No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy is H.A.R.M.'s Way is a game that I hold very close to my heart. I wish I could celebrate its 20th birthday by giving away a free copy here on Era, but the game literally cannot be bought so I'll make this thread instead. And talk about a few points that make this FPS ahead of its time. Or, in the very least, stand out to this day.
If I was to say the biggest difference between NoLF1 and NoLF2, it would that the first is a FPS with stealth elements, while the second is a FPS with immersive sim elements. By that I mean NoLF2 is more open, has a slower pace, better developed stealth mechanics and a bigger emphasis on exploration. Yet it is first of all, like NoLF1, a shooter with great gunplay. And that mix <good gunplay + stealth> didn't use to go well together. The first game was already exceptional in that regard, but the second is even more so because it doubled down on the stealth part. Not only that, this immersive sim-esque approach ended up enhancing the combat. Part of that comes from a "natural" improvement to gunplay, other from more interesting (and hilarious) enemies. But the more important part was the AI system, and a lot can be said about that.
The AI.
If you go to any gaming forum and ask what people think are the best AI in games, it won't take long for someone to mention FEAR. With good reason, FEAR's AI is extraordinary and gives a sense of fighting real adversaries like few games do. But before FEAR there was No One Lives Forever 2, before Replica clones there were the man crates! One of Monolith goals going from the first game to the second was creating an enhanced AI system, and it that they succeed.
There are really two aspects of NoLF2's AI that must be addressed, first is the AI in "default mode", that is, when they are not aware of Cate Archer presence. The other is when they engaged with her, either searching or fighting our beloved operative (I can say our right?).
For the first it's much of the same we see in any and all stealth and stealth oriented games. Basically enemies move around in semi-random patters. Except they go one or two steps further which helps breath a lot of life into the game: they constantly interact with the environment.
Example 1, Example 2.
This may seem a rather small detail, but I believe it's one of those specials details that have a much bigger effect than they should. I remember, which inherently means that I might be misremembering, a video about The Last of Us comparing the pre-release trailer with the final product, we know Naughty Dog likes to… overpromise with their trailers and this one was no different. One of the changes was that in the demo footage one of the enemies would go to a drawer and search it, very much like our protagonists. In the final game that interaction was cut, and the enemy would just stand close to the furniture. In NoLF2 enemies do filing cabinets and search for documents! This is almost some Skynet level AI. But they also (pretend to) fix trucks, write reports, snooze a little, etc. They are not just a enemy that moves around.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMow_f7IJ9Q
Enemies will often run away and get back with reinforcements.
About the second part, I think the AI is excellent but with some blind spots, which are not necessarily bad because of what I mentioned in the first part of this thread. NoLF2, like its predecessor, is first and foremost an FPS, and so being discovered and having to fight your way through is not a problem. If you tried to play it 100% stealth, you'd find it frustrating at a time, but also very rewarding in others. But there is one particular moment in which the game AI shines brightly, and in that moment it's even better than FEAR's, when you're engaged in combat, but not necessarily in a full blown firefight. When enemies are after you, but you're still able to move around in a open-ish map. I remember playing this game for the first time and when that happened, I felt I was playing Counter Strike, and in that moment I knew I would love this game forever. There is a perfect combination of how enemies move around, how they are looking for you rather than knowing where you are, how they react to being shot and spotting you and firing upon you that creates a feeling of playing against human opponents. That same feeling is present in FEAR, or Halo, or other brilliant shooters, but when you add the stealth element it becomes something even grander. Add on top of that cool actions like jumping over rails, rolling around, going prone in the ground and you have something that truly is special. I won't say it has never been surpassed, because we're talking about 20 years and there has been many fantastic shooters, but I will say it is ageless, and impressive to this day.
View: https://youtu.be/2v88u_8KzCw
View: https://youtu.be/VzsXdExMEdI
Two gameplay videos, the first is more about stealth, the second is combat focused. NoLF2 delivers in both cases.
ps: If you want to see how important AI is in a game like this, you don't have to go further than Crysis 2. This is also a FPS with a lot of stealth, and a FPS that does virtually everything right. Except the AI. The AI is atrocious. And that undermines the game completely. If Crysis 2 had an AI on the level of NoLF2 we would be talking about on of the best FPS ever made, instead of a good one that didn't quite up lived to its prequel.
A focus on set pieces:
When I mention set pieces I'm thinking it in two terms. First is the one shown in the GIFs. Explosive action packed moments. They were already present in many games in that time, including the first NoLF. The second is well carefully crafted combat scenarios. Half-Life is the emperor of that, but by NoLF2 Monolith was catching up. When FEAR came out in 2005 they would be at VALVE's level (maybe. that might not be possible) but in 2002 that kind of attention was already present. And the best example of that is the last level. I remember in 2010 or so there was some discussion if final bosses were too game-y. Two series come to mind: Mass Effect and Bioshock. Both had games in which their final bosses weren't well received compared to the rest of the game, and so their third installments ended up with a hand-crafted set-piece instead. Which I believe became more and more common in the last 10 years. Monolith had learned that lesson years before.
Skill tree?
I'm not sure if this is worth pointing out or not but I have the distinct impression that in the last 10 years or so skill trees and similar RPG elements became more common in shooters. And NoLF2 did that 20 years ago. Obviously it was drawing inspiration from other games like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, so it wasn't particularly new even then. But having that kind of system without compromising good gunplay? That was new.
A telephone bug shaped like a bug:
Snowy breath:
Dust:
I know you can't see anything, but believe me, it's there! You can check the video if you think it's too revolutionary to be true! Roger Deakins would be proud.
Truly, the game is just ahead of its time by decades.
And that's it, really.
It's such an awful think what happened with this series. Being suck in legal hell, unable to come back. Year and year I keep thinking something gotta happen, but it does not. And it not only hurts because this is a series that is extraordinary, a meaningful part of FPS history and shouldn't be forgotten, but because there is nothing like it out there. For a decade no one barely attempt anything like that. The exception that I found was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. It also tries to be both a shooter and an immersive sim. In the latter it is even more accomplished than NoLF1 and 2, but it doesn't match their combat excellence. More recently things changed, and people might take for granted that being a stealth game is no reason why you can't have good combat. Deus Ex is an interesting example of how this changed, with only the most recent title really having a gunplay that can match its other parts. Other immersive sim like Prey can also deliver some of the same feelings the NoLF games did.
But they don't have Cate Archer, they don't have the humor, the setting, the identity. What other game you will hear dialogue like these?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox7BG1WHT6g
Or this one. ps: Era doesn't allow me to add more than for "media" links. Can you believe this? It's like having only 7 poll options!
Or phrases like these:
The context of this last one is what some soldier says when they get hit!
Maybe next year…
This is such a tragic tale that fans create a site where you can download both games just so someone would take it down due to owning the rights but no one bothered to do so! Can you believe it?!
On a completely different note, if you find yourself luck enough to own the games, make sure to download the modernizer patches: https://haekb.itch.io/nolf-modernizer, https://haekb.itch.io/nolf2-modernizer The second game really needs it.
If I was to say the biggest difference between NoLF1 and NoLF2, it would that the first is a FPS with stealth elements, while the second is a FPS with immersive sim elements. By that I mean NoLF2 is more open, has a slower pace, better developed stealth mechanics and a bigger emphasis on exploration. Yet it is first of all, like NoLF1, a shooter with great gunplay. And that mix <good gunplay + stealth> didn't use to go well together. The first game was already exceptional in that regard, but the second is even more so because it doubled down on the stealth part. Not only that, this immersive sim-esque approach ended up enhancing the combat. Part of that comes from a "natural" improvement to gunplay, other from more interesting (and hilarious) enemies. But the more important part was the AI system, and a lot can be said about that.
The AI.
If you go to any gaming forum and ask what people think are the best AI in games, it won't take long for someone to mention FEAR. With good reason, FEAR's AI is extraordinary and gives a sense of fighting real adversaries like few games do. But before FEAR there was No One Lives Forever 2, before Replica clones there were the man crates! One of Monolith goals going from the first game to the second was creating an enhanced AI system, and it that they succeed.
There are really two aspects of NoLF2's AI that must be addressed, first is the AI in "default mode", that is, when they are not aware of Cate Archer presence. The other is when they engaged with her, either searching or fighting our beloved operative (I can say our right?).
For the first it's much of the same we see in any and all stealth and stealth oriented games. Basically enemies move around in semi-random patters. Except they go one or two steps further which helps breath a lot of life into the game: they constantly interact with the environment.
Example 1, Example 2.
This may seem a rather small detail, but I believe it's one of those specials details that have a much bigger effect than they should. I remember, which inherently means that I might be misremembering, a video about The Last of Us comparing the pre-release trailer with the final product, we know Naughty Dog likes to… overpromise with their trailers and this one was no different. One of the changes was that in the demo footage one of the enemies would go to a drawer and search it, very much like our protagonists. In the final game that interaction was cut, and the enemy would just stand close to the furniture. In NoLF2 enemies do filing cabinets and search for documents! This is almost some Skynet level AI. But they also (pretend to) fix trucks, write reports, snooze a little, etc. They are not just a enemy that moves around.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMow_f7IJ9Q
Enemies will often run away and get back with reinforcements.
About the second part, I think the AI is excellent but with some blind spots, which are not necessarily bad because of what I mentioned in the first part of this thread. NoLF2, like its predecessor, is first and foremost an FPS, and so being discovered and having to fight your way through is not a problem. If you tried to play it 100% stealth, you'd find it frustrating at a time, but also very rewarding in others. But there is one particular moment in which the game AI shines brightly, and in that moment it's even better than FEAR's, when you're engaged in combat, but not necessarily in a full blown firefight. When enemies are after you, but you're still able to move around in a open-ish map. I remember playing this game for the first time and when that happened, I felt I was playing Counter Strike, and in that moment I knew I would love this game forever. There is a perfect combination of how enemies move around, how they are looking for you rather than knowing where you are, how they react to being shot and spotting you and firing upon you that creates a feeling of playing against human opponents. That same feeling is present in FEAR, or Halo, or other brilliant shooters, but when you add the stealth element it becomes something even grander. Add on top of that cool actions like jumping over rails, rolling around, going prone in the ground and you have something that truly is special. I won't say it has never been surpassed, because we're talking about 20 years and there has been many fantastic shooters, but I will say it is ageless, and impressive to this day.
View: https://youtu.be/2v88u_8KzCw
View: https://youtu.be/VzsXdExMEdI
Two gameplay videos, the first is more about stealth, the second is combat focused. NoLF2 delivers in both cases.
ps: If you want to see how important AI is in a game like this, you don't have to go further than Crysis 2. This is also a FPS with a lot of stealth, and a FPS that does virtually everything right. Except the AI. The AI is atrocious. And that undermines the game completely. If Crysis 2 had an AI on the level of NoLF2 we would be talking about on of the best FPS ever made, instead of a good one that didn't quite up lived to its prequel.
A focus on set pieces:
When I mention set pieces I'm thinking it in two terms. First is the one shown in the GIFs. Explosive action packed moments. They were already present in many games in that time, including the first NoLF. The second is well carefully crafted combat scenarios. Half-Life is the emperor of that, but by NoLF2 Monolith was catching up. When FEAR came out in 2005 they would be at VALVE's level (maybe. that might not be possible) but in 2002 that kind of attention was already present. And the best example of that is the last level. I remember in 2010 or so there was some discussion if final bosses were too game-y. Two series come to mind: Mass Effect and Bioshock. Both had games in which their final bosses weren't well received compared to the rest of the game, and so their third installments ended up with a hand-crafted set-piece instead. Which I believe became more and more common in the last 10 years. Monolith had learned that lesson years before.
Skill tree?
I'm not sure if this is worth pointing out or not but I have the distinct impression that in the last 10 years or so skill trees and similar RPG elements became more common in shooters. And NoLF2 did that 20 years ago. Obviously it was drawing inspiration from other games like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, so it wasn't particularly new even then. But having that kind of system without compromising good gunplay? That was new.
A telephone bug shaped like a bug:
Snowy breath:
Dust:
I know you can't see anything, but believe me, it's there! You can check the video if you think it's too revolutionary to be true! Roger Deakins would be proud.
Truly, the game is just ahead of its time by decades.
And that's it, really.
It's such an awful think what happened with this series. Being suck in legal hell, unable to come back. Year and year I keep thinking something gotta happen, but it does not. And it not only hurts because this is a series that is extraordinary, a meaningful part of FPS history and shouldn't be forgotten, but because there is nothing like it out there. For a decade no one barely attempt anything like that. The exception that I found was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. It also tries to be both a shooter and an immersive sim. In the latter it is even more accomplished than NoLF1 and 2, but it doesn't match their combat excellence. More recently things changed, and people might take for granted that being a stealth game is no reason why you can't have good combat. Deus Ex is an interesting example of how this changed, with only the most recent title really having a gunplay that can match its other parts. Other immersive sim like Prey can also deliver some of the same feelings the NoLF games did.
But they don't have Cate Archer, they don't have the humor, the setting, the identity. What other game you will hear dialogue like these?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox7BG1WHT6g
Or this one. ps: Era doesn't allow me to add more than for "media" links. Can you believe this? It's like having only 7 poll options!
Or phrases like these:
The context of this last one is what some soldier says when they get hit!
Maybe next year…
This is such a tragic tale that fans create a site where you can download both games just so someone would take it down due to owning the rights but no one bothered to do so! Can you believe it?!
On a completely different note, if you find yourself luck enough to own the games, make sure to download the modernizer patches: https://haekb.itch.io/nolf-modernizer, https://haekb.itch.io/nolf2-modernizer The second game really needs it.
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