Contract J.A.C.K.

The Good
In the Gamasutra Postmortem for the original No One Lives Forever, Craig Hubbard notes that the driving design goal was to develop a game as polished as possible. However, while Hubbard advocated presentation over innovation, it would be remiss not to overlook that it's NOLF's originality that made it memorable. NOLF took the 60's spy setting and found a comfortable place between James Bond and Austin Powers. NOLF made the main character a female, who owed nothing to Lara Croft, and treated her like a person, not a toy. NOLF was filled with creative villains and packed with action set-pieces. Finally, with its emphasis on stealth, gadgets, and intelligence gathering, it was definitely not another first person shooter.

Then NOLF2 came along and refined the gaming process. More importance was given to intelligence gathering. Playing stealthily had a bigger payoff. The game was streamlined to forward the story by using in-game events rather than cutscenes. New gadgets were introduced during missions, instead of taking side trips to the weapons lab. Best of all, Cate Archer was now customizable, having attained attributes which allowed her to hide faster, shoot more accurately and use her gadgets faster.

Finally there came news of Contract J.A.C.K. Tired of being the good guy? See the NOLF World from H.A.R.M.'s viewpoint. Sadly, what was offered as the chance to play From Russia With Love as Red Grant ended up being Red Grant caught in Danger: Diabolik.

John Jack (the Jack part of Contract J.A.C.K.) begins his adventures tied to a chair in an anonymous room being threatened by two thugs and a voice on a speakerphone. After getting slapped around, called an asshole and threatened with a chainsaw, Jack springs to life: snapping his bonds and pummeling the two thugs to death with his fists. Surviving a sudden onslaught of thugs attracts the attention of H.A.R.M. Director Dmitrij Volkov who has a need for Just Another Contract Killer. Working for H.A.R.M. pits Jack against the Czechoslovakians and Danger Danger (out of Italy) in a race… well… to the Moon.

If Contract J.A.C.K. has any strength it comes from using the same engine as NOLF2 and reutilizing most (if not all) of the music, sound effects, etc. Voice work is great, even if the dialogue is not. Contract J.A.C.K. has a few vehicle levels, which are well armed, and one level brings to mind "Unexpected Turbulence" from the original game; not that these are better levels than the rest of the game, but they break up the monotony of running endless, bloody gauntlets.

The Bad
Contract J.A.C.K.'s biggest failing comes from making a game set in the No One Lives Forever Universe that has very little interest for fans of the No One Lives Forever series. John Jack is not a male Cate Archer. H.A.R.M. (as presented here) is not a dark reflection of UNITY. Contract J.A.C.K. bravely does away with stealth and gadgets, presenting a FPS with poor AI and bad weapons. Hell, Contract J.A.C.K. doesn't even make use of the 60s setting, Jack's weapon of choice is an anachronistic Desert Eagle.

Afraid to lose their M rating, every villain suffers from hemophilia, drenching the scenery with blood when they are shot. Weapons are frighteningly underpowered—it's not uncommon to empty a half clip into an enemy only to have them barrel onward. Headshots don't seem to matter this time around. The few times I acquired the crossbow, I only had one shot left. Ignore the John Woo style gun in each hand pics on the cover—that's just to fool Max Payne fans.

AI is pretty poor (except when scripted). Enemies spawn and run instinctively to your location. Forget about sneaking around! NOLF had a nice pacing where, if you had to kill someone, you had to time it so they were alone and you could dispose of the body. Not here.

The Bottom Line
At a rapidly dropping price, it's hard to be too disappointed with Contract J.A.C.K. It is short and completely conventional, stripping off all the polish the previous games had, but a bad John Jack game doesn't have the same impact a bad Cate Archer game would have. Do I recommend it? No. It doesn't fill in the gaps, like you'd expect so it's unsatisfactory even for NOLF completists. No matter how low the price gets, there will always be another game at the same cost that is better—which is too bad, because done better, they'd have something here. Still, until patching a game rewrites it completely, leave this game on the shelf.