The Operative: No One Lives Forever
Encyclopedia
The Operative: No One Lives Forever (commonly shortened to No One Lives Forever, abbreviated NOLF) is a first-person shooter
video game with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions
and published by Fox Interactive
, released for Windows
in 2000. The game was also ported
later to the PlayStation 2
and Mac OS X
. A story-driven game set in the 1960s
, No One Lives Forever has been critically acclaimed for, among other things, its stylistic representation of the era in the spirit of many spy film
s and television series of that decade, as well as for its prevalent use of humor. Players control female protagonist
Cate Archer, who works for UNITY, a fictional secret organization that watches over world peace.
The game was followed by a sequel
entitled No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
released in 2002, and a spin-off
that takes place during the time between the first two games entitled Contract J.A.C.K.
released in 2003, both developed by Monolith.
, and stars female protagonist
and spy
Cate Archer as the epynomous Operative, who works for UNITY – a secret British organization that watches over world peace. During the story of the game, Archer is sent on missions to a number of locales, including Morocco
, East and West Germany
, and gets into intense situations, such as scuba diving
a shipwreck, freefalling from an airplane without a parachute, and exploring a space station in outer space, all the while fighting armed villains.
The game is a mixture of a first-person shooter
and a stealth game. Most, but not all, missions can be solved in multiple ways: using sneaking to avoid danger, using gadget
s, or by going in with guns blazing. A stealthy approach can be taken to evade security cameras, guard dog
s and other obstacles. In various sections of the game, the player can ride a Triumph motorcycle
, or a snowmobile
. Other segments of the game involve boss fights.
The game features a wide variety of firearm
s, including a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver
, a submachine gun
, a sniper rifle
, and an AK-47
assault rifle
. Some of the weapons can be loaded with different types of ammunition
, including standard full metal jacket bullet
s, dum dum rounds that expand on impact, and phosphorus-coated tracer bullets
that continue to burn upon impact. Silencers
and scopes
can also be fitted on some weapons. A novel feature of the game is its array of gadgets, often disguised as ordinary female fashion objects. For example, lipstick
s double as various explosives, perfume bottles hold materials such as sleeping gas
, a barrette
also functions as a lockpick
, sunglasses
can be used for photographing evidence and detecting land mine
s, and a stylish belt buckle
hides a zipcord inside it. Other over-the-top gadgets include a body-removing powder for disposing of incriminating corpses, a robotic poodle
to distract guard dogs, and a rocket launcher
disguised as a briefcase. An ordinary coin can be thrown to confuse enemies, giving the player the opportunity to sneak by without a guard noticing. A cigarette lighter
can also be used as a miniature welder
. These ingenious gadgets come from UNITY's gadget lab, led by its main inventor and scientist, Santa. "Santa's Workshop" continuously works on these covert gadgets, and provides Cate with them as the game progresses.
If the player chooses to be sneaky, they can overhear humorous conversations between guards, scientists and civilians. Occasionally, the player can engage in conversations with non-player character
s. In certain cutscene
s, the game uses a dialog tree, in which the player can choose between different questions and responses when talking to another character. The missions in the game are littered with "intelligence items": briefcases, envelopes, and manila folder
s containing textual notes which often provide humorous side-notes to the game. The collection of intelligence items is optional. Special power-ups, called "gear" items are also available for collection during the game, such as "fuzzy slippers" that reduce noise made by movement, earplug
s that reduce damage from explosions, and a fire extinguisher
that protects the player from burn damage. These gear items are sometimes located in hard-to-reach areas. At the start of each mission, the player can choose which weapons, gadgets and gear to take with them. Some intelligence and gear items cannot be collected on the first playthrough of the game, as the necessary gadgets to reach them are not unlocked until later in the game. If the player wants to collect these items, they have to revisit the mission with the appropriate equipment.
At the end of each mission, the game displays various statistics, as well as any awards and bonuses earned during the mission. Awards are humorous textual notes given for the player's performance during a mission; these include awards for using a very low or a very high amount of bullets, or a "Thanks For Not Getting Hurt Award" for avoiding damage. The player also receives a rank, such as "Trainee" or "Super Spy", which is based on the number of intelligence items obtained during the mission. Achieving a high mission rank increases the player's maximum health
, armor and ammo capacity, as well as stealth, the amount of inflicted damage, and the accuracy of their shots.
The game is also notable for its use of sound: not only are enemies aware of noise made by the player, but the game features 1960s-style music
, which flexibly adapts
to the situations that players finds themselves in, similar to that of film soundtrack
s (for instance, increasing in tempo
or urgency when the player is in a combat situation).
No One Lives Forever also includes multiplayer gameplay online or over a local area network
. There are two multiplayer modes available: standard deathmatch
, and "H.A.R.M. vs. UNITY". The latter is a team deathmatch mode, where the goal is to capture as much intelligence for your team as possible, by sneaking in to the enemy team's base, finding the item, and photographing it.
, and UNITY, a secret organization headquartered somewhere in England
, watches over world peace. Over half of the active UNITY agents are murdered within a week around the world, suspected to be the work of a traitor within the agency. This leaves UNITY with a critical manpower shortage, and they are forced to send agent Cate Archer and her mentor, agent Bruno Lawrie, on a series of high-profile missions. Archer is an ex-cat burglar, and is the organization's first female spy
operative; UNITY's leaders, chief Jones and his advisor Smith, are skeptical of a woman working as a field agent
, and have previously relegated her to more mundane assignments. The clues point to known Russian
assassin Dmitrij Volkov and a new terrorist organization calling itself H.A.R.M. as the ones behind the attacks. During Archer's first serious assignment in Morocco
, she and Lawrie discover that they have walked into an ambush, and the surprise attack results in Volkov killing Lawrie. Archer manages to escape unharmed. Jones and Smith reveal that they suspect that Lawrie was the traitor and that Volkov probably killed him to ensure his silence, to which Agent Archer reacts with disbelief.
Archer is immediately tasked with helping Dr. Otto Schenker, an East German scientist defect to the West
. Although she succeeds in freeing Schenker, he is soon captured by H.A.R.M. agents, under the leadership of Magnus Armstrong, a kilt
-wearing Scotsman. Armstrong spares Archer's life, because she is a fellow countryman. Soon, Archer is given a new partner, Tom Goodman, from UNITY's American branch. She meets Goodman in a nightclub
in Hamburg
, where they are ambushed by H.A.R.M. agents, but they both manage to escape. The club is owned by a German woman named Inge Wagner, whom Archer suspects has fallen in with H.A.R.M. Archer and Goodman's task is to investigate a cargo freighter, aboard which are several suspicious chemical containers – UNITY believes that they are linked to Dr. Schenker. Archer slips aboard the freighter, where Armstrong knocks her unconscious a second time, but again spares her life and locks her into the cargo hold, despite Wagner's insistence that she be liquidated. As the ship is heading out toward sea, the freighter slowly begins to sink, due to a huge explosion. Wagner and Armstrong are able to escape immediately, but Archer has to fight her way out of the belly of the ship. As she could not get the needed information, Goodman and her decide to return to the sunken freighter to finish gathering the vital intelligence aboard. Only Archer goes scuba diving, and while investigating the wreck, she is ambushed by a legion of H.A.R.M. divers from a submarine
commanded by Armstrong and Wagner. Archer manages to collect the intelligence she needs and escapes.
After some investigation, Archer finds a connection between H.A.R.M. and a large manufacturing firm known as Dumas Industrial Enterprises, run by Baron Archibald Dumas, although it becomes clear that the Baron lacks the intelligence necessary to be involved with the terrorist organization. Archer infiltrates the Dumas corporate headquarters, gaining access to their highly guarded safe, and photographing some relevant documents, despite heavy opposition, including an ear-splitting deathmatch with Wagner. However, as she and Goodman are about to escape, Volkov appears and shoots Goodman to death. Once again, Archer manages to get away.
Meanwhile, H.A.R.M. starts infecting and killing innocent people, using a biological explosive
developed by Dr. Schenker. The chemical is injected into the living host, and it feeds on organic material until it culminates in a massive explosion. H.A.R.M. states that if their ransom demands are not met, they will continue to use human time bombs to cause destruction around the world. Archer embarks to Washington state, where Dr. Schenker is believed to be held, and manages to spirit the doctor to safety from an underground base. Schenker reveals that the antidote
for the chemical reagent can only be produced in outer space, and that H.A.R.M. has its own space station
. After infiltrating a secret launch facility on a small island in the Caribbean
, she finds out that a rocket is being sent up to the space station that afternoon, to collect some antidote. Disguised, Archer boards the rocket and travels to the space station herself. While looking for the antidote, the space station is suddenly hit by a meteor shower
, causing it to begin to implode. Archer grabs a large antidote sample and manages to use an escape pod
to get back to earth safely.
Now in possession of the antidote, UNITY needs the list of infected people to know whom to administer it. Archer believes that the real mastermind behind H.A.R.M. is the Baron's wife, Baroness Felicity Dumas, and that she might be in possession of the list. Archer infiltrates the Dumas's castle château
in the German Alps
, but she is again knocked unconscious by Armstrong, who locks her in a cell. After the Baroness appears and gloats to Archer about her plans to take over the world, she leaves, and Archer provokes Armstrong into a hand-to-hand fight, during which she defeats him and he agrees to let her go. Not wanting to be a part of H.A.R.M. anymore, he defects by telling her the location of the list of names. Archer finds the list in the Baroness's hidden lair. On the way down the mountain, Archer meets Volkov, and during their duel, an avalanche
caused by an explosion sends Volkov off the edge of a cliff. At the base of the mountain Archer is confronted by the Baroness, who reveals that she has infected herself and is about to detonate. Archer hurries to clear the streets of civilians, and hides inside a building until the explosion is over.
Back at UNITY's headquarters, Archer is congratulated with a mission well done, and everybody leaves for some rest. Archer comes to the graveyard where Lawrie is buried, to pay her respects, but is ambushed by the supposedly dead Goodman. He reveals that he is in fact the traitor within UNITY, and a gun duel beings. Archer wounds Goodman and is about to arrest him, but Smith appears and kills Goodman. Smith then tries to shoot Archer as well, but is himself gunned down by Jones. Archer is shocked to see her supposedly dead mentor, Lawrie, is also alive. With Goodman and Smith dead, Jones and Lawrie reveal to Cate the truth, that Lawrie falsified his death to find the real traitor. In order to sabotage UNITY, Mr. Smith used his position in H.A.R.M. to kill the real Tom Goodman, and replace him with an impostor. When H.A.R.M.'s plan was foiled by Archer, both Smith and Goodman's impostor were forced to reveal their true nature.
In a scene after the credits
, it is revealed that Volkov survived, and reports back to H.A.R.M.'s mysterious Director, a middle-aged drunk man who Archer has seen several times in different countries during the game. In a level exclusive to the Game of the Year Edition, Archer is sent on vacation to a small island, only to discover and destroy a secret H.A.R.M. base.
previous game, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
. Craig Hubbard, game designer for Shogo and NOLF expressed that Shogo "(although critically successful) fell embarrassingly short of original design goals", and "it is a grim reminder of the perils of wild optimism and unchecked ambition" exercised by the relatively small development team. The team (which included approximately 18 core members during development of NOLF) was determined not to make the same mistakes again with their next game. Describing the pressure on Monolith, Hubbard said that they "were still trying to live down the stigma" of their 1998 game, Blood II: The Chosen
, and that the company "had a lot to prove, both to ourselves and the gaming public."
Signing a contract with a publisher
was a very difficult task for Monolith. Development had been going on for months, and the project had been green-lighted by different publishers four times, before they were able to actually sign a deal with one. During this long time for finding a publishing partner, No One Lives Forever "mutated constantly in order to please prospective producers and marketing departments. The game actually started off as a mission
-based, anime
-inspired, paramilitary
action
thriller intended as a spiritual sequel to Shogo and ended up as a 60s
spy adventure
in the tradition of Our Man Flint
and countless other 60s spy movies
and shows." This final theme for the game was settled on through discussions with Fox Interactive
, the final publisher of NOLF. (Parts of the initial "paramilitary action thriller" concept evolved into F.E.A.R., another Monolith game, released after the NOLF series, in 2005.) Monolith's producer for the game, Samantha Ryan said that before the deal was signed, "There was a period where Monolith was two weeks from death. And Jason closed the deal with Fox Interactive that basically saved the company."
After finally signing a contract with Fox (which partnership was announced to the public on August 24, 1999), the team was able to draft a mission statement
, which stood as a point of reference during every aspect of developing the game.
The game was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference show. While at this time – as described in the mission statement above – the game was already set out to be a spy-themed shooter set in the '60s, the version that was previewed to the press at this time had many differences to the finished product, with regard to characters, plot and setting. The game's protagonist was originally set out to be a male character, called Adam Church, who worked for MI0, Her Majesty's
Most Secret Service
. However, many of the final gameplay and story elements are known to have been present in this earlier iteration of the game: the H.A.R.M. organization; the defection
of an East German biophysicist
for information about a top-secret Soviet
weapons program; the presence of humor in the game; some locations, such as the sunken cargo freighter; the use of gadgets, such as the rocket launching briefcase; etc.
By at least July 1999, Monolith has decided to introduce many major changes to the game; the main reason being that the gaming press unexpectedly started comparing the game to James Bond games, like GoldenEye 007. Hubbard mentioned that their intention was to "make a 60s spy game", and that they "didn't want to make a 'Bond
' style game, so when people were obviously drawing that comparison, we decided to rework things a bit. We wanted to get away from the Bond comparisons that people were making, so we've changed the main character and the back-story a fair amount." As a result, the player controls a female protagonist in the final game, Cate Archer, who works for an organization called UNITY. Changing the main character to a woman not only helped the separation of the game from the Bond franchise, but also allowed for "more interesting dramatic possibilities", and the "list of gadgets got a lot more visually interesting". As Hubbard said, before switching to a female protagonist, he had been "struggling with trying to distinguish him from all the other male superspies from the era—extraordinarily handsome, intelligent, knowledgeable, resourceful, and so on. But a woman with those same characteristics immediately stood out because of the social climate of the time. No matter how qualified she might be, she'd have to overcome some serious barriers just to get a chance to prove herself. And if things didn't go flawlessly on a mission, she'd catch more heat than she deserved."
The in-game model of Cate Archer was styled after model and actress Mitzi Martin
. This was a marketing decision made by the publisher, Fox Interactive, which used its feature film
casting
department to look for an appropriate model internationally. Archer's voice was provided by American voice actress Kit Harris, who also did the voice of the Inge Wagner character. Originally, Harris recorded the Scottish protagonist's voice in a stronger Scottish accent
. This was changed after a Scottish producer of the game felt that the particular accent used was too lower class, and an inappropriate choice; Harris re-recorded her lines with a "British bent
" instead. Both the face and the voice of the character were changed in the game's sequel, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
.
Along with the character and plot changes, it was also decided to change the game's working title
, No One Lives Forever, to something else, for similar reasons related to the Bond franchise (in particular, the novel Nobody Lives for Ever
), as well as possible legal considerations. However, the title, in fact, stayed throughout the development, and "The Operative" (referring to the game's heroine, Agent Archer) was added to the beginning of the title.
Evaluating the development that went into the finished game, Hubbard points out the realistic expectations set by the team as a strong point, saying that "given our budget, team size, and development cycle, the best we could hope to do was to create a fun, engaging 60s espionage game that would make up in presentation what it lacked in innovation." According to him, the team's "greatest asset was the list of mistakes we made during Shogo. We started this project with a pretty sober view of what we could achieve. As a result, every major feature we outlined made it into the game, as well as a few additional items we came up with during the project." However, there were still things that the team didn't have enough time to implement.
For example, No One Lives Forevers team-based multiplayer portion was originally going to be a story-driven cooperative gameplay mode (similar to the "Assault" game type in the 1999 first-person shooter Unreal Tournament
), including objectives and obstacles for the two teams. Like the single-player story in the game, this gameplay mode was also going to incorporate humor; for example, in one map, a goal of each team was to find a special watermelon in a Moroccan
marketplace for a mayor. While this mode was publicly discussed even in July 2000, it is not present as such in the final product (which went gold on October 20). The different objectives were changed to a general goal for both teams in all maps: photographing the other team's intelligence item. However, a number of remnants stemming from the earlier gameplay design can be seen in some of the released maps, such as the office of the aforementioned mayor seen in the Morocco map. Fully realized co-operative multiplayer was, however, a feature of No One Lives Forever 2.
After the game's release, Hubbard identified the aforementioned mission statement and the realistic expectations as strong points of the game's development, along with the flexible systems used in development, the cohesion of the team, and effective scheduling. On the other hand, Hubbard cited difficulties in fleshing out the final team, inefficient pre-production
, waiting on technology, and the major difficulties in finding a publisher. Hubbard also mentioned the cinematic cutscene
s as lengthy and problematic, partly because of technical difficulties, and partly because of conceptual flaws on his behalf, with regard to screenwriting
. Regarding gameplay, he said that "ne of the main failings of NOLF was that it ended up feeling a lot more scripted and linear than it was intended to be". Hubbard also expressed dissatisfaction with the balance between action and intrigue: "Unfortunately, we came up a little short on intrigue. Stealth was too unforgiving. Once you were spotted, you were playing an action game." The team paid attention to these points while developing No One Lives Forever 2.
game engine
, which was originally developed by Monolith, and later by its subsidiary, LithTech, Inc (later known as Touchdown Entertainment). The game is based on Lithtech 2.5 (the first game to use this version), with many custom additions and modifications to support the game's design, such as support for vehicles.
The artificial intelligence
(AI) in NOLF was significantly advanced at the time of the game's release. Enemy AI can react to eleven different stimuli, including hearing the player's footsteps or weapon firing, seeing the player's footprints in the snow, or hearing an ally scream in pain. The AI can try and investigate the source of these stimuli, by following the footprints for example, and can sound alarms or call for backup. During combat, the AI uses its environment for protection. Groups of AI guards make use of a group logic when investigating and combating the player. The game's AI includes friendly an enemy humans, as well as dogs, sharks, and helicopters.
s, such as Metal Gear Solid
, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
, Syphon Filter
, and GoldenEye 007, because the team was "interested in a blend of stealth and action rather than focusing on one or the other exclusively." The original release of the 1981 stealth game Castle Wolfenstein
was also cited as being influential.
Thematically, influences behind The Operative: No One Lives Forever were primarily 1960s spy-themed films, novels, television shows, as well as historical references. When it was decided that NOLF was going to be a '60s spy game, lead designer Craig Hubbard started immersing himself in the subject matter, in order to "develop some fluency." As he explained, he "was a big fan of early Bond films, but didn't know a lot about the whole spy craze. So I watched the Derek Flint movies , Modesty Blaise
, Matt Helm
, Danger: Diabolik
, Avengers
– anything I could get my hands on." Other influences included books, such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
, TV shows like The Saint
, The Pink Panther
films, commando movies, such as The Guns of Navarone
, as well as "lots of historical references, encompassing everything from books and documentaries on the spy trade to fashion catalogs and interior-design books." According to Hubbard, "the idea was to create a game that would make you feel like a superspy, so we tried to come up with situations, characters, and settings to support that goal." During the course of the game, the player can hear explicit popular culture references, including the TV series The Prisoner
and The Fugitive
, the Matt Helm films The Silencers
and The Ambushers
, and exotica
musician Les Baxter
. Other conversations allude to events of the time, such as the studio years of The Beatles
, and the commercial failure of the Edsel
automobile.
Humor plays an important role in No One Lives Forever. As Hubbard explained, "We want to make you laugh, but not at the expense of providing a broader, more satisfying emotional experience than a spoof generally allows, so that even if you don't chuckle once, you can still have plenty of fun playing the game. At heart, NOLF is an action/adventure/espionage game with a healthy dose of levity." Humor is presented mainly via visual gag
s, overheard conversations, textual intelligence items, and cutscenes. The humor includes "situational humor, and even a dash of absurdity
and bathroom humor for good measure. Some of it is subtle, some of it isn't." The name of UNITY, H.A.R.M., and other fictional organizations mentioned in the game follow the spy genre formula of using contrived acronyms for organizations. (See List of fictional espionage organizations.) What H.A.R.M. actually stands for is never revealed, and speculation about its true meaning is used as a running gag
in the game and its sequel.
Regarding comparisons between the game and the Austin Powers
film series, Hubbard pointed out on several occasions that, unlike Austin Powers, No One Lives Forever is not a parody
of the spy genre. Contrasting the source of the humor in the two series, Hubbard noted that "Sure, campy and silly, but the underlying premise borders on apocalyptic. That dichotomy in tone results in a very different style of humor from a parody, where everything is in good fun and nobody, including the characters, takes anything very seriously."
port) was chiefly composed and produced by Guy Whitmore
using DirectMusic
technology. The game's score is an example of an adaptive score
: the music changes smoothly during gameplay, depending on certain factors, such as whether the enemies are aware of the player's presence. Whitmore's task as composer was "to capture the flavor of the '50s/'60s spy genre, without infringing on any existing copyrights
." In order to avoid any legal troubles over music from the James Bond
franchise of films and games, Whitmore was initially asked to refrain from using brass instrument
s; a directive he compared to "being asked to produce a blues
album without guitars". While some of instrument sounds came from professional collections, others were home-made samples, including solo cello
sounds performed by Lori Goldston
, used in the H.A.R.M. ("Badguy") theme. Influences for the score included German composer Peter Thomas
, the soundtrack of the 1968 film Barbarella
, and "and an array of Italian composers who did beautiful scores for low budget European erotic films."
Whitmore's score was not used for the PlayStation 2
version of the game. Instead, it featured original music by Rebecca Kneubuhl, and mixed by Gabriel Mann. The No One Lives Forever theme song
was created by Rich Ragsdale. Kneubuhl and Mann also provided vocals for the title theme.
In the Lounge The game was released with bonus 1960s-inspired music
on the second CD. The songs available on this album, titled In the Lounge, were not featured in the game, but were specifically written as extra material. The 9 songs were written by Rebecca Kneubuhl (who created the in-game score for the later PlayStation 2 port as well). The CD also features two songs by independent artists: "Void" by Red Delicious and "El Dorado" by Archie Thompson. These were selected for inclusion as part of a NOLF online "music search", organized by Fox Interactive
and Indiespace.com.
A different version of In the Lounge was also created. This includes the same 9 original tracks, although in a slightly different order. It does not include the two pieces of independent music; however, it does feature Rich Ragsdale's NOLF title theme, as well as remix
es of 6 of the original songs, by Gabriel Mann.
(PC) in the United States on November 9, 2000, by Fox Interactive
, after it went gold on October 20.
After receiving a number of Game of the Year
(GOTY) awards, a special Game of the Year Edition was released on October 3, 2001. Published jointly by Sierra Entertainment
and Fox Interactive, this re-released version includes a post game exclusive mission
otherwise not available in the original game, titled "Rest and Relaxation", which is available after the original story. It also contains more multiplayer maps. The GOTY version's multiplayer maps were also made available as a download for owners of the original game.
Monolith Productions released the source code for No One Lives Forever (version 1.003 on Windows) in 2001 to "support the fan base by offering the tools to create their own levels". It is available both as a download, as well as on the Game of the Year Edition CD-ROM.
No One Lives Forever – Game of the Year Edition to the PlayStation 2
console
. This port of the game was released on April 17, 2002 (although it was originally intended for a 2001 release), and was again published jointly by Sierra and Fox.
The PlayStation 2 version of the game included three exclusive flashback
levels not available in other releases of the game titled "Nine Years Ago", in which the player controls a younger Cate Archer, when she used to be a cat burglar. Each of the new levels is accessed during several moments in the original story, when Cate is knocked out by Armstrong. All three levels use new textures, new character models, and feature Cate's cat burglar outfit, as well as two exclusive gadgets. The port does not feature Guy Whitmore's
original interactive score; instead, it uses different original music by Rebecca Kneubuhl. Multiplayer mode is not present in this version of the game.
operating system
was developed by MumboJumbo
, and published by MacPlay
. It was released on November 21, 2002, soon after the original Windows
release of No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
(which was also ported to Mac OS X by MacPlay later). Similarly to the Windows version of the game, the Mac OS X port also uses GameSpy
technology for its online multiplayer mode, so that players are able to play with each other, no matter which platform they use.
(32 reviews). Many reviewers said at the time that No One Lives Forever was among the best first-person shooters since the critically acclaimed 1998 Half-Life.
In his review, GameSpot's
Erik Wolpaw
gave No One Lives Forever a score of 9.3 out of 10, and praised the "game's unrelenting inventiveness shows in virtually every aspect of its design." In IGN's
review the game was given a 9.1 overall rating ("Outstanding") out of 10, and was called "one of the best shooters of the year". Eurogamer
gave the game a score of 8 out of 10, and called it "thoroughly commendable." Computer Games Magazine
gave the game 5 stars out of 5, and claimed that "No One Lives Forever combines a fantastic sense of style with great animation and voice acting, clever AI, industry-leading interactive music, a wry sense of humor, and gameplay that keeps you coming back for more."
Critical reception of the PlayStation 2 port of No One Lives Forever was much less positive than the original version. It has a 70.12% ranking on GameRankings (based on 42 reviews), and a score of 67 out of 100 on Metacritic
(23 reviews). IGN
gave the PlayStation 2 version an overall rating of 6.9 ("Passable") out of 10. The PlayStation 2 port received a 4.6 score ("Poor") out of 10 from GameSpot
. The Mac OS X version of the game was given a 9.1 rating overall ("Outstanding") by IGN, and was called "a fabulous Mac version of this top notch game."
(GOTY) awards in the video game press. NOLF was named "Game of the Year" and "Action Game of the Year" by Computer Games Magazine
. It also received "Action Game of the Year" awards from Computer Gaming World
and PC Gamer
magazines. In 2001, the game was nominated by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
for their annual Interactive Achievement Award in the "Game Play Engineering" and "PC Action/Adventure" categories. NOLF was also nominated for the International Game Developers Association's
2001 Game Developers Choice Awards
in four categories: Game of the Year, Original Character of the Year, Excellence in Level Design, and Game Spotlight Awards. Out of these, the game earned a Game Spotlight Award for innovation.
feature, called "The Top 25 Underrated Games of All Time", No One Lives Forever was ranked as #19, dubbing it and its sequel "two of the most memorable games of the past 10 years." In an article written in 2009 (nine years after the game's release), Eurogamer
states that the game has "dated enormously but survives well", and that "you simply couldn't make No One Lives Forever today. You couldn't because it would be too long, require far too many assets, and most significantly of all, risk all the cost of development on a comedy game – a genre that no longer exists." In a 2010 online PC Gamer
feature entitled "Why you must replay No One Lives Forever", Tim Stone hailed the 10-year-old game's use of humor, and wrote that NOLF "is every bit the amusing, inventive, life-affirming experience I remembered."
in 2002, entitled No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
.
In 2003, a spin-off
of the first two game was released, entitled Contract J.A.C.K.
. Being a prequel
to No One Lives Forever 2, it is chronologically set between the first two No One Lives Forever games. This stand-alone expansion pack
is a shorter game, and unlike the previous titles, its main protagonist is not Cate Archer, but John Jack, who works for H.A.R.M. The game also focuses more on action gameplay, rather than on stealth.
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
video game with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions is a Kirkland, Washington-based computer game developer. Monolith is also known for the development of the graphical game engine Lithtech, which has been used for most of their games...
and published by Fox Interactive
Fox Interactive
20th Century Fox Games is a video game publisher and developer mainly concerned with titles based on 20th Century Fox properties, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, the Alien and Predator film franchises, Independence Day, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Avatar, 24, the...
, released for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
in 2000. The game was also ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
later to the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. A story-driven game set in the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
, No One Lives Forever has been critically acclaimed for, among other things, its stylistic representation of the era in the spirit of many spy film
Spy film
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy . Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, John Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton...
s and television series of that decade, as well as for its prevalent use of humor. Players control female protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Cate Archer, who works for UNITY, a fictional secret organization that watches over world peace.
The game was followed by a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
entitled No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way
-Source code:The source code for the game engine was released by Monolith Productions and Sierra Entertainment as part of the No One Lives Forever 2 Toolkit for "allowing you to create your own levels, models, music, sounds, and more, for MonoLith's FPS." It is available for download...
released in 2002, and a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
that takes place during the time between the first two games entitled Contract J.A.C.K.
Contract J.A.C.K.
Contract J.A.C.K. received mixed reviews with an aggregate score of 52.03% on GameRankings and 56/100 on Metacritic.- External links :* Sierra Official Site* The Official Community Site for the NOLF Series.* The Official Community Forum for the NOLF Series....
released in 2003, both developed by Monolith.
Gameplay
The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a story-driven video game, set in the 1960s1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
, and stars female protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
and spy
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
Cate Archer as the epynomous Operative, who works for UNITY – a secret British organization that watches over world peace. During the story of the game, Archer is sent on missions to a number of locales, including Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, East and West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, and gets into intense situations, such as scuba diving
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
a shipwreck, freefalling from an airplane without a parachute, and exploring a space station in outer space, all the while fighting armed villains.
The game is a mixture of a first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
and a stealth game. Most, but not all, missions can be solved in multiple ways: using sneaking to avoid danger, using gadget
Gadget
A gadget is a small technological object that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention...
s, or by going in with guns blazing. A stealthy approach can be taken to evade security cameras, guard dog
Guard dog
A guard dog, an attack dog or watch dog is a dog used to guard against, and watch for, unwanted or unexpected people or animals. The dog is discriminating so that it does not annoy or attack familiar people.-Barking:...
s and other obstacles. In various sections of the game, the player can ride a Triumph motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
, or a snowmobile
Snowmobile
A snowmobile, also known in some places as a snowmachine, or sled,is a land vehicle for winter travel on snow. Designed to be operated on snow and ice, they require no road or trail. Design variations enable some machines to operate in deep snow or forests; most are used on open terrain, including...
. Other segments of the game involve boss fights.
The game features a wide variety of firearm
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
s, including a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
, a submachine gun
Submachine gun
A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...
, a sniper rifle
Sniper rifle
In military and law enforcement terminology, a sniper rifle is a precision-rifle used to ensure more accurate placement of bullets at longer ranges than other small arms. A typical sniper rifle is built for optimal levels of accuracy, fitted with a telescopic sight and chambered for a military...
, and an AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
assault rifle
Assault rifle
An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...
. Some of the weapons can be loaded with different types of ammunition
Ammunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
, including standard full metal jacket bullet
Full metal jacket bullet
A full metal jacket is a bullet consisting of a soft core encased in a shell of harder metal, such as gilding metal, cupronickel or less commonly a steel alloy. This shell can extend around all of the bullet, or often just the front and sides with the rear left as exposed lead...
s, dum dum rounds that expand on impact, and phosphorus-coated tracer bullets
Tracer ammunition
Tracer ammunition are bullets that are built with a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. Ignited by the burning powder, the phosphorus tail burns very brightly, making the projectile visible to the naked eye...
that continue to burn upon impact. Silencers
Suppressor
A suppressor, sound suppressor, sound moderator, or silencer, is a device attached to or part of the barrel of a firearm which reduces the amount of noise and flash generated by firing the weapon....
and scopes
Telescopic sight
A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope, is a sighting device that is based on an optical refracting telescope. They are equipped with some form of graphic image pattern mounted in an optically appropriate position in their optical system to give an accurate aiming point...
can also be fitted on some weapons. A novel feature of the game is its array of gadgets, often disguised as ordinary female fashion objects. For example, lipstick
Lipstick
Lipstick is a cosmetic product containing pigments, oils, waxes, and emollients that applies color, texture, and protection to the lips. Many varieties of lipstick are known. As with most other types of makeup, lipstick is typically, but not exclusively, worn by women...
s double as various explosives, perfume bottles hold materials such as sleeping gas
Sleeping gas
Sleeping gas is an oneirogenic general anaesthetic that is used to put a subject into a state where they are not conscious of what is happening around them...
, a barrette
Barrette
A barrette is a clasp or pin for holding hair in place....
also functions as a lockpick
Lock picking
Lock picking is the art of unlocking a lock by analyzing and manipulating the components of the lock device, without the original key. Although lock picking can be associated with criminal intent, it is an essential skill for a locksmith...
, sunglasses
Sunglasses
Sunglasses or sun glasses are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can sometimes also function as a visual aid, as variously termed spectacles or glasses exist, featuring lenses that...
can be used for photographing evidence and detecting land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
s, and a stylish belt buckle
Belt buckle
A belt buckle is a buckle, a clasp for fastening two ends, as of straps or a belt, in which a device attached to one of the ends is fitted or coupled to the other. The word enters Middle English via Old French and the Latin buccula or "cheek-strap," as for a helmet...
hides a zipcord inside it. Other over-the-top gadgets include a body-removing powder for disposing of incriminating corpses, a robotic poodle
Poodle
The Poodle is a breed of dog. The poodle breed is found officially in toy, miniature, and standard sizes, with many coat colors. Originally bred as a type of water dog, the poodle is highly intelligent and skillful in many dog sports, including agility, obedience, tracking, and even herding...
to distract guard dogs, and a rocket launcher
Rocket launcher
A rocket launcher is any device that launches a rocket-propelled projectile, although the term is often used in reference to mechanisms that are portable and capable of being operated by an individual....
disguised as a briefcase. An ordinary coin can be thrown to confuse enemies, giving the player the opportunity to sneak by without a guard noticing. A cigarette lighter
Lighter
A lighter is a portable device used to generate a flame. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable fluid or pressurized liquid gas, a means of ignition, and some provision for extinguishing the flame.- History :...
can also be used as a miniature welder
Welder
A welder is a tradesman who specializes in welding materials together. The materials to be joined can be metals or varieties of plastic or polymer...
. These ingenious gadgets come from UNITY's gadget lab, led by its main inventor and scientist, Santa. "Santa's Workshop" continuously works on these covert gadgets, and provides Cate with them as the game progresses.
If the player chooses to be sneaky, they can overhear humorous conversations between guards, scientists and civilians. Occasionally, the player can engage in conversations with non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s. In certain cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s, the game uses a dialog tree, in which the player can choose between different questions and responses when talking to another character. The missions in the game are littered with "intelligence items": briefcases, envelopes, and manila folder
Manila folder
The manila folder is a file folder designed to contain documents. It is generally formed by folding a large sheet of stiff card in half. Though traditionally beige, sometimes other colors are used to differentiate categories of files.The manila envelope is an envelope designed for transporting...
s containing textual notes which often provide humorous side-notes to the game. The collection of intelligence items is optional. Special power-ups, called "gear" items are also available for collection during the game, such as "fuzzy slippers" that reduce noise made by movement, earplug
Earplug
An earplug is a device that is meant to be inserted in the ear canal to protect the wearer's ears from loud noises or the intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind.-Protection from water:...
s that reduce damage from explosions, and a fire extinguisher
Fire extinguisher
A fire extinguisher or extinguisher, flame entinguisher is an active fire protection device used to extinguish or control small fires, often in emergency situations...
that protects the player from burn damage. These gear items are sometimes located in hard-to-reach areas. At the start of each mission, the player can choose which weapons, gadgets and gear to take with them. Some intelligence and gear items cannot be collected on the first playthrough of the game, as the necessary gadgets to reach them are not unlocked until later in the game. If the player wants to collect these items, they have to revisit the mission with the appropriate equipment.
At the end of each mission, the game displays various statistics, as well as any awards and bonuses earned during the mission. Awards are humorous textual notes given for the player's performance during a mission; these include awards for using a very low or a very high amount of bullets, or a "Thanks For Not Getting Hurt Award" for avoiding damage. The player also receives a rank, such as "Trainee" or "Super Spy", which is based on the number of intelligence items obtained during the mission. Achieving a high mission rank increases the player's maximum health
Health (gaming)
Health is a game mechanic used in role-playing, computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar....
, armor and ammo capacity, as well as stealth, the amount of inflicted damage, and the accuracy of their shots.
The game is also notable for its use of sound: not only are enemies aware of noise made by the player, but the game features 1960s-style music
1960s in music
For music from a year in the 1960s, go to 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1960s....
, which flexibly adapts
Dynamic music
Dynamic music is a concept used in many video games, whereby specific events cause the background music to change. Its first uses in major video games were Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. It has since been used in such games as Mushroom Men and Guitar Hero...
to the situations that players finds themselves in, similar to that of film soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s (for instance, increasing in tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
or urgency when the player is in a combat situation).
No One Lives Forever also includes multiplayer gameplay online or over a local area network
Local area network
A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
. There are two multiplayer modes available: standard deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
, and "H.A.R.M. vs. UNITY". The latter is a team deathmatch mode, where the goal is to capture as much intelligence for your team as possible, by sneaking in to the enemy team's base, finding the item, and photographing it.
Plot
It is the 1960s1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
, and UNITY, a secret organization headquartered somewhere in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, watches over world peace. Over half of the active UNITY agents are murdered within a week around the world, suspected to be the work of a traitor within the agency. This leaves UNITY with a critical manpower shortage, and they are forced to send agent Cate Archer and her mentor, agent Bruno Lawrie, on a series of high-profile missions. Archer is an ex-cat burglar, and is the organization's first female spy
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
operative; UNITY's leaders, chief Jones and his advisor Smith, are skeptical of a woman working as a field agent
Field agent
In espionage, a field agent is an agent who works in the field as opposed to one who works at the office or headquarters. A field agent can work alone or in a group but usually has a case officer who is in charge....
, and have previously relegated her to more mundane assignments. The clues point to known Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
assassin Dmitrij Volkov and a new terrorist organization calling itself H.A.R.M. as the ones behind the attacks. During Archer's first serious assignment in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, she and Lawrie discover that they have walked into an ambush, and the surprise attack results in Volkov killing Lawrie. Archer manages to escape unharmed. Jones and Smith reveal that they suspect that Lawrie was the traitor and that Volkov probably killed him to ensure his silence, to which Agent Archer reacts with disbelief.
Archer is immediately tasked with helping Dr. Otto Schenker, an East German scientist defect to the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. Although she succeeds in freeing Schenker, he is soon captured by H.A.R.M. agents, under the leadership of Magnus Armstrong, a kilt
Kilt
The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic heritage even more broadly...
-wearing Scotsman. Armstrong spares Archer's life, because she is a fellow countryman. Soon, Archer is given a new partner, Tom Goodman, from UNITY's American branch. She meets Goodman in a nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, where they are ambushed by H.A.R.M. agents, but they both manage to escape. The club is owned by a German woman named Inge Wagner, whom Archer suspects has fallen in with H.A.R.M. Archer and Goodman's task is to investigate a cargo freighter, aboard which are several suspicious chemical containers – UNITY believes that they are linked to Dr. Schenker. Archer slips aboard the freighter, where Armstrong knocks her unconscious a second time, but again spares her life and locks her into the cargo hold, despite Wagner's insistence that she be liquidated. As the ship is heading out toward sea, the freighter slowly begins to sink, due to a huge explosion. Wagner and Armstrong are able to escape immediately, but Archer has to fight her way out of the belly of the ship. As she could not get the needed information, Goodman and her decide to return to the sunken freighter to finish gathering the vital intelligence aboard. Only Archer goes scuba diving, and while investigating the wreck, she is ambushed by a legion of H.A.R.M. divers from a submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
commanded by Armstrong and Wagner. Archer manages to collect the intelligence she needs and escapes.
After some investigation, Archer finds a connection between H.A.R.M. and a large manufacturing firm known as Dumas Industrial Enterprises, run by Baron Archibald Dumas, although it becomes clear that the Baron lacks the intelligence necessary to be involved with the terrorist organization. Archer infiltrates the Dumas corporate headquarters, gaining access to their highly guarded safe, and photographing some relevant documents, despite heavy opposition, including an ear-splitting deathmatch with Wagner. However, as she and Goodman are about to escape, Volkov appears and shoots Goodman to death. Once again, Archer manages to get away.
Meanwhile, H.A.R.M. starts infecting and killing innocent people, using a biological explosive
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
developed by Dr. Schenker. The chemical is injected into the living host, and it feeds on organic material until it culminates in a massive explosion. H.A.R.M. states that if their ransom demands are not met, they will continue to use human time bombs to cause destruction around the world. Archer embarks to Washington state, where Dr. Schenker is believed to be held, and manages to spirit the doctor to safety from an underground base. Schenker reveals that the antidote
Antidote
An antidote is a substance which can counteract a form of poisoning. The term ultimately derives from the Greek αντιδιδοναι antididonai, "given against"....
for the chemical reagent can only be produced in outer space, and that H.A.R.M. has its own space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
. After infiltrating a secret launch facility on a small island in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, she finds out that a rocket is being sent up to the space station that afternoon, to collect some antidote. Disguised, Archer boards the rocket and travels to the space station herself. While looking for the antidote, the space station is suddenly hit by a meteor shower
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
, causing it to begin to implode. Archer grabs a large antidote sample and manages to use an escape pod
Escape pod
An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
to get back to earth safely.
Now in possession of the antidote, UNITY needs the list of infected people to know whom to administer it. Archer believes that the real mastermind behind H.A.R.M. is the Baron's wife, Baroness Felicity Dumas, and that she might be in possession of the list. Archer infiltrates the Dumas's castle château
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
in the German Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, but she is again knocked unconscious by Armstrong, who locks her in a cell. After the Baroness appears and gloats to Archer about her plans to take over the world, she leaves, and Archer provokes Armstrong into a hand-to-hand fight, during which she defeats him and he agrees to let her go. Not wanting to be a part of H.A.R.M. anymore, he defects by telling her the location of the list of names. Archer finds the list in the Baroness's hidden lair. On the way down the mountain, Archer meets Volkov, and during their duel, an avalanche
Avalanche
An avalanche is a sudden rapid flow of snow down a slope, occurring when either natural triggers or human activity causes a critical escalating transition from the slow equilibrium evolution of the snow pack. Typically occurring in mountainous terrain, an avalanche can mix air and water with the...
caused by an explosion sends Volkov off the edge of a cliff. At the base of the mountain Archer is confronted by the Baroness, who reveals that she has infected herself and is about to detonate. Archer hurries to clear the streets of civilians, and hides inside a building until the explosion is over.
Back at UNITY's headquarters, Archer is congratulated with a mission well done, and everybody leaves for some rest. Archer comes to the graveyard where Lawrie is buried, to pay her respects, but is ambushed by the supposedly dead Goodman. He reveals that he is in fact the traitor within UNITY, and a gun duel beings. Archer wounds Goodman and is about to arrest him, but Smith appears and kills Goodman. Smith then tries to shoot Archer as well, but is himself gunned down by Jones. Archer is shocked to see her supposedly dead mentor, Lawrie, is also alive. With Goodman and Smith dead, Jones and Lawrie reveal to Cate the truth, that Lawrie falsified his death to find the real traitor. In order to sabotage UNITY, Mr. Smith used his position in H.A.R.M. to kill the real Tom Goodman, and replace him with an impostor. When H.A.R.M.'s plan was foiled by Archer, both Smith and Goodman's impostor were forced to reveal their true nature.
In a scene after the credits
Post-credits scene
A post-credits scene is a short clip that appears after some or all of the closing credits of a film have run...
, it is revealed that Volkov survived, and reports back to H.A.R.M.'s mysterious Director, a middle-aged drunk man who Archer has seen several times in different countries during the game. In a level exclusive to the Game of the Year Edition, Archer is sent on vacation to a small island, only to discover and destroy a secret H.A.R.M. base.
UNITY
- Cate Archer (voiced by Kit Harris) – A Scottish former cat burglar and the first female operative in UNITY. Main protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
of the game. - Bruno Lawrie (John Patrick LowrieJohn Patrick LowrieJohn Patrick Lowrie is a voice actor who has notably performed roles in video games such as The Suffering and The Suffering: Ties That Bind, Total Annihilation, No One Lives Forever: The Operative and No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way, and Valve games Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2:...
) – A legend among UNITY operatives, Bruno is also Cate's best friend and mentor, who brought her into organization nine years ago. - Mr. Jones (Nigel Neale) – UNITY's chief. A calm and wise man, Jones once was an operative himself.
- Mr. Smith (Roger Curtis) – Jones' right-hand-man and also a former operative. He is a very competent leader, but distrusts Cate's abilities.
- Tom Goodman (Mike Madeoy) – UNITY's American operative, Tom Goodman is well-built man with a charming smile.
- Dr. Otto Schenker – A scientist from East Germany, he defects to the West and is about to join UNITY. However, he is captured by H.A.R.M. and has to be saved.
- Santa (Ken Boynton) – UNITY's main scientist and inventor, he provides Cate with gadgets between the missions. He is a scientist wielding a construction worker helmet.
H.A.R.M.
- Dmitrij Volkov (Jock Blaney) – H.A.R.M.'s "Director of Executive Action". Volkov is RussianRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
-born, strong, intelligent, and wears an eye-patch. In H.A.R.M., he is second only to the mysterious Director. He is also the vice-president of Dumas Industrial Enterprises, under the assumed name of Damascus Valentine. - Inge Wagner (Kit Harris) – A H.A.R.M. agent supervisor, Inge is an overweight GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
woman who believes herself to be a great singer, while in reality her vocalizations are terrible and feared among her subordinates. She is also the owner of a popular nightclub in HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. She commands H.A.R.M. troops on-field and is one of Cate's main enemies. She is also supposedly a distant relation of Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. - Magnus Armstrong (David Stalker) – A former military man, the kilt-wearing ScotsmanScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
is known to be a nice man, who, however, enjoys a fight. He is one of H.A.R.M.'s field commanders. He respects fellow countrymen above all else, and he spares Cate's life on more than one occasion. - Baron Archibald Dumas (Jeff Steitzer) – The president and owner of Dumas Industrial Enterprises is fabulously wealthy and reclusive. Not really a H.A.R.M. member, the childish and silly baronBaronBaron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
is manipulated by his wife. He claims to be a great safariSafariA safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. Traditionally, the term is used for a big-game hunt, but today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph animals and other wildlife.-Etymology:Entering the English...
hunter, but is in fact not, and all his trophies are secretly bought. - Baroness Felicity Dumas (Barbara Dirickson) – The de factoDe factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
owner of Dumas Industrial Enterprises, she is one of the true leaders of H.A.R.M., being the sponsor behind much of the organization's activities. - The Elite Guard – Three multiracial go-goGo-Go dancingGo-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at a discotheque. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist...
girls who are an elite H.A.R.M. squad. They are seen in sporadical scenes throughout the game, complaining of how bored they are. They attack Cate Archer near the end of the game. - The Director – H.A.R.M.'s chief and the most mysterious character of the game. He is mentioned several times by antagonists and intelligence items and appears in several missions as a harmless drunkard. His true identity is revealed at the very end.
Development
Work on No One Lives Forever started in 1998, after the release of Monolith Productions'Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions is a Kirkland, Washington-based computer game developer. Monolith is also known for the development of the graphical game engine Lithtech, which has been used for most of their games...
previous game, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a first person shooter video game released by Monolith Productions in 1998. It was the first game to use Monolith's flagship Lithtech engine. It has heavy influences from Japanese anime, particularly Patlabor, Appleseed, and the various Gundam series...
. Craig Hubbard, game designer for Shogo and NOLF expressed that Shogo "(although critically successful) fell embarrassingly short of original design goals", and "it is a grim reminder of the perils of wild optimism and unchecked ambition" exercised by the relatively small development team. The team (which included approximately 18 core members during development of NOLF) was determined not to make the same mistakes again with their next game. Describing the pressure on Monolith, Hubbard said that they "were still trying to live down the stigma" of their 1998 game, Blood II: The Chosen
Blood II: The Chosen
Blood II: The Chosen is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Monolith Productions and distributed by GT Interactive, which was later purchased by Infogrames. Released on October 31, 1998, it featured Monolith's new fully 3D engine Lithtech, which was previously used in Shogo: Mobile...
, and that the company "had a lot to prove, both to ourselves and the gaming public."
Signing a contract with a publisher
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
was a very difficult task for Monolith. Development had been going on for months, and the project had been green-lighted by different publishers four times, before they were able to actually sign a deal with one. During this long time for finding a publishing partner, No One Lives Forever "mutated constantly in order to please prospective producers and marketing departments. The game actually started off as a mission
Level (video gaming)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
-based, anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
-inspired, paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
action
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
thriller intended as a spiritual sequel to Shogo and ended up as a 60s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
spy adventure
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
in the tradition of Our Man Flint
Our Man Flint
Our Man Flint is a 1966 action film that parodies of James Bond genre. The film was directed by Daniel Mann, written by Hal Fimberg and Ben Starr, and starring James Coburn as master spy Derek Flint...
and countless other 60s spy movies
Spy film
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy . Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, John Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton...
and shows." This final theme for the game was settled on through discussions with Fox Interactive
Fox Interactive
20th Century Fox Games is a video game publisher and developer mainly concerned with titles based on 20th Century Fox properties, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, the Alien and Predator film franchises, Independence Day, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Avatar, 24, the...
, the final publisher of NOLF. (Parts of the initial "paramilitary action thriller" concept evolved into F.E.A.R., another Monolith game, released after the NOLF series, in 2005.) Monolith's producer for the game, Samantha Ryan said that before the deal was signed, "There was a period where Monolith was two weeks from death. And Jason closed the deal with Fox Interactive that basically saved the company."
After finally signing a contract with Fox (which partnership was announced to the public on August 24, 1999), the team was able to draft a mission statement
Mission statement
A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making...
, which stood as a point of reference during every aspect of developing the game.
The game was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference show. While at this time – as described in the mission statement above – the game was already set out to be a spy-themed shooter set in the '60s, the version that was previewed to the press at this time had many differences to the finished product, with regard to characters, plot and setting. The game's protagonist was originally set out to be a male character, called Adam Church, who worked for MI0, Her Majesty's
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
Most Secret Service
Secret service
A secret service describes a government agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For instance, a country may establish a secret service which has some...
. However, many of the final gameplay and story elements are known to have been present in this earlier iteration of the game: the H.A.R.M. organization; the defection
Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
of an East German biophysicist
Biophysics
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physical science to study biological systems. Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms and ecosystems...
for information about a top-secret Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
weapons program; the presence of humor in the game; some locations, such as the sunken cargo freighter; the use of gadgets, such as the rocket launching briefcase; etc.
By at least July 1999, Monolith has decided to introduce many major changes to the game; the main reason being that the gaming press unexpectedly started comparing the game to James Bond games, like GoldenEye 007. Hubbard mentioned that their intention was to "make a 60s spy game", and that they "didn't want to make a 'Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
' style game, so when people were obviously drawing that comparison, we decided to rework things a bit. We wanted to get away from the Bond comparisons that people were making, so we've changed the main character and the back-story a fair amount." As a result, the player controls a female protagonist in the final game, Cate Archer, who works for an organization called UNITY. Changing the main character to a woman not only helped the separation of the game from the Bond franchise, but also allowed for "more interesting dramatic possibilities", and the "list of gadgets got a lot more visually interesting". As Hubbard said, before switching to a female protagonist, he had been "struggling with trying to distinguish him from all the other male superspies from the era—extraordinarily handsome, intelligent, knowledgeable, resourceful, and so on. But a woman with those same characteristics immediately stood out because of the social climate of the time. No matter how qualified she might be, she'd have to overcome some serious barriers just to get a chance to prove herself. And if things didn't go flawlessly on a mission, she'd catch more heat than she deserved."
The in-game model of Cate Archer was styled after model and actress Mitzi Martin
Mitzi Martin
Mitzi Martin in Los Angeles, California is an American actress and model, most notable for her roles in the films Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Joe Dirt, Dude, Where's My Car?, and The Island. Her likeness and image were also used for the character Cate Archer in the computer game No One...
. This was a marketing decision made by the publisher, Fox Interactive, which used its feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
casting
Casting (performing arts)
In the performing arts, casting is a pre-production process for selecting a cast of actors, dancers, singers, models and other talent for a live or recorded performance.-Casting process:...
department to look for an appropriate model internationally. Archer's voice was provided by American voice actress Kit Harris, who also did the voice of the Inge Wagner character. Originally, Harris recorded the Scottish protagonist's voice in a stronger Scottish accent
Scottish English
Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
. This was changed after a Scottish producer of the game felt that the particular accent used was too lower class, and an inappropriate choice; Harris re-recorded her lines with a "British bent
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
" instead. Both the face and the voice of the character were changed in the game's sequel, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way
-Source code:The source code for the game engine was released by Monolith Productions and Sierra Entertainment as part of the No One Lives Forever 2 Toolkit for "allowing you to create your own levels, models, music, sounds, and more, for MonoLith's FPS." It is available for download...
.
Along with the character and plot changes, it was also decided to change the game's working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
, No One Lives Forever, to something else, for similar reasons related to the Bond franchise (in particular, the novel Nobody Lives for Ever
Nobody Lives For Ever
Nobody Lives for Ever , first published in 1986, was the fifth novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond...
), as well as possible legal considerations. However, the title, in fact, stayed throughout the development, and "The Operative" (referring to the game's heroine, Agent Archer) was added to the beginning of the title.
Evaluating the development that went into the finished game, Hubbard points out the realistic expectations set by the team as a strong point, saying that "given our budget, team size, and development cycle, the best we could hope to do was to create a fun, engaging 60s espionage game that would make up in presentation what it lacked in innovation." According to him, the team's "greatest asset was the list of mistakes we made during Shogo. We started this project with a pretty sober view of what we could achieve. As a result, every major feature we outlined made it into the game, as well as a few additional items we came up with during the project." However, there were still things that the team didn't have enough time to implement.
For example, No One Lives Forevers team-based multiplayer portion was originally going to be a story-driven cooperative gameplay mode (similar to the "Assault" game type in the 1999 first-person shooter Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is a futuristic first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels...
), including objectives and obstacles for the two teams. Like the single-player story in the game, this gameplay mode was also going to incorporate humor; for example, in one map, a goal of each team was to find a special watermelon in a Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
marketplace for a mayor. While this mode was publicly discussed even in July 2000, it is not present as such in the final product (which went gold on October 20). The different objectives were changed to a general goal for both teams in all maps: photographing the other team's intelligence item. However, a number of remnants stemming from the earlier gameplay design can be seen in some of the released maps, such as the office of the aforementioned mayor seen in the Morocco map. Fully realized co-operative multiplayer was, however, a feature of No One Lives Forever 2.
After the game's release, Hubbard identified the aforementioned mission statement and the realistic expectations as strong points of the game's development, along with the flexible systems used in development, the cohesion of the team, and effective scheduling. On the other hand, Hubbard cited difficulties in fleshing out the final team, inefficient pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
, waiting on technology, and the major difficulties in finding a publisher. Hubbard also mentioned the cinematic cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s as lengthy and problematic, partly because of technical difficulties, and partly because of conceptual flaws on his behalf, with regard to screenwriting
Screenwriting
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is a freelance profession....
. Regarding gameplay, he said that "ne of the main failings of NOLF was that it ended up feeling a lot more scripted and linear than it was intended to be". Hubbard also expressed dissatisfaction with the balance between action and intrigue: "Unfortunately, we came up a little short on intrigue. Stealth was too unforgiving. Once you were spotted, you were playing an action game." The team paid attention to these points while developing No One Lives Forever 2.
Technology
No One Lives Forever utilizes the LithtechLithtech
Lithtech is a game engine which was initially developed by Monolith Productions in collaboration with Microsoft. Monolith later formed a separate company, LithTech Inc., to deal with further advancements of the engine technology and currently, after a change of its corporate identity, LithTech Inc...
game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
, which was originally developed by Monolith, and later by its subsidiary, LithTech, Inc (later known as Touchdown Entertainment). The game is based on Lithtech 2.5 (the first game to use this version), with many custom additions and modifications to support the game's design, such as support for vehicles.
The artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
(AI) in NOLF was significantly advanced at the time of the game's release. Enemy AI can react to eleven different stimuli, including hearing the player's footsteps or weapon firing, seeing the player's footprints in the snow, or hearing an ally scream in pain. The AI can try and investigate the source of these stimuli, by following the footprints for example, and can sound alarms or call for backup. During combat, the AI uses its environment for protection. Groups of AI guards make use of a group logic when investigating and combating the player. The game's AI includes friendly an enemy humans, as well as dogs, sharks, and helicopters.
Influences and humor
In terms of video games, Monolith drew inspiration from a number of stealth/action gameAction game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
s, such as Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid
is a videogame by Hideo Kojima. The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first published by Konami in 1998 for the PlayStation video game console. It is the sequel to Kojimas early MSX2 computer games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake...
, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins is a stealth game developed by Acquire and published by Sony Music Entertainment inc. in Japan and Activision in North America and Europe for the PlayStation in 1998....
, Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter is a stealth-based third-person shooter video game for the PlayStation released in 1999. It is the first game in the Syphon Filter series. It was re-released on December 4, 2006, on the PlayStation Network for use on the PSP...
, and GoldenEye 007, because the team was "interested in a blend of stealth and action rather than focusing on one or the other exclusively." The original release of the 1981 stealth game Castle Wolfenstein
Castle Wolfenstein
Castle Wolfenstein is an early stealth-based action-adventure shooter computer game developed by Muse Software for the Apple II. It was first released in 1981 and later ported to DOS, the Atari 8-bit family, and the Commodore 64.- Description :...
was also cited as being influential.
Thematically, influences behind The Operative: No One Lives Forever were primarily 1960s spy-themed films, novels, television shows, as well as historical references. When it was decided that NOLF was going to be a '60s spy game, lead designer Craig Hubbard started immersing himself in the subject matter, in order to "develop some fluency." As he explained, he "was a big fan of early Bond films, but didn't know a lot about the whole spy craze. So I watched the Derek Flint movies , Modesty Blaise
Modesty Blaise (1966 film)
Modesty Blaise was a comedic spy-fi motion picture produced in the United Kingdom and released worldwide in 1966. It was loosely based upon the popular comic strip Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell, who wrote the original story and scenario upon which Evan Jones based his screenplay...
, Matt Helm
Matt Helm
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by author Donald Hamilton. He is a U.S. government counter-agent—a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in spy thrillers.-The character and the series:The...
, Danger: Diabolik
Danger: Diabolik
Danger: Diabolik is a 1968 feature film from Italian filmmaker Mario Bava based on the Italian comic character Diabolik.- About the film :...
, Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
– anything I could get my hands on." Other influences included books, such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , by John le Carré, is a British Cold War spy novel that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage methods as being morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an...
, TV shows like The Saint
The Saint (TV series)
The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
, The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring the bungling French police detective Jacques Clouseau that began in 1963 with the release of the film of the same name. The role was originated by, and is most closely associated with, Peter Sellers...
films, commando movies, such as The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone (film)
The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...
, as well as "lots of historical references, encompassing everything from books and documentaries on the spy trade to fashion catalogs and interior-design books." According to Hubbard, "the idea was to create a game that would make you feel like a superspy, so we tried to come up with situations, characters, and settings to support that goal." During the course of the game, the player can hear explicit popular culture references, including the TV series The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
and The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
, the Matt Helm films The Silencers
The Silencers (film)
The Silencers is the title of an American spy film spoof motion picture produced in 1966 and starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm. It is only loosely based upon the novel The Silencers by Donald Hamilton, as well as another of Hamilton's Helm novels, Death of a Citizen.The film was the first of...
and The Ambushers
The Ambushers (film)
The Ambushers is a 1967 spy comedy film filmed in Acapulco starring Dean Martin, Senta Berger and Janice Rule. It is loosely based upon the novel of the same title by Donald Hamilton....
, and exotica
Exotica
Exotica is a musical genre, named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title, popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s, typically with the suburban set who came of age during World War II. The musical colloquialism, exotica, means tropical ersatz: the non-native, pseudo experience of Oceania...
musician Les Baxter
Les Baxter
Les Baxter was an American musician and composer.Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer...
. Other conversations allude to events of the time, such as the studio years of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, and the commercial failure of the Edsel
Edsel
The Edsel was an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959, and 1960 model years. The Edsel never gained popularity with contemporary American car buyers and sold poorly. Consequently, the Ford Motor Company lost millions of dollars on the Edsel's development,...
automobile.
Humor plays an important role in No One Lives Forever. As Hubbard explained, "We want to make you laugh, but not at the expense of providing a broader, more satisfying emotional experience than a spoof generally allows, so that even if you don't chuckle once, you can still have plenty of fun playing the game. At heart, NOLF is an action/adventure/espionage game with a healthy dose of levity." Humor is presented mainly via visual gag
Visual gag
In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humor visually, often without words being used at all.There are numerous examples in cinema history of directors who based most of the humour in their films on visual gags, even to the point of using no or minimal dialogue...
s, overheard conversations, textual intelligence items, and cutscenes. The humor includes "situational humor, and even a dash of absurdity
Surreal humour
Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
and bathroom humor for good measure. Some of it is subtle, some of it isn't." The name of UNITY, H.A.R.M., and other fictional organizations mentioned in the game follow the spy genre formula of using contrived acronyms for organizations. (See List of fictional espionage organizations.) What H.A.R.M. actually stands for is never revealed, and speculation about its true meaning is used as a running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
in the game and its sequel.
Regarding comparisons between the game and the Austin Powers
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
film series, Hubbard pointed out on several occasions that, unlike Austin Powers, No One Lives Forever is not a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of the spy genre. Contrasting the source of the humor in the two series, Hubbard noted that "Sure, campy and silly, but the underlying premise borders on apocalyptic. That dichotomy in tone results in a very different style of humor from a parody, where everything is in good fun and nobody, including the characters, takes anything very seriously."
Music
The soundtrack for the original version of No One Lives Forever (as well as the later Mac OS XMac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
port) was chiefly composed and produced by Guy Whitmore
Guy Whitmore
Guy Whitmore is a composer specializing in video game music, notable for creating the soundtracks to Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, Russian Squares, Shivers, Shivers II: Harvest of Souls, Blood, Blood II: The Chosen, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and No One Lives Forever...
using DirectMusic
DirectMusic
DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level set of objects, built on top of DirectSound, that...
technology. The game's score is an example of an adaptive score
Dynamic music
Dynamic music is a concept used in many video games, whereby specific events cause the background music to change. Its first uses in major video games were Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. It has since been used in such games as Mushroom Men and Guitar Hero...
: the music changes smoothly during gameplay, depending on certain factors, such as whether the enemies are aware of the player's presence. Whitmore's task as composer was "to capture the flavor of the '50s/'60s spy genre, without infringing on any existing copyrights
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
." In order to avoid any legal troubles over music from the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
franchise of films and games, Whitmore was initially asked to refrain from using brass instrument
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
s; a directive he compared to "being asked to produce a blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
album without guitars". While some of instrument sounds came from professional collections, others were home-made samples, including solo cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
sounds performed by Lori Goldston
Lori Goldston
Lori Goldston is an American cellist. She was the touring cellist for Nirvana from 1993–1994 and appears on their live album MTV Unplugged in New York...
, used in the H.A.R.M. ("Badguy") theme. Influences for the score included German composer Peter Thomas
Peter Thomas (composer)
Peter Thomas is a German composer/arranger. He was born in Breslau on 1 December 1925, and his active career spanned more than 50 years between 1955 and 2006....
, the soundtrack of the 1968 film Barbarella
Barbarella (film)
Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...
, and "and an array of Italian composers who did beautiful scores for low budget European erotic films."
Whitmore's score was not used for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
version of the game. Instead, it featured original music by Rebecca Kneubuhl, and mixed by Gabriel Mann. The No One Lives Forever theme song
Theme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
was created by Rich Ragsdale. Kneubuhl and Mann also provided vocals for the title theme.
In the Lounge The game was released with bonus 1960s-inspired music
1960s in music
For music from a year in the 1960s, go to 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1960s....
on the second CD. The songs available on this album, titled In the Lounge, were not featured in the game, but were specifically written as extra material. The 9 songs were written by Rebecca Kneubuhl (who created the in-game score for the later PlayStation 2 port as well). The CD also features two songs by independent artists: "Void" by Red Delicious and "El Dorado" by Archie Thompson. These were selected for inclusion as part of a NOLF online "music search", organized by Fox Interactive
Fox Interactive
20th Century Fox Games is a video game publisher and developer mainly concerned with titles based on 20th Century Fox properties, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, the Alien and Predator film franchises, Independence Day, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Avatar, 24, the...
and Indiespace.com.
A different version of In the Lounge was also created. This includes the same 9 original tracks, although in a slightly different order. It does not include the two pieces of independent music; however, it does feature Rich Ragsdale's NOLF title theme, as well as remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es of 6 of the original songs, by Gabriel Mann.
Microsoft Windows port
The Operative: No One Lives Forever was originally released for WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
(PC) in the United States on November 9, 2000, by Fox Interactive
Fox Interactive
20th Century Fox Games is a video game publisher and developer mainly concerned with titles based on 20th Century Fox properties, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, the Alien and Predator film franchises, Independence Day, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Avatar, 24, the...
, after it went gold on October 20.
After receiving a number of Game of the Year
Game of the Year
Game of the Year is a title awarded by various magazines, websites, and shows to a deserving game. Many are only for PC or console video games...
(GOTY) awards, a special Game of the Year Edition was released on October 3, 2001. Published jointly by Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
and Fox Interactive, this re-released version includes a post game exclusive mission
Level (video gaming)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
otherwise not available in the original game, titled "Rest and Relaxation", which is available after the original story. It also contains more multiplayer maps. The GOTY version's multiplayer maps were also made available as a download for owners of the original game.
Monolith Productions released the source code for No One Lives Forever (version 1.003 on Windows) in 2001 to "support the fan base by offering the tools to create their own levels". It is available both as a download, as well as on the Game of the Year Edition CD-ROM.
PlayStation 2 port
The game's developer, Monolith Productions portedPorting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
No One Lives Forever – Game of the Year Edition to the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. This port of the game was released on April 17, 2002 (although it was originally intended for a 2001 release), and was again published jointly by Sierra and Fox.
The PlayStation 2 version of the game included three exclusive flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
levels not available in other releases of the game titled "Nine Years Ago", in which the player controls a younger Cate Archer, when she used to be a cat burglar. Each of the new levels is accessed during several moments in the original story, when Cate is knocked out by Armstrong. All three levels use new textures, new character models, and feature Cate's cat burglar outfit, as well as two exclusive gadgets. The port does not feature Guy Whitmore's
Guy Whitmore
Guy Whitmore is a composer specializing in video game music, notable for creating the soundtracks to Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, Russian Squares, Shivers, Shivers II: Harvest of Souls, Blood, Blood II: The Chosen, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and No One Lives Forever...
original interactive score; instead, it uses different original music by Rebecca Kneubuhl. Multiplayer mode is not present in this version of the game.
Mac OS X port
A port of No One Lives Forever – Game of the Year Edition for the Mac OS XMac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
was developed by MumboJumbo
MumboJumbo
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, MumboJumbo LLC is a publisher, developer and mass marketer of casual games for PCs and game consoles including those manufactured by Nintendo, Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft Corporation. Established in January 2001 they originally focused exclusively on...
, and published by MacPlay
MacPlay
MacPlay was the name used by a series of two American publishers of Macintosh computer games. No game has been published under the MacPlay brand name since 2004.- 1990 - 1997 Period :...
. It was released on November 21, 2002, soon after the original Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
release of No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way
-Source code:The source code for the game engine was released by Monolith Productions and Sierra Entertainment as part of the No One Lives Forever 2 Toolkit for "allowing you to create your own levels, models, music, sounds, and more, for MonoLith's FPS." It is available for download...
(which was also ported to Mac OS X by MacPlay later). Similarly to the Windows version of the game, the Mac OS X port also uses GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
technology for its online multiplayer mode, so that players are able to play with each other, no matter which platform they use.
Reception and legacy
Critical reception
No One Lives Forever receieved critical acclaim upon its release, and has an 88.33% ranking on the aggregate site GameRankings (based on 29 reviews), and a score of 91 out of 100 on MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
(32 reviews). Many reviewers said at the time that No One Lives Forever was among the best first-person shooters since the critically acclaimed 1998 Half-Life.
In his review, GameSpot's
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
Erik Wolpaw
Erik Wolpaw
Erik Wolpaw is an American videogame writer. Erik along with Chet Faliszek were the two writers behind the now-defunct Old Man Murray video game commentary web site. As of 2011, he works for Valve Software in Seattle...
gave No One Lives Forever a score of 9.3 out of 10, and praised the "game's unrelenting inventiveness shows in virtually every aspect of its design." In IGN's
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
review the game was given a 9.1 overall rating ("Outstanding") out of 10, and was called "one of the best shooters of the year". Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
gave the game a score of 8 out of 10, and called it "thoroughly commendable." Computer Games Magazine
Computer Games Magazine
Computer Games Magazine was a computer gaming print magazine. It was formerly Computer Games Strategy Plus, and before that, Strategy Plus, which had been founded as Games International in the UK in 1988. While its initial focus was on strategy games, it covered a wide range of game genres...
gave the game 5 stars out of 5, and claimed that "No One Lives Forever combines a fantastic sense of style with great animation and voice acting, clever AI, industry-leading interactive music, a wry sense of humor, and gameplay that keeps you coming back for more."
Critical reception of the PlayStation 2 port of No One Lives Forever was much less positive than the original version. It has a 70.12% ranking on GameRankings (based on 42 reviews), and a score of 67 out of 100 on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
(23 reviews). IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the PlayStation 2 version an overall rating of 6.9 ("Passable") out of 10. The PlayStation 2 port received a 4.6 score ("Poor") out of 10 from GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
. The Mac OS X version of the game was given a 9.1 rating overall ("Outstanding") by IGN, and was called "a fabulous Mac version of this top notch game."
Awards
No One Lives Forever has earned several Game of the YearGame of the Year
Game of the Year is a title awarded by various magazines, websites, and shows to a deserving game. Many are only for PC or console video games...
(GOTY) awards in the video game press. NOLF was named "Game of the Year" and "Action Game of the Year" by Computer Games Magazine
Computer Games Magazine
Computer Games Magazine was a computer gaming print magazine. It was formerly Computer Games Strategy Plus, and before that, Strategy Plus, which had been founded as Games International in the UK in 1988. While its initial focus was on strategy games, it covered a wide range of game genres...
. It also received "Action Game of the Year" awards from Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
and PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
magazines. In 2001, the game was nominated by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
for their annual Interactive Achievement Award in the "Game Play Engineering" and "PC Action/Adventure" categories. NOLF was also nominated for the International Game Developers Association's
International Game Developers Association
International Game Developers Association is the professional society for over 10,000 video and computer game developers worldwide.It is incorporated in the United States as a non-profit organization....
2001 Game Developers Choice Awards
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are annually presented by the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999.The 2009 award presentation was...
in four categories: Game of the Year, Original Character of the Year, Excellence in Level Design, and Game Spotlight Awards. Out of these, the game earned a Game Spotlight Award for innovation.
Legacy
Retrospective articles written about the game have also been positive. In a 2003 GameSpyGameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
feature, called "The Top 25 Underrated Games of All Time", No One Lives Forever was ranked as #19, dubbing it and its sequel "two of the most memorable games of the past 10 years." In an article written in 2009 (nine years after the game's release), Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
states that the game has "dated enormously but survives well", and that "you simply couldn't make No One Lives Forever today. You couldn't because it would be too long, require far too many assets, and most significantly of all, risk all the cost of development on a comedy game – a genre that no longer exists." In a 2010 online PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
feature entitled "Why you must replay No One Lives Forever", Tim Stone hailed the 10-year-old game's use of humor, and wrote that NOLF "is every bit the amusing, inventive, life-affirming experience I remembered."
Sequel and spin-off
The Operative: No One Lives Forever is the first game in the No One Lives Forever series. It was followed by a sequelSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
in 2002, entitled No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way
-Source code:The source code for the game engine was released by Monolith Productions and Sierra Entertainment as part of the No One Lives Forever 2 Toolkit for "allowing you to create your own levels, models, music, sounds, and more, for MonoLith's FPS." It is available for download...
.
In 2003, a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
of the first two game was released, entitled Contract J.A.C.K.
Contract J.A.C.K.
Contract J.A.C.K. received mixed reviews with an aggregate score of 52.03% on GameRankings and 56/100 on Metacritic.- External links :* Sierra Official Site* The Official Community Site for the NOLF Series.* The Official Community Forum for the NOLF Series....
. Being a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to No One Lives Forever 2, it is chronologically set between the first two No One Lives Forever games. This stand-alone expansion pack
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
is a shorter game, and unlike the previous titles, its main protagonist is not Cate Archer, but John Jack, who works for H.A.R.M. The game also focuses more on action gameplay, rather than on stealth.