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PC | Action | No One Lives Forever

Boxart for No One Lives Forever
No One Lives Forever 9 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.0
  • SOUND: 4.5
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 4.5
  • AVG USER SCORE n/a
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.5
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Review: No One Lives Forever

Review by John Marrin | 11/15/2000 | 00:00:00 AM PST

Yeah baby, yeah! Swinging spy spoof brings the fun back to first person shooters.

When asked for comment, Austin Powers called No One Lives Forever "a shagadelic experience not to be missed!" But don't simply take his word for it. No One Lives Forever manages to blend camp humor and diverse gameplay into a challenging and surprisingly well done first person shooter. You play as Cate Archer, an up and coming female operative in the top secret international counterintelligence agency known as UNITY. Someone has been killing off UNITY field agents, and the top brass is beginning to suspect an inside job. Your mission: track down the double agent.

In No One Lives Forever, you'll guide Cate through a huge variety of missions in locations all over the world. But before you?re allowed to take on the real assignments, the game makes you go through a detailed training tutorial at headquarters to learn the skills you need. Once you're out in the field, however, you'll have to rely on your wits as well.

Cate can't heal while on a mission, so you need to be particularly careful not to get her shot or otherwise wounded. She'll also need to utilize stealth on a number of missions, by tossing coins to distract guards, avoiding security cameras, and pulling off other equally sneaky tricks. Cate will also get to scuba dive, drive an assortment of vehicles, and snipe at unsuspecting targets. Other missions let you tear around blasting just about everything in sight, but there are usually a number of twists to each level that you'll have to figure out. Cate's equipment isn't limited to weapons either. In classic spy movie fashion, her barrette is not only a lockpick? it's also a poison tipped mini knife. Cate also gets to use camera sunglasses, exploding lipstick, and a large assortment of other items that would make James Bond's Q quiver with delight. It makes for a very convincing "reality" overall.

Set in the swinging sixties, the visuals in NOLF are colorful and fun to look at. Bad guys wearing stereotypical red fez hats, white suits, and sunglasses chase Cate through Morocco, while somber East German soldiers blast at her in Berlin. There are plenty of innocent bystanders in many of the missions, so you need to avoid civilian casualties as well, making the game more than just a frag-fest.

The Lithtech engine has come a long way since its first incarnation, and the textures, even when zoomed up close through a rifle scope are amazingly crisp. Character animations are solid as well: guards roll to dodge gunfire, and enemies have many slow and agonizing death animations. The only hit against the graphics are that the character models are a bit low on the polygon count, and sharp angles on legs, arms, and faces detract from the experience. Still, NOLF is a visual feast, and the graphics are backed by a swanky soundtrack that borrows from classic spy films and changes according to the action onscreen. In addition, the voice acting is well done with a lot of corny, but still funny, jokes and one liners.

One downside to NOLF is the multiplayer game limitations. There are only two options available: deathmatch and team deathmatch. You get to pick from a big selection of skins for your player, but the scenarios are very stripped down with little object detail. The lag time can also be incredibly stifling on a 56K modem. Still, you can't run down other players with a snowmobile in any other online game!

Overall, No One Lives Forever succeeds on two levels. First, it's a really fun and challenging first person shooter that makes you think before you shoot. Secondly, the humor, characters, and sense of style create a world that is more memorable than most recent PC games. Deus Ex was hailed as the most innovative PC shooter of the recent crop, but No One Lives Forever gives it a run for its money. Even after you've finished playing No One Lives Forever, the memory will live on.