No One Lives Forever

The other major weakness of this port is that the engine is looking very old.  The models are very harsh and boxy, the colors dull and washed out, looking every bit the cutting edge engine of 1998, but when you look at something like Halo or even TimeSplitters it becomes painfully obvious that the visuals are horribly dated.  Even a little polish would have been nice to help bring the '60s motif of NOLF a little more style.  Graphics may not be the most important thing in a game, but when they look as out of date as they do here it’s very disappointing.

On the other hand the audio of the game is generally quite good.  The footfalls and other ambient sounds are believable, however the sounds of gunfire have a somewhat artificial feel to them.  The voice acting, though, is very good.  Each of the characters has a lot of, well, character, as their individual personalities come through.  Even better is that the dialogue is well written and the acting is very well done, not the usual hack job for voice work that gets put into most games.  There are some particularly humorous conversations between the guards as you prepare to make your strike, so sometimes it’s better to wait an extra minute to listen in on what they’re saying.  Music too is very well written in NOLF, handily bringing that 60s James Bond super spy flair that the game taps into.

The voice acting of the game also goes a long way to carrying the story.  The good thing about the narrative in NOLF is that it never really tries to take itself too seriously, following the sort of 60s spy movie style that by its very nature can’t be taken seriously.  It all boils down to being a very refreshing change from the legions of high and mighty pseudo-intellectual plots of grandiose world conspiracy that every other publisher out there seems so intent on jamming down our throats of late.

Weapon selection is decent throughout the game with a nice mix of semi and fully automatic weapons of the period, but to add that 60s secret agent touch there are many neat little gadgets that can be used to get out of sticky situations, like lock pick barrettes that double as a small knife, lipstick explosives, special powders to dispose of corpses and so on.  Better still is that they can regularly be useful, they aren't just some gimmicks that are used once in the entire game, then relegated to some dark corner of your inventory.

NOLF’s strongest feature though is its emphasis on stealth.  This isn’t the sort of game where you run into the enemy installations guns blazing, as that would sort of defeat the whole purpose of being a spy, now wouldn’t it?  The vibe is far more like that of Thief or Metal Gear Solid in that you must sneak past the guards undetected, preferably without actually killing them to complete you mission, remaining wary of cameras, spotlights, and other surveillance equipment all the while.  On top of this the level design is exemplary.  The way the corridors are setup, the room placement, the debris to hide behind, it all lends itself to the game’s emphasis of subtle infiltration.

Unfortunately for all of NOLF’s good points, the controls just make the game too frustrating to be worth investing any time in the title.  Players’ aggravation will be in overdrive within a few missions of starting the game, and those who make it to the end will have, in all likelihood, developed a twitch.  Throw in the dated engine, and things just get worse.  If you really want to play this game, dig up the original PC version, this port simply isn’t worth the time.

- Mr. Nash

(May 14, 2002)