No One Lives Forever

Written by John Scalzo  on October 22, 2001

First Impressions: The name is Bond, Jill Bond.

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There are a few things are just plain facts that everyone seems to know at birth. These few stone cold facts that are ingrained in the human psyche. Red means stop. How to play the card game Bullshit. And spies are just plain cool. Video game makers know this. Just look at the greatness spies have bestowed on the video game world. GoldenEye. Perfect Dark. Metal Gear Solid. And No One Lives Forever.

No One Lives Forever (it just sounds like a missing Bond movie doesn't it?) places you in the thigh high go-go boots of one Kate Archer, "The Operative." Kate works for U.N.I.T.Y., a British spy agency (and why are all the cool spies always British? Ah well, that's a rant for another time). The very evil H.A.R.M. (what, S.C.U.M. wasn't available?) has been assassinating some of U.N.I.T.Y.'s top agents. So "The Operative" is sent in to put the harm to H.A.R.M.

No One Lives Forever looks just as fantastic on the PS2 as it did on the PC. The game appears be a straight port of the PC game with all the levels coming in intact. And what cool looking levels they are. The 15 missions are peppered with the standard evil mastermind's secret complex levels, which are all nicely recreated in No One Lives Forever from their PC counterparts. But No One Lives Forever shows it's teeth though in some of it's more unique locales. Among your many tasks are a snowmobile trek through the Alps, exploring an old British pub, and fighting off H.A.R.M. agents as you parachute to the ground. I cannot emphasize enough cool that level sounds.

This is all well and good, but what's a good secret agent without a healthy arsenal of spy gadgets, hmm? Well U.N.I.T.Y. stocks only the best as Kate can be outfitted with a nice complement of handguns, pistols, sniper rifles, machine guns, spear guns, and more exotic items like perfume knockout gas, a hairpin lock pick, and my personal favorite, a blowtorch cigarette lighter. It's enough cool stuff to make Pussy Galore go meow.

No One Lives Forever also sports one of the most important aspects any first person shooter should have, a good framerate. No One Lives Forever keeps a nice zippy 30 frames per second through the whole game, and even jumps up to 60 if need be. Rounding out the package is some swinging 60s lounge music to give this game that 60s spy movie feel. And of course there's more cut scenes to move along our story than you can shake a martini at. Oh the punning power.

Monolith is bringing No One Lives Forever to the PS2 from the PC in all it's stealthy goodness, but wait there's more. Just like Q, coming up with new gadgets all the time, Monolith has included a two level prologue that introduces you to "The Operative." You learn all about Kate Archer past as a a thief as you walk through the streets of Britain and into an old English pub stealing stuff. Who wants to be good, it's more fun being the bad girl. OK, that came out wrong.