Contract J.A.C.K.

The Good
I've said it about a thousand times and I'll say it again: I LOVE Monolith studios. Next to ID, they are my favourite shooter developer. They did such classics as Blood, SHOGO , Condemned, and of course their shining golden masterpiece No one lives Forever 2 . NOLF 2 was a sparkling golden gem from the heavens and one of the best shooters of this decade, let alone all time. It was absolutely brilliant, it broke all conventions by being a taught spy thriller, a raunchy comedy and spy spoof, with Stealth, Action, Puzzles, Adventure.. The whole shebang. It proved that Monolith had brains and weren't afraid to use them. The only people that didn't like NOLF 2 were those who prefer their shooters without their brains. Now, I love mindless shooters, but they have to be executed right. So when they decided to make a purely action based game in the NOLF universe, I expected something along the lines of Blood and was anticipating the game greatly. Enough chit-chat, lets kick off this review.

Honestly, there are only a couple good things that can be said about Contract J.A.C.K. One of those things is the music and sound effects. The music is great and the sound effects are great. The game captures the kitschy style of the NOLF universe well. The graphics are still stylized as well. There is also a level towards the end that does a good job of parodying Moonraker. The game is also bloody, if you like the red goop there's plenty of it. There are a couple OK jokes, and the cameo by Cate Archer is funny and her voice acting is still top notch.

The Bad
Beyond that? Barf. What ruins this is that Monolith not only took out their brains, they apparently left anyone skilled out of this project. The level design is bland, boring, and distinctly linear. The AI might as well sit in a corner and wait for someone to put on a dunce cap and paint a target on their skulls, they clearly aren't smart enough to use the basic motor functions to put the dunce cap on thereselves and its amazing that they even have a "Shoot" function. The AI in Doom is years ahead of the bad guys in Contract JACK. All they know how to do is stand and pull the trigger in your direction. They can barely move, they do NO maneuvering to try and avoid your fire, not even strafing or walking to a different area. You think by 2003 this would be a requirement.

With no challenge in the AI there is no fun in shooting them. Its about as fun as going deer hunting but all the deer are already dead. These folks cant even charge in and do suicide moves like most AI in old school shoot 'em ups would do.

The humour in this game is bland and lacking the intelligence of the other NOLF games. The game is hardly funny at all. None of the quirkiness or thrills are here either.

The story is bland, stupid, and lacking any tension. It may set up the events of NOLF 2, but it does it with no style or interest. Other than returning characters from the NOLF 1/2 cast, there's no one here that can keep your attention or get you involved or interested in the story. The game is yawn inducing in its plot and its levels. None of the stealth elements of the first two games are here and there aren't really any gadgets, just guns, and since you can't use different ammo types like in the other games, the guns are boring to shoot and don't feel powerful or fun.

The game is short, anyone can blast through it in about 3 and a half hours.. although, on reflection, that may be Monolith having mercy.

The Bottom Line
Contract JACK is an affront to nature, let alone the prestigious name of Monolith and No one Lives Forever. The game is one of the most boring, stupid, and bland shooters out there. The only reason it might get more attention and be considered "slightly" better than the absolute droves of bland, uninspired, and lame bargain bin shooters is because it is part of the NOLF series and was developed by Monolith; but in truth, the game really isn't any better than those games. I could develop something better in about 3 months with FPS creator. I don't know how Monolith could screw something up so bad. None of their talent or intelligence shows here, and this is easily one of the worst shooters ever made.

The Good
I'll try and keep this short: Contract J.A.C.K is to NOLF what Red Faction is to Half Life: basically, it's a mod, albeit a pretty high-standard one at that, but falls quite a bit short of its roots.

The visuals in Contract J.A.C.K are top-notch; character models are detailed, the general design is quite eye-catching and details are high everywhere. The weapon models are pretty cool, and the environments are very nice to look at. So basically, LithTech/Jupiter still works very well. Also, the in-game music is pretty nifty, and as is standard fare with LithTech games these days the dynamic music sequences really kick ass (although not to the perfection of Tron 2.0). Finally, the sound is pretty good and voice acting is on par with NOLF (which is a good thing).

Contract J.A.C.K features a pretty rudimentary story that manages not to clash with NOLF's for the simple reason that it has very little in common with it: you play Jack, a hitman who gets hired by HARM to secure a vehicle prototype, and then go after a mandatory slightly-mad Indian Dr., extracting him from the other bad guys - an Italian crime organization by the name of Danger Danger. The game has little or no surprises right until the very end, when censored. So in essence: simple-minded fun.

The Bad
For starters, the enemy AI is ridiculously bad. Admittedly I did not play the game at a high level (Normal), but the enemies still followed the same stupid pattern - wait 'till I run into a curve, yell something and then come pouring out, waiting to be shot. I haven't once seen an enemy do something even remotely smart, other than maybe stay hidden behind an object - but even then they don't seek better cover or superiour ground, they just stay put and occasionally take a shot at you.

Gameplay is incredibly repetitive, but luckily the game is so short (5 hours at best) that it doesn't really matter; potential spoiler unfortunately there is only one boss in the game, which does not lend well to gameplay (again, compared to NOLF). And, while the scenery is varied, the enemies are not - just different skins for the same type of enemy with the same type of behaviour. There is very little here to break the repetitiveness - not even the occasional side-quest or cool item usage (I think there are maybe 3 or 4 items in the game).

While the architecture is pretty cool, the level design is uninspired at best - basically just the same thing over and over again: go through the corridor, shoot some bad guys, move across the hall, find another corridor, go through it, shoot some bad guys ad nauseum. And again the game falls into the trap of being so damn scripted and linear that you'd find yourself facing five locked doors and a single unlocked one in one corridor. I don't know about you guys, but I hate having all my navigation decisions being made for me (I think Max Payne was the first game in which I ever noticed this extent of linearity).

The Bottom Line
Short and incredibly mediocre. I wouldn't bother with it unless you can find it for $10 in a bargain bin somewhere. It's not worth full price for just a few hours of unenthusiastic fun.

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.