No monkeys to spank this time around! (No One Lives Forever 2 (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	No One Lives Forever 2 (PC)
Date:	30/10/03 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Good graphics and sound, Some interesting ideas

Disadvantages: Some elements poorer than original

The original No One Lives Forever (NOLF) was, for me, an original first person shooter (FPS) which probably didn't do as well as it should have done commercially in the face of other big name games from around the same time, despite some excellent pieces of innovation.

Thankfully, it must have performed well enough for Fox Interactive to go ahead and create a sequel.

Cate is back, and still tracking down the evil HARM villains. The first mission, right at the start of the game, takes you to a Japanese village where you're meant to photograph a meeting between HARM's leader and other, nasty people. There's no introduction animation like last time, and you're thrown right in at the deep end. It's only once you complete this mission that you're given a better idea of what's going on. Mr Jones, UNITY's boss, is off on holiday and leaves your mentor Bruno Lawrie in charge, much to his chagrin, and Bruno charges you with the task of finding what HARM is up to this time, and bring the scoundrels to justice.

So here we are again in the good old 1960s. When you've installed the game and tweaked whatever options you want to tweak and get into the game, the first thing you'll notice is that the graphics engine has been much improved. While things do look a lot better with better water effects, detail in characters etc. the semi-cartoon feel from the original has been retained. Given the tongue-in-cheek nature of the game, this is excellent and keeps the atmosphere well away from the usual too serious sci-fi FPSs such as Quake or Unreal.

Once again, there is a variety of locations for you to explore. You start off in Japan, but will visit India, Antarctica, an American small town, an undersea HARM station, UNITY HQ and an underground HARM base.

The physics engine within the game has been improved since NOLF, and if you kill an enemy somewhere precarious, like over a trap door or on a slope,
gravity will play a part in moving the body where it should go and long gone are the days where a corpse will lean out over a sheer drop with 5% of its body on solid ground.

Some of the characters are exceptionally funny this time around, and designed as well, if not better, than the original. The Director (HARM's leader) is very funny, as is the Mime King and some returning characters include Magnus Armstrong (a Scot with a taste for whisky and fighting) and Dmitri Volkov. As with the first game, a lot of the humour is hidden and by running around shooting anything that moves will mean you'll miss a lot of the little conversations which go on regarding such mundane matters as HARM's new morale officer ("What sort of mission statement is that?" "How can we be menacing in these new pink uniforms?") amongst others.

Sadly, some of the other things which made NOLF stand out don't seem to have improved at all. The enemy AI, for example, seems to have been pretty much neglected and is at the same level as the original game, if not worse.

The level design seems to have stayed static in terms of problem solving and variety, and there are only a few instances where you deviate from the normal FPS route of simply shooting things. There are less of the other types of levels that made NOLF such a joy to play, such as riding a vehicle or the stealth levels which is a shame because these helped NOLF stand out from the rest of the FPS crowd.

Once again, the difficulty levels can be changed to suit your expertise, and as well as manually selecting a level difficulty various stats which are displayed at the end of each level can also be used to increase difficulty. For example, amount of damage you have taken, or the number of head shots inflicted upon enemies are both displayed, giving you something to aim for.

A new aspect in NOLF 2 is the experience system which allows you to increase some attribute
s which enables you to take better advantage of some items and perform better at some tasks. For example, increasing your weapons skill lets you increase your accuracy with weapons, which is handy when you get the sniper rifle later in the game as you don't suffer from the wobble that would be apparent if you were unskilled in weapons. Increasing your search or gadget skill means less time is spent searching bodies or cabinets, or making use of gadgets to weld padlocks or pick locks. This adds a nice touch and makes things slightly more interesting with the use of a simple system without wading into complicated role playing territory.

Overall, I have two opinions on NOLF 2. If you've played (and enjoyed) the original NOLF game, then you may be slightly disappointed in what has (or hasn't) been done in NOLF 2. This is not to say that the sequel is poor, because it isn't.

If you haven't played the original, then you may find that NOLF 2 is an enjoyable, tongue-in-cheek FPS worth your time and money although be aware that you might not get full enjoyment due to the amount of in jokes and back story dependant on the original.

If you have played the original, I'd rate NOLF 2 as: 3.5 stars out of 5.
If you haven't played NOLF, I'd rate NOLF 2 as: 4 stars out of 5.

System Requirements No One Lives Forever 2 (PC)
Windows 98/ME/2000 (SP3)/XP
DirectX 8.1 or higher (included with game)
Pentium 3 500 MHz or equivalent (although I would consider having at least a 1 GHz processor before buying this game)
128 MB RAM (256MB for Windows XP and more is always better)
32MB Direct3D DX8 compatible graphics card
1.4 GB free Hard Drive Space for installation plus additional hard drive space for a Windows swap file and saved game files
4x CD ROM
16-bit sound card

Summary: