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No One Lives Forever is a story-driven, first-person adventure
delivering over-the-top action, tense subterfuge, outrageous
villains, and wry humor in the tradition of the great 1960s
films and TV shows. Players assume the role of Agent Archer, an
operative working for a covert anticrime organization. Armed with
an assortment of conventional and experimental weaponry and
gadgets, players explore exotic locales and contend with deadly
agents as they evade traps, unravel mysteries, and become
entangled in a cleverly constructed conspiracy that threatens the
entire free world.
Review
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Just when it seemed as if first-person shooters had run out of
ideas, along comes No One Lives Forever to reinvigorate the
genre. Two years after the release of Half-Life, a first-person
shooter has finally arrived that's so stylish, so ingenious, so
well written, so well acted, and otherwise so great that this
review won't have to include the expression "it's no Half-Life" -
except for right there. No One Lives Forever takes the impressive
enemy artificial intelligence of Half-Life, the stealth features
of Thief: The Dark Project, and the gadgetry of the console
shooter GoldenEye 007 and then combines them all with a unique,
colorful '60s setting and a great sense of humor. The resulting
game's unrelenting inventiveness shows in virtually every aspect
of its design.
Although you might expect that it's somehow inspired by Austin
Powers, No One Lives Forever's inspirations actually seem to be
drawn simply from the same cultural well as the Mike Myers
comedy. The game's plot is part Avengers and part Our Man Flint,
with a little Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs thrown in for good
measure. The story itself isn't especially engaging: The good
guys, an international antiterrorist organization called
U.N.I.T.Y., attempt to foil the world-domination plans of the bad
guys, a mysteriously well-funded group of homicidal lunatics
called H.A.R.M. But this simple plot acts as a framework on which
the designers have strung a great number of brilliantly absurd
details.
Someone at Monolith had the bright idea to portray the cutscenes
in the game using cinematic flair, rather than with bland camera
angles typical of most games. By locking the camera down and
framing each as if it really were from a movie, the
designers have given the game a singular look that really sets it
apart from the competition. The acting in No One Lives Forever is
so good and the dialogue is often so sharp that it'll cast a pall
over your memory of previous action games and might even ruin
your experience with future shooters that are any less
impressive.
Thankfully, the gameplay in No One Lives Forever is every bit a
match for the execution of its story. The game includes close to
60 levels spread over 15 diverse and often brightly lit and
colorful environments. Expect to spend more than 20 hours
finishing the single-player game. The action alternates between
missions in which shooting at things is the primary goal and
levels wherein the game's heroine, Cate Archer, must sneak
undetected from one place to another. Some missions combine the
two elements in surprising ways. True to the game's theme,
stealth is always rewarded, even though it's not always strictly
required. At the end of every level, you're ranked on your
performance, and a large part of your score is based on remaining
unseen.
Unlike many other shooters before it, No One Lives Forever never
settles into a boring routine. After a few more-standard shooting
or sneaking sequences, the game always adds an interesting twist.
It's a testament to the game's ingenuity that to describe the
setting or action of many of the levels would spoil a lot of the
fun of experiencing these sequences for the first time. But to
give you some idea of what to expect, here's a description of
just the very first mission. You must protect a clueless yet
surly ambassador from assassins as he stumbles around the streets
of Morocco. First you'll stand at a window and snipe enemies as
they appear at various spots in a building across the street.
Then you must sneak to another room, without alerting any
civilians to your presence, where you set up a new sniper nest
for another round of protecting the ambassador. Once you've
finished this sequence, your room is besieged by a group of
thugs, and a wild, close-quarters fight ensues. This is all in
the first level of 60.
Every fight in No One Lives Forever is very exciting thanks
to the game's truly outstanding artificial intelligence for enemy
characters. For starters, you won't ever witness an enemy running
in place or bumping into things as in many other shooters. It's
almost startling to realize just how much of an effect that one
detail can have on your sense of immersion in the gameworld. But
the developers have done much more than rectify that problem.
Namely, your enemies actually appear to care whether or not they
live or die. In large groups, they'll assault you head-on. But
alone or in pairs, they'll often run for cover and then switch
position if they notice you've moved. They'll knock furniture
over to hide behind, they'll stoop down to investigate the bodies
of their dead coworkers, and they'll even hunker down behind
tables, stick their weapons over their heads, and spray
suppressing fire blindly at you. The enemy behavior seems to
be partially scripted, but replaying a battle using different
tactics will often result in different enemy actions. What adds
to the illusion that you're taking on real, live nents is
that you'll frequently sneak up on henchman engaged in long,
often hilarious discussions to pass the time while going about
their tedious jobs. These conversations range from a critical
reevaluation of the Edsel to an argument over correlation versus
causality as it relates to consumption among criminals.
Delivered in a deadpan style that perfectly matches the dialogue,
these ancillary conversations are one of the best parts of the
game. You'll replay levels simply to hear dialogue you may have
missed by alerting the guards to your presence.
The motion-captured animation of the game's characters is also
top-notch. Although there aren't a huge number of different
character models, they're so well animated that they can express
emotion through body language alone. And you'll notice other
impressive details such as how enemies killed at the top of
stairways will actually come tumbling down. It's true that the
characters in No One Lives Forever don't take damage in so many
ways as in Soldier of Fortune; you can't vivisect them into forty
bloody pieces. But a single head will usually take an enemy
down, and chest hits appear to be more damaging than targeting a
limb, all of which is more than enough to reward accuracy over
wild shooting.
The graphics in No One Lives Forever are powered by the newest
version of Monolith's Lithtech engine. It seems a little less
technologically advanced than either the Unreal Tournament or
Quake III Arena engines. There are no curved or reflective
surfaces on display, and items you'll find throughout the game
frequently appear blocky. But it's hardly an issue. Regardless of
how many triangles the engine is spitting out, the art direction
in No One Lives Forever is spectacular, and the graphics are
colorful and always interesting. The game even saves and loads
data quickly, unlike other recent Lithtech-engine games.
The game's sound effects and '60s-era music are excellent as
well. Different game actions have different themes, which
actually segue from one piece to another without a jarring jump
cut. It's a subtle effect that's one of many other features that
make No One Lives Forever seem so polished.
To live up to the single-player game, the multiplayer experience
of No One Lives Forever would have to be pretty spectacular. In
short, it's not, though there's nothing really wrong with it
either. There's a built-in game finder, plenty of character
models to choose from, four deathmatch levels, and six s
designed for a capture-the- variant called U.N.I.T.Y. versus
H.A.R.M. The problem is that most of the elements that make the
single-player game special - the acting, the dialogue, the
sneaking, and the precisely orchestrated battles - are simply
absent from the multiplayer game. However, the multiplayer mode
does have a few interesting elements. For instance, motorcycles
and snowmobiles are provided to help you traverse a couple of the
larger s. But ultimately, there isn't a lot to differentiate
the multiplayer component of No One Lives Forever from that of
most other shooters.
Whatever minor problems or shortcomings there are in No One
Lives Forever are dwarfed by the technical expertise and sheer
creativity that went into it. The fact is that Monolith
Productions has finally delivered an undeniably superlative
action game.--Erik Wolpaw--Copyright © 2000 GameSpot Inc. All
rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or
medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
