The Operative: No One Lives Forever

THE OPERATIVE: NO ONE LIVES FOREVER has forever defined PC gaming! NOLF is the story of newly recruited UNITY agent Cate Archer. As Archer, you must find out what the evil organization HARM is up to - shooting, exploding, talking and running your way through things. Meet with a whole cast of characters, from the most evil to the most hilarious.

This is a hilarious action-comedy which has forever defined PC game...perhaps the greatest PC game ever! The graphics are stunning, and I've never seen a game like this. I can't wait for the upcoming sequel... ********8.4 [VIDEO GAME RATING]

I sincerely don't understand why this game, during the years, has been acclaimed as the sort of classic FPS masterpiece that in reality it isn't. It's because of Cate Archer alone? Yes, she's a great, sexy character and a study case for how to write strong, charismatic female leads, the humour is at first genuinely funny and the story, albeit a bit predictable, is interesting enough. The problem is, gameplay wise, this game is a mess. It wants to be a mash-up of stealth and FPS and, most of the times, it is mediocre-average at both. The stealth is, de facto, mostly impossible due to the cameras having the most inconsistent field of view ever (sometimes they can spot you from 5 kilometers away, sometimes they don't see you when you're standing right next to them) and the enemies being all - and I mean all - the typical Shogo: Mobile Armor Division stuff of hitscanning thugs that can spot and kill you from miles and miles of distance with one single shot of a Kalashnikov (the kind of which I never saw even when playing Duke Nukem 3D at its maximum difficulty years and years ago), which in turn not only makes the attempts at having a full-on stealth approach a là Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory worthless but it also makes extremely frustrating the driving sections because you always have to stop driving in order to kill said thugs as otherwise it's you who is going to be killed. Also, I might add that 1) the gadget selection is cute, but most of them serves nothing and 2) the ending streak of final bosses because reasens reeks of a void of ideas from a mile. On a last note, the level design is good generally speaking, but sometimes it's a bit confusing and the OST is good too.

If you want the best from the FPS era of Monolith productions get the first F. E. A. R. - which is leaps and bounds better than this - and you'll be better served overall, Cate Archer or not.

So many games are given this title of being a classic but how many of them manage to keep a your interest 6 years after the release? No One Lives Forever of NOLF is one of these games, when I first started playing I was skeptical and with the many FPS on the PC I didn't this would be any different to the rest, likes of Duke Nukem or Doom both good but I don't play then anymore and they also lack NOLFs style and wit.

About the story, in this game a player takes controls of a former thief with rough childhood who becomes a spy down to her sneaking skill. She works for a group called UNITY and her break comes when all other UNITY agents are killed off by a evil group H.A.R.M.

So what makes this game better that the rest? Well for one you get to access a great range of guns and gadgets as well as stealth, while in stealth you can over hear harm henchman me talk about there weekends or how the can't stand the singing of the fellow henchman they are on patrol with, this gives each henchman man a personality which few, if any games do (The one other I can think of is Max Payne).

I'd give this game a 9.5 now, 9.9 on release for the P.C. from what I've heard the PS2 version is best left alone as you can't save during missions.

No One Lives Forever parodies the Bond films and the sixties spy genre in general. The humor is well done, tongue in cheek with some real guffaws in the cut scenes. However, the game is also one of the best FPS's out there.

There are a load of original gadgets to separate it from the cliché FPS. A pheromone releasing, robotic dog to sneak past canines, explosive lipsticks, a barrette used as a lock pick or a poison needle and stun gas perfumes. As you can guess by the gadgets, we are not dealing with the typical, macho, Bond style agent, but an alluring thief turned super spy, Miss Cate Archer.

There is a lot that separates this from classic FPS. You have to sometimes rely on stealth to complete your missions; others are just basic shoot-em ups. What the game offers is an engaging, campy story with your missions. Not only is their stealth and shoot chapters, but you will find yourself dodging pesky train attendants, free falling out of airplanes, diving in shipwrecks, driving snowmobiles and motorcycles, trying to find a way to bypass steam lines, gathering information using your camera like sunglasses, escaping exploding space stations, rescuing kidnapped scientists and fighting obese German opera singers and gorilla like Scottish thugs, tam and kilt included. You basically play the lead role in a silly and charming 60's movie. In fact, all the Bond movies packed into one video game.

The sets are atmospheric and varied. Morrocan hotels, alpine lodges, Japanese style office buildings, 60's discotheques, ship cargo holds (both submerged and floating), outer space, lost jungle temples: you don't get any wider assortment than this. Some missions require sniping, others include dodging laser beams in a giant safe while others involve interviewing a rich buffoon posing as a newspaper reporter. You basically are surprised with the requirements for every mission, keeping it very interesting to say the least.

I highly recommend this game to any fan of the Bond games or someone looking for an amusing slant on the FPS genre. Not only will it keep you enthralled with the action, but keep you entertained and laughing as a movie.

Originally, Cate Archer was to be a male lead character for No One Lives Forever (NOLF), but was then switched to a female (due to MGM's complaint that he was too similar to a certain debonair spy who likes his vodka martinis shaken, not stirred.) That might have been the best decision for the game, because it gives what would have been a trite plot a nice spin - the 60's movies had a tough time determining what was female empowerment, and what was patronizing. (Then again, film had the same problem 70 years ago and still has it today - apparently, according to Gen X filmmakers, all women aspire to be Las Vegas showgirls as a form of empowerment.)

Cate Archer is no fool, though - the game has her react to what the "empowered" female is supposed to be, and dashes it to bits. She isn't afraid to be sexy, but the game never leers at her. Her past is slowly revealed bit by bit as the game goes along. Unlike most of the divas of gaming today, Cate doesn't have a top-heavy frame. As with the 60's, she is more sleek, and though her figure is somewhat ample, she is more athletic and realistic than the others - though she's stunning in her pleather catsuit; she is not limited to that. She dons various outfits, like a 60's flower-power one piece or a diving suit.

The game itself knows the 60's. If there is anything painfully obvious, it's that Mike Myers missed the point of the 60s British spy movie with the Austin Powers movies. Regardless of how cheesy they got, they always relied on thrilling action and stunts - and that's what NOLF supplies in spades. Whether engaging in gunplay, jumping out of airplanes without a parachute, driving a motorcycle or diving underwater to swim with the ubiquitous spy movie sharks, there is always a sense of daring and adventure. Myers was simply happy to point out in a stilted fashion the spy clichés of the 60's Brit films; NOLF goes further by knowing the camera angles, the incidental music, the dialogue, and it knows the heart and soul of a period espionage flick was not necessarily the gadgets and clothes, but the action and intrigue. If anything, NOLF keeps you guessing.

That's not to say NOLF doesn't satire the genre. Enemies discuss with each other the psychology of belonging to an evil organization. A map at U.N.I.T.Y is entitled "Global Domination Prevention Map". You'll even stumble upon a lackey romancing his favorite goat. (Goats have a huge role in NOLF - they appear as ghosts when you're poisoned.)

The voice acting ranges from Kit Harris' excellent voicing of Cate Archer to Kit Harris' forced voicing of the Inga Wagner. Other superb performances are by Barbara Dirickson, whose Baroness Dumas voice is a dead ringer for Katherine Hepburn; Ken Boynton's Santa, NOLF's version of Q, is a lot like Desmond Llewelyn.