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

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.