No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way

aka: NOLF2, No One Lives Forever 2: Agentin in geheimer Mission, No One Lives Forever 2: Le C.R.I.M.E est éternel, No One Lives Forever 2: Szpieg na tropie ugrupowania H.A.R.M., Wu Ren Yong Sheng 2
Moby ID: 7391
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

A year has passed since Cate Archer foiled the plans of the terrorist organization known as H.A.R.M. The tension between USA and the Soviet Union has increased, and the two powers quarrel over a tiny, but strategically important island of Khios. Cate is once again recruited by the secret British organization UNITY, whose goal is to avert international conflicts and preserve the world peace. As Cate is sent to investigate a secret meeting, she meets new and old villains who, once again, won't stop until she is out of their way to world domination.

No One Lives Forever 2 is the sequel to The Operative: No One Lives Forever, casting the player as the super-spy Cate Archer in the 1960's. As in the first game, many different weapons and items are available to Cate, from pistols to automatic weapons, as well as her trusty lipstick bomb and other gadgets. The sequel introduces new weapons and gadgets, such as eye shadow that doubles as a tazer, a robotic bomb disguised as a kitten, and others. The game enhances the light role-playing angle from the original, as the player is now able to gather intelligence and upgrade Cate's sneaking and shooting abilities as well as equipment.

The sequel retains the humorous tone of its predecessor and takes the player to various exotic locations such as Japan, India, and a trailer park in Ohio during a tornado. Players may also go online and engage in deathmatch or cooperative mode, teaming up against the enemy.

Spellings

  • Никто не живет вечно 2: С.Т.Р.А.Х. ВОЗВРАЩАЕТСЯ - Russian spelling
  • 无人永生2 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

188 People (100 developers, 88 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 56 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 7 reviews)

The "Shagadellic" is missing in this one

The Good
STORY You are the foxy spy Cate Archer - in the employment of the anit-terrorist group U.N.I.T.Y... It's been a few years since your last outing against the terrorist group H.A.R.M and there's another mysterious plot about involving Russians, Mimes, and Supersolders. But the story is lacking a bit incomparison to the last game. I got lost on the plot more than once and kept on wondering If I had missed anything. A second play revealed that I had not.

GRAPHICS Top notch - for the rather irky Lith-Tech engine. While past releases of this engine have not been brilliant the Jupiter variant is a stunner. From very well realised Cate archer to other nice effects like water, glares from laseres, explosions, gas and other very eye candy additions to the game engine - most notable is the hair, there's a physics engine behind it and on some characters like Dr. Schenker they have a pretty realistly cool mass of tangled hair. The game textures for the levels are also nicely done - nice and crisp with signs and stuff telling you to do things like "Don't drink the water" Also characters are very well animated, most likey MoCap with the animation blending from the previous game returning, enabling guards to fall down stairs without as much as a stop in their frames. Eye motions and expressions are also well done giving a more human touch to the cutscenes.

SOUND Yet again sound is handled well. From the ambient chatter of Eastern cities to the clink of bullet shells everything is still the same in this department. The music is also back - while not as brassy or as entertaining as the last game the dynamic music still is there when you get into a mess. The voices are well acted - the replacement actress for Cate Archer does very well, as she has a large part to replace. Some of the actors from the previous game are back, Dr. Schenker, Bruno, Magnus Armstrong as well as a whole bunch of other well voiced characters.

CONTROLS Standard WASD keys with the Right mouse button assigned to interact with anything and so on.

GAMEPLAY Now this is when the game unfortuantly does not live up to it's predecessor. The last game was honoured for being VERY different in terms of common FPS games...but while the second time around there are still innovative objectives (sober up your pilot by making coffee!) other missions have objectives that are not so well explained. The story has lots of gaps and one moment you're in Britan talking about HARM and so on - the next second later you're in India trying to get into HARM....then with no reason why you're suddenly taken all the way from India to the Antartic then BACK to that sunny country India with little reason why. There seems to be a few cutscenes missing in my opinion Now - the weapons. The zany gadgets are back - from the simple Bug (an oversized Ladybird) to the Angry Kitten - (a VERY explosive cat that explodes and sends whatever is around it to kingdom come) "Oh what a cute little kitte- BLAM!" Some other changes have been made - you now have an Utility Launcher in which a whole lot of supressors for cameras and guards have been installed in it - Very handy because you don't need to do elaborate camera jumping or being sneaky with sleeping gass purfume. But the weapons - are sadly limited. The Russians have their AK-47, the French their Tommy Gun and Harm Agents Parabellems...and you - your pistol or Sten Gun....that's pretty much it. Gone are all the handguns, machine guns and so on...It's a real shame. The crossbow does make a return (along with pinning people to the wall) and the Rocket launcher folds rather cooly out of a case - but gone are the real assortment of guns that made the last game interesting - though the addtion of Katanas, Rapiers and Shrikens make it interesting The enemies have better AI and there's this interesting pathing/interacting thing added to their AI. There are all these hotspots located around a level where the AI may go and sit at a desk, and do something, then walk over here and do this and so on. But when it chooses to (random choises). The same old "Oh - I've found some footsteps!" and other "We have an intruder" stuff is still there - you can now hide from them and they then loose you - but keep a tight patrol.

The missions like I said were a bit duller in comparison to the last game - Gone are the dive from the plane, escape in a rail-car while being shot at by choppers or escaping from a sinking ship (well there is a level close to that) When there is a happening it's usually interesting - like the fight in a Caravan park as a Tornado approaches or the fight inside the house as it's being torn to pieces by the same tornado. Other missions involve you scurrying around a level finding things from glasses, doorknobs and tapes - not too entertaining, plus alot of the plot is told though notes and things found in the level. The Abigal supersolder sub-plot is not really well explained and I did not really understand it untill I played it again.

The Bad
It could have been another classic - but slightly stale gameplay and lack of things that made the last game great are missing.

Gone are the brilliant levels that just flowed from start to end perfectly, almost no backtracking, in here the Serbia levels are a major chore with plenty of backtracking and getting well lost. The outdoor levels are more or less like a maze - with little or no clues on where to go next. The AI is good, though in some times the constant spawning of foes as you are trying to get out of a sticky situation is very annoying. Plus the skewed plotline is not too well.

Multiplayer is not as grandose as the last game - no Good vs Evil - just CoOp missions that while are interesting - get dull.

The Bottom Line
A great game - playable, enjoyable - aside from the mentioned flaws. The original is still the best.

Windows · by Sam Hardy (80) · 2003

New adventures of the great Cate Archer

The Good
The original No One Lives Forever is one of my favorite FPS, and a truly underrated gem. When I heard about the sequel, I was very expectant. This second part offers some great improvements over the original. Although very similar at first look, the graphics are better. The best improvement comes in the terms of facial gestures and people's movements. The submarine level felt very original, like a new version of the spaceship level on the original game I liked also the possibility of searching your enemies bodies and the chance of improving certain abilities.

The Bad
On the other side of the coin I have to admit that this level felt very, very short in comparison with the first one. There aren't the great variety of levels of the original NOFL, and even worse, much of the episodes takes place in the same map (the one in Morocco). I would like more stealth levels, too.

The Bottom Line
Despite being very short this is a game that won't totally disappoint to those who liked and loved the original No One Lives Forever. Long life to Cate Archer!

Windows · by Emepol (212) · 2009

Mostly H.A.R.M.less

The Good
Early in NOLF2, we learn that H.A.R.M. (Good at Being Bad, Bad at Being Good) is still active and under the control of a martini swigging, cad with a bad comb-over and major maternal issues. Worse yet, H.A.R.M. is working in conjunction with the Soviets on Project Omega and it’s up to The Operative, Cate Archer, to stop Project Omega and, if possible, find out what Project Omega is… and maybe uncover H.A.R.M.’s new mission statement.

This second installment in The Operative series puts Cate on a globe-spanning mission to defeat the evil forces of H.A.R.M. Along the way, Cate is joined by new friends and old enemies and assisted by the gadgets and weaponry developed by Santa’s Workshop (UNITY’s Q-Branch equivalent). NOLF2 improves on much of the original game’s innovations. Intelligence Items- whether a slip of paper in a desk or an abandoned briefcase provided humor in the previous game with an occasional hint. In NOLF2, Intelligence Items take on an added importance. They still provide humor and hints, but now their recovery earns points for Cate, points you can spend to improve certain aspects of Cate’s character.

Though a well-trained spy, Cate begins the game with minimal abilities in Stealth, Stamina, Marksmanship, Carrying, Armor, Weapons, Gadgets and Search. As you spend points you can increase the length of her life or armor bars, decrease the time it takes to search a corpse, or increase the amount of damage you do with your guns. NOLF2 has a better interface as well, if you are in a dark area, a hide icon will appear to show that you are hidden. This takes away the guesswork some games require to determine if your surroundings are dark enough. Right-clicking interacts with the environment and if you are aiming at an area that requires inventory, NOLF2 automatically selects it. This is useful if you are being chased and need to quickly pick a lock.

While NOLF2 has a lot of weapons and gadgets, I felt that there were less available this go around. I didn’t feel cheated though, because it seems like the new system is more streamlined. In the original game, each mission was preceded by a visit to Santa’s Workshop where Cate could train with the new equipment. There was also an equipment selection screen were Cate could pick what she wanted to take. In a somewhat clumsy attempt to add to the replay value, there were levels in the game where equipment available later would be useful. Once the equipment was unlocked, you could replay these levels and explore new areas. Now Santa appears during missions (in the guise of a bird) with notes on new equipment and briefcases for Cate.

While I didn’t notice improved enemy AI (the original’s was quite good), a new feature of this game is that alerted enemies will run to an alarm. While the alarm is sounded and enemies remain aware of Cate’s presence, enemies will spawn and search the area. If Cate stays concealed, enemies will lose their enthusiasm (and disintegrate the bodies of their fallen comrades rather than deal with the paperwork). The enemies Cate faces are quite diverse and include sinister mimes and ninjas who leap from the street to the rooftops in a single bound. There are also Boss-type characters Cate must face.

Graphically, NOLF2 is incredible. I marveled over the water textures in Japan, the snowfall in Russia, and schools of fish beneath the ocean’s surface. Characters look great and they tumble like rag dolls when they’re killed. Music is still that swinging sixties sound, though modified to sound culturally correct depending on Cate’s current location. Voice work is top notch, both in game and in the mercifully short cutscenes (NOLF1’s biggest problem area).

The Bad
NOLF2 seemed short to me.

Part of this is probably due to the streamlined gameplay system, levels build on each other and there aren’t side trips to Santa’s Workshop. But what I missed most in this game and liked most in the previous one were the action set pieces. This game has a few memorable sequences, but nothing that matched the excitement of a midair gun battle at 36,000 ft or fighting off helicopters in a mountaintop gondola. The Boss fights also seemed less innovative and… well… easy.

I have no real complaints about this game, but I think the first one was more fun.

The Bottom Line
Cate Archer is back even if the heart isn't. This is still a great FPShooter/Sneaker where one wrong turn can lead you into a pit of petulant rabbits.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2003

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

There are a few changes when playing with German language settings:

  • All blood, death cries and the sound after using the katana were removed.
  • Enemies can't be set on fire
  • Killed enemies transform into backpacks.

A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

Online servers

The game's online servers were shut down on 1 November 2008.

Weapons

The Gordon SMG, the standard weapon of H.A.R.M. minions, is actually a Sterling SMG with a collapsed stock. It is a British weapon, which replaced aging Sten SMGs and it is still being used in some parts of the world (namely the Jamaican armed forces).

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (No. 148) - Game of the Year (Co-Winner)
  • GameSpy
    • 2002 – PC Game of the Year
    • 2002 – Best Music of the Year (PC)
    • 2002 – Quote of the Year (for a tape recording of Melvin Blitzny)
  • Golden Joystick Awards
    • 2003 - Unsung Hero Game of the Year (Runner-up to Viewtiful Joe)

Information also contributed by ApTyp and Sciere.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by JPaterson.

Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Rebound Boy, Unicorn Lynx, tarmo888, Sciere, Solid Flamingo, Zeppin, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, piltdown_man, Plok, FatherJack, R3dn3ck3r.

Game added October 7, 2002. Last modified March 20, 2024.