Customer Reviews

No One Lives Forever (Mac)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of those games I've been meaning to get ever since reading the reviews when it first came to the Mac. I have a G4 1.2 MHz Mac with a 128 MB ATI Rage pro, so I have no trouble running it. I enjoyed the humor more then anything and yes some of the cut scenes get old, but you can skip them. Most of the game lets you choose between shooting everyone and sneaking, though some missions require you not to be seen. So yes the graphics are not ground breaking, but it still a fun game with more of plot then 90% of FPS. Definitely worth playing if you come across a copy of it still.

If your just getting into gaming and would like to give a first person shooter a try this game would be a good place to start. It's a realitivly simple game, not requiring too much replay, and provides you with ample instruction. On the other hand it probably won't offer all that much to an expirenced gamer as there's not a whole lot of inovation going on in this game. The main exception being the spy gadgets Cate recieves.
Overall I had a pretty fun time with NOLF, it took me about two weeks of casual gaming to complete but I had a good time. My main gripe with this game is the cut scenes, most of them are boring and long so you'll probably be tempted to skip them even though you'll lose information. Alright so you can skip those if they rub your patience the wrong way, however there is no way to skip at least one very long text based mission you'll encounter further into the game which drove me nuts especially when I forgot to save after that mission, died on the next level and had to do the entire dialogue mission all over. Another little thing that bugged me was Cates inability to jump off and survive the fall from all but the very smallest ledges or hights, this became rather annoying as it began to happen more often as the game wore on but its still not a major problem.
By todays standards the NOLF is quite dated, I pushed to graphics as far up as they'ed go and the game still didn't look all that great, don't get me wrong it's not an ugly game, there was a lot of effort put into the asthetic piece of NOLF when it was being created, just don't expect this game to blow your socks off in the graphics department.
No One Lives Forever also shows its age through game play, if your looking for a radically different FPS you probably won't find it here (unless you live to use gadgets in games). Of course back in 2000 or 2001 this game would have been concidered bleeding edge with its advanced-for-the-time AI and graphical engine but today it simply won't stack up with the best of them. But if average gameplay with a 60's backdrop and a spy theme thrown in is your thing you'll want to concider this game, I'm still glad I did.
(Also note that I first played this game all the way through with a 450MHz G4 processor, OS 10.2 and a tired ATI Rage 128 card and expirenced no slow gameplay if I remember correctly, so older Macs should still be OK).

this is an old game. it got the game of the year award for 2000 (along with deus ex) but has been three years coming to mac. the mac version does have four extra levels. while these are reminiscent of other levels in the game, they are very good additions, not tack-ons. i bought this game as soon as it was available and did it three times on increasing difficulty.

Nolf can best be characterized as a "sneaker", because you try to get through setting off no alarms and killing as few bad guys as possible. you can get rid of them if you like, but this often sets off alarms. note: various bright orange outfits do not add to cates credibility as a sneaky spy. another object is to find intelligence items ("secrets" in other games) because this gets you extra life and ammo. no matter how you do it, this game is never boring or mechanical; you just want to keep on going. there are few puzzles, and it is not too hard to get around.

as for gameplay, this is just a shooter, but what really shines is the imagination shown in the level design. the game authors did an excellent job of varying the environments. morocco, german research facilities, shipyards, airplanes, trains, underground bunkers, sunken ships, outer space, tropical islands, alpine resorts, etc. although many of the levels appear to have the same basic framework, texture work and scenery keep things different and interesting. the AI is excellent, better than most games i have done. the antagonists are hard to outthink and very difficult to outrun. they are remarkably adaptable to any tactic you devise. there are many funny conversations scattered throughout the game. you can sneak by during these or wait them out and kill each participant after they separate. reviewers have complained about blabbermouth cutscenes. this is valid, though the training tells you specifically how to reject these. there are many weapons and gadgets, but very few of them are necessary. a silenced pistol and sniper rifle are all the guns you need as most things can be picked up along the way.

this game shows its age in some places. the polygons are coarse, but this is made up for by good textures. it runs slowly in places, but the "read me" section has many hints on how to improve performance. personally, i hated the music (and it covered up sound effects); turning it off helped performance. also, fart jokes came and went with tombraider.

so... despite a few flaws, this game has so much diversity that it will keep the player's attention for days. it never drags and is supremely replayable. although i dont like it as much as deus ex, nolf is definite 5 star material which is worth its price.

I just got this game for Christmas and so far I think it's fantastic. I like a good story behind my game and this one has quite the humourous tongue in check story. The bad guys are a riot with their dialogue; a lot more interesting than the Nazi's in another game...

I'm running it on 10.2 with a 500Mhz G4 adn 750 Mb RAM and an ATI Radeon with 32Mb video RAM. It works well if I have no other programs open. I noticed some dialogue dropping on a cut scene when I had some apps open in the background (Entourage for one); so I'd recommend running it alone.

My only complaint about the software is there default keyboard setup is kinda weird. But that can be changed easily enough in the preferences menu.

It's goovy, it's hip, it's retro.. it's also kind of a generic shooter gameplay-wise but the settings and goals make it absurdly fun. Anyone who likes the Bond movies and Austin Powers should love this and its more polished but less expansive sequel.

I picked up NOLF after hearing about how great the game played and how funny the dialogue was.

Unfortunately, I found the actual engine play to be very glitchy. It wasn't slow necessarily. But I found that I'd walk into corners of rooms and get stuck and have to reboot the game. Or I wouldn't be able to perform normal functions like use the scope on a sniper rifle without it going out on me unexpectedly. The game just seemed somewhat buggy like maybe it wasn't quite finished with testing when they released it. This got very frusterating.

As for the dialogue, some of the longer bits were brutally boring. Long, drawn-out cliches and snippy discussions about who's a better agent. I will admit that when you sneak up on the bad guys, they often said funny things. But I got the point where I'd skip the dialogue between the good guys (which often had information necessary to the plot) just to get on with it. Not impressed at all.

But I still recommend this game if you can buy it for ...less. Why? The plot action is pretty interesting. You may get further if you sneak past the bad guys instead of Duke Nukem blasting your way through. Finesse is very important if you need to kill a guard with a silenced gun and hide his body so the rest of the goons don't find you. Sniper action was also cool (when the scope worked...)

So if you know that it will run a bit buggy and are prepared for some of the longer-winded conversations, I think you'll dig the game for the actual playing.

But don't spend full price.

NoLF is a great game. Many people compare this game to the Austin Powers movies, but the best comparison is actually the 60's TV show, The Avengers. The graphics, sound, music, and dialog are all top notch, and the action is lots of fun.

The system requirements aren't very helpful, though. You really should have at least a 700MHz G4 with either an ATI Radeon or nVidea GeForce graphics card. (Sorry, but no current action game is gonna run well on an iBook).

I was very disappointed in this game as the reviews had billed it as a very enjoyable plot driven First Person Shooter. I knew that it was a port of an older PC game, so I wasn't expecting, nor does the game deliver, anything other than serviceable graphics. However, given the older game engine and low quality graphics, I was very surprised that the game played so poorly on my iBook 500. Graphics are slow, movement is jerky, controls are unresponsive, and everything generally feels sluggish. Further, I had read reports of funny cut scenes and entertaining dialogue, but I found that both the plot and the "humorous dialogues" are even worse than standard issue. I've also had several crashes. This is certainly no Duke Nuke 'em.

Overall, I would have to recommend either Jedi Knight II or Castle Wolfenstein as both play MUCH better performance-wise while featuring up-to-date graphics and much more entertaining plots.

I am a big fan of first person shooters. This one looked fun with its kitchy 60's theme. Well.... the gameplay is okay, actually very good on parts. Now the bad parts: The game engine is fairly slow. I have a 700mHz iMac G3 and found it was playable only on the "Fast" setting (ie., less detail in graphics). The graphics are terrible. Even at the best graphics setting, most of the faces are very ugly and background details sparse. There is a lot of time spent introducing special weapons and gadgets, most of which are not necessary to complete the game. It seems to me fairly overcomplicated to introduce so many choices anyway. Some of the gadgets are pretty nice, though, such as the belt buckle grappling hook for climbing. Most of the puzzles are very easy to solve, so this game really comes down to killing, killing, killing. That's not so bad for this genre, EXCEPT in between killing sprees, you are subjected to the MOST BORING 10 MINUTE LONG CUTSCENES EVER!!!! And I don't mean once or twice. Constantly throughout the game. Blank eyed characters blinking and twitching their way though the most banal petty conversations ever written. 4 stars for the action, negative 2 stars for story, thus 2 stars total.

I think one of the reasons the graphcs are so blasé in this game is the fact that it is so old and just now getting ported to OS X, you know, the *other* operating system that so many of us enjoy working with daily. It's like giving breadcrumbs to a starving man. The man is eternally grateful just to get something of immeasurable worth that he is willing to overlook the obvious shortcomings.It's still just a breadcrumb. Not a meal, or even a snack. NOLF is like that. An FPS that wants to convince Mac users they're really getting a fabulous dinner with all the fixings.

With that said, the scene cutaways are campy, cute, and LONG. And no way to bypass them to get into playing the game. It's not groundbreaking entertainment; for that, I'd recommend Red Faction. Now there's a fun FPS. Enjoy. But don't take it too seriously. This is just the breadcrumbs of what a really great game could be. And without any of the fixings, either!