Genre	FPS
System
Year	2002
Developer

NO-ONE LIVES FOREVER 2

Just when I was beginning to wonder when (or indeed if) I would bother to buy a PC game again, along comes a demo' (and the wherewithal to play it) that has me scurrying straight for the shops.

NOLF came out in 2000 to mixed reviews. Most of the professionals (i.e. the press) thought it rather ordinary, although there were individuals who thought it rocked bells. Trusting to PC Zone as usual I gave it a miss and only took notice of the sequel when it was previewed in September 2002. The demo' came along the following month, though at the time I couldn't play it because my video card wasn't up to scratch. Having invested in a GeForce 4 I thought I'd give it a go and was hooked. I bought the game a couple of days later and played it every available hour until I'd finished.

THE GAME

Part shooter, part sneak-em-up, with a little bit of RPG. Set in the sixties and starring British secret agent Cate Archer, the game is more cartoony and tongue-in-cheek than its closest relative, Deus Ex and doesn't pretend to its depth or freedom of movement. What it does have are superb graphics, excellent voice acting, clever level design and a solid storyline. The problems facing you are nicely varied, requiring serious tactical appreciation, weapon / gadget selection and careful execution. For the most part you have to balance stealth and use of your more esoteric kit with a bit of judicious use of lethal force. To facilitate the latter, there is a large arsenal, including silenced pistols, AK47s, sniper rifles and various types of grenade. The former category includes fairly conventional stuff such as a stunner (as seen in Deus Ex), a gun than can fire tracking, camera disabling or tranquilliser darts and, believe or not, a robotic cat mine which goes by the name of Angry Kitty. Which gives you an idea of where the game sits in the serious / silly spectrum..

THE STORY

You play as Cate Archer, protagonist of the first game, a very dishy, very English super spy in the employ of HMG. Against you is arrayed the power of H.A.R.M, which is after the usual stuff, world domination etc. H.A.R.M is facilitating the Soviet occupation of a Turkish island in the Aegean, the success of which mission will result in world nuclear war and it is your job to stop them.

The missions are spread over some 16 episodes, with locations moving between the Siberian tundra, Japan, an undersea HQ and India. Your opponents are variously, Ninja lasses, H.A.R.M guards, Soviet soldiers and Indian coppers. Plus the occasional robot. Problems to overcome include security systems, avoiding or neutralising cameras, infiltrating (and exfiltrating) heavily guarded installations, finding and escaping with secret documents and placing explosives on various targets. Sadly there are only two vehicle driving episodes. Firstly you get to drive some snowmobiles and secondly there is a bizarre chase on bicycles, with you doing the gunning from the parcel carrier. The former doesn't live up to the excitement of the second Tomb Raider's levels and more could undoubtedly have been made of driving, but it is a minor quibble.

Stealth comes into the game a lot. In one episode, you have to achieve your tasks without killing any policemen or innocent bystanders, having to rely instead on tossing coins to decoy the officials, or chucking bananas in their path, so that they slip and knock themselves out. In many other levels you don't have, initially at least, the firepower to take on the enemy face-to-face and have to sneak about the place without attracting attention. What's more, when you do have to kill guards or soldiers, it's no use just leaving the bodies lying around, as that will simply get everyone alarmed when they come across them. As they will. You are able to pick up and search bodies of your victims, and are even furnished with a "body remover" disguised as a perfume dispenser. Searching is vital, both to replenish otherwise quite limited ammunition, but also to find keys, papers, passes and the like, with which to further your mission. To be honest, the stealth isn't as well done as in Deus Ex and by no means is it as vital as in the Thief series. However, the enemy AI is good and as well as giving yourself away by being seen, you can alert the guards via sound, leaving doors, cupboards or drawers open, turning lights on and off and, in the snow levels, footprints. If your presence is suspected, the enemy will search for you, giving up eventually if you succeed in hiding effectively, but running for the nearest alarm if they spot you. Either that or trying very hard to kill you. Once the alarm is raised, you really are in trouble and it often requires some fancy shooting to get you out of it.

As in Deus Ex, you accumulate skill points by completing sub-missions and minor tasks. These can then be spent on upgrading your various abilities, such as stealth, weapon skills (improving accuracy, speed of reloading and changing weapon, damage inflicted etc.), toughness, and thoroughness and speed of searching. By the time you are halfway through, you should have been able to increase your levels in your preferred areas to near maximum, which can make things a little easy, for purists at least. However, you can, should you so wish, change the difficulty level at any stage, even in-game, so if things get too hard (or too easy), you have the option of mixing things up.

Technically the game is superb. Graphically it is right up near the top of the tree. Animations are realistic; the scenery, both indoors and out, breathtaking. The water animations alone are worthy of a place in gaming history. Enemy AI I've mentioned. The baddies do have a tendency to walk onto your guns a bit, but will also team up, cover each other and bob and weave like good 'uns. They also are in serious need of some remedial training on room entry and if you have good cover and plenty of ammo', you can mow them down in droves as they try to get through doors. A welcome feature is that the enemy don't start in the same positions every reload, so if you fail (i.e. die), when you come back, you have dissimilar, if not exactly different, problems.

Sound also deserves a mention. The background music stays in the background and fits nicely with the period. It is not dynamic however, which is a shame. The voice acting is also very good, particularly Cate and her boss. Even the mad Jock MacGregor has an authentic accent, which makes a change. The cut scenes, engine-rendered rather than FMV, are also good, with sound acting and animation.

I shouldn't keep comparing NOLF2 with Deus Ex, but as the latter game has rather set the benchmarks in this genre, it's unavoidable. It's therefore slightly disappointing that there is relatively little freedom of action. On a number of levels there is more than one way in, but once infiltration has been achieved, the rest is pretty much on rails. This reduces the tactical options a fair bit, but not entirely. All it means is that you have to decide at what point you can afford to go overt and whom you should take out first. Still, this doesn't pretend to be a tactical game and the aforementioned repositioning of the enemy at every reload goes some way to making up for the lack.

SUMMARY

I still reckon PC Zone is wrong and that Deus Ex is a FPS, with RPG elements. Therefore it is still top of the shooter tree. This is very close and, in its own way, as enjoyable. It's funny, well paced, superbly executed and sufficiently undemanding to avoid the common pitfall of similar games of becoming frustrating. It took me the best part of a week, playing for several hours each day, to complete on Normal difficulty level, so it provides good value for money. What's more, once complete, you can go back to the beginning of any episode you like, so you can try out all your favourite bits on Hard, which is something I shall certainly be doing in the near future.