Developer
Monolith

Released: April 18, 2002
Genre: FPS/Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

8
6
8
9
7.3

Supported Features:

Cate made her first appearance on the PC version of this title back in 2000, and it quickly became one of my all-time favorite FPS games of the time, and even today it still holds a special place in my game collection.

There are many things that make a successful game and NOLF featured all of them; a great story, great voice acting, excellent level design, and a flawless FPS interface. The console version of this game has been in the works for over a year, and now two years after Cate’s first adventure, you can now relive the thrills and espionage on your PlayStation 2.

But don’t think that this game simply rips off everybody else’s great ideas. NOLF is more of homage to these classics. The game has a unique 60’s flair, both in costume design and all the silly gadgets that are based more on Get Smart, than James Bond. Cate’s clothes and hairstyle are lifted right out of the colorful 60’s world of Austin Powers, and even the weapon selection is suitably dated.

NOLF is loaded with humor; some of it is original and some is taken directly from obscure pop-culture references. Those of you who have seen The Spy Who Shagged Me might remember the scene where Austin interrogates the Indian prisoner by asking him questions three times and he is compelled to answer. This scene is recreated with Cate, but with unexpected and humorous results.

NOLF is huge, featuring 15 missions that span more than 60 levels including four PS2-exclusive levels that allow you to play as a young Cate during her days as a cat burgler. The gameplay is pretty standard FPS fare where you run around shooting bad guys, picking up top-secret documents, and solving an ongoing series of crimes that gets more sinister and complex as the game progresses.

Every so often you will encounter the traditional “boss battle”. These are great fun and very rewarding as the bosses spend a great deal of time taunting you either directly or indirectly through the cutscenes prior to their demise.

You are given specific mission objectives for each level and there are literally hundreds of “intelligence items” to pick up along the way. These may be briefcases, film reels, notes, file folders, or various other items. Some of these items will fill you in on important story information and even Cate’s shady past, while others are just plain humorous. Collecting them adds to your overall score and the higher your score the more secret agent gadgets you can access back at headquarters.

The levels are huge with varying scenery and challenging gameplay that includes several exciting missions where you skydive, ride a motorcycle, ride a snowmobile, swim, and even float around in a zero-G space station. You’ll travel all over the world to exotic locales meeting all sorts of evil and often zany villains.

There is the stereotypically large German opera singer, a burly Scotsman who speaks with an exaggerated accent, the rich aristocratic heiress hiding a dark secret, evil scientists, and some very humorous Indian henchmen you will run into in Morocco, complete with stilted English dialog rich with a Middle Eastern accent.

Even though your objectives are clearly defined the levels are large enough that you never feel that you are restricted in movement or gameplay. You are free to explore much of these levels at your leisure, at least within the confines of the story. Various puzzles often have multiple solutions, for instance you might come across a minefield. You could use your special mine-detecting glasses or locate a mine detector and use it to navigate the hazard.

Some puzzles are nerve-racking like defusing a series of bombs within a certain time frame, while others take place during intense action scenes like freefalling from a crippled jet without a parachute. You must literally skydive and tackle an enemy and steal his chute. Then you have to start shooting all of the other skydiving henchmen as you rush toward the ground.

I have always had severe control issues about playing FPS games on any console system. So far, HALO for the Xbox is one of the only ones to get it right, but NOLF really surprised me with its targeting control system. You can optionally toggle a target-snap option that will lock your crosshairs to the nearest enemy. This more than makes up for the imprecise camera control of the analog stick, but at the same time takes a lot of the challenge out of this game. You can now literally move your crosshair around the screen and have it snap to enemies that you cannot even see. You can always turn this option off, but then you are left with the traditional problem of not being able to accurately target anything before you are killed yourself.

Playing NOLF on the PS2 is like playing it on the PC at the lowest resolution with all of the details turned down or off. This isn’t to say it looks “bad”, but when you compare it to the newer games that we are seeing on the PS2, it pales in comparison. If NOLF had shipped last year it would have probably been better received by gamers and garnered a better score here.

After playing through about half of the PS2 version I felt compelled to load up the PC version just to satisfy my own curiosity about some observations I had made while playing the PS2 game. As it turns out, my suspicions were proven correct. Here is the deal.

In all of the cutscenes where you are seeing characters from a front view, everyones' faces are terribly distorted, i.e. they are all skinny/compressed/scrunched as if you were viewing a movie in the wrong aspect ratio. From the side, everything looks fine. I just can’t figure this out, but it is terribly distracting.

The textures have lost some of their detail; not that they were all that detailed in the PC version, and I found they noticeably repeated, so if you are looking at a rock wall or a open stretch of grass you could see the individual texture tiles repeating every few steps. Textures also didn’t hold up very well when viewed up close.

Buildings and architecture are well modeled but other objects like cars are boxy and not that good. Special effects like fire and explosions are decent enough but other things like water are rather one-dimensional and not very well animated. Overall, it's a very mediocre visual experience.

I did encounter several sound glitches in the dialog, but these occurred in the cutscenes and I still don’t know why they occur, but they do, even on repeated passes through the same movies. At certain points the quality of the voices will drop to the point where it is all muffled and filled with static – it almost sounds like they recorded the line through a CB radio rather than in a recording studio. These drops in quality seem to be associated with the camera angle at which you are viewing the person who is speaking. I’m not sure if they were attempting a surround mix and it went awry or what, but it was even more distracting that the characters skinny faces.

The music is great and borrows heavily from James Bond scores. The opening track even has the classic dancing girl and some lyrics that chant “No One Lives Forever”. It’s all very catchy and you might catch yourself humming the theme music long after you have stopped playing the game.

The music during the menus and briefings features the same ambience and the in-game music is equally as well done with great musical scores using music and instruments based on your current location. The music also cues to the action to increase your emotional involvement with the onscreen action.

Once you have completed the main game you can return to any of the levels and try to get a perfect item score. Granted, this artificially extends the game value, but I’m sure there are enough perfectionists out there that will find this reason enough to replay this game until they've found every last briefcase and roll of film.

There are no multiplayer modes in NOLF, so if you are looking for some GoldenEye deathmatch action in a miniskirt, you need not apply. Even so, the single player experience is long and diverse enough to make this a great value for your buck.

NOLF is one of those games that you really need to play if for nothing more than to experience the wonderful story, exciting gameplay and thrilling action sequences. The PS2 version might not look the best and the distracting sound glitches can be a minor annoyance, but in the end, all of these issues are overshadowed by some of the best gameplay in the genre.