game might be a little easy on the lower difficulty settings, but its enormous length makes up for that. Your average FPS gamer will be spending about 40-50 hours on this one.

By all means, if you are a fan of games and have a good box to run it on, NOLF is the near the apex of computer gaming. It goes highly reccommended, despite the low-level of multiplayer participation.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/02, Updated 06/12/03