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By Brad Cook Secret agent Cate Archer is on a vital mission for the international organization U.N.I.T.Y. Her goal: foil the plans of a group known as H.A.R.M., who, like any self-respecting evil organization, wants to rule the world. As she sneaks through the hallways of an enemy hide-out, she comes across a pair of guards…
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 H.A.R.M. agents can pop up anywhere. Watch out. |
…Knowing that it’s better to slip past them than attack and alert other guards to her presence, she hugs the wall. As she holds her breath and moves past them in the shadows, she overhears one of them saying that the Edsel was never truly appreciated in its time.
Welcome to the tongue-in-cheek world of No One Lives Forever: Game of the Year Edition, the latest high-octane game from MacPlay. Part “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and part James Bond, with liberal dashes of Austin Powers and “Get Smart” thrown in for good measure, this first-person shooter features 60 single-player levels, 10 multi-player levels, 30 weapons and gadgets, and 20 over-the-top characters.
The Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition also sports some groovy extras, including: a new, four-level mission set in the heart of a volcano; a bonus CD full of far-out 60s music; and the official Prima Strategy Guide for the game. In addition, the GOTY Edition features a level editor that allows you to create your own missions to share with your friends.
Best of all, “the combination of Mac OS X and the advanced Lithtech game engine makes NOLF one of the must-have games of 2002,” says MacPlay president Mark Cottam. “This game is beautiful in Mac OS X.”
Explosive graphics in exotic locales.
It’s Like a Movie
“Growing up, I was a huge fan of James Bond and the 60s — and 70s-style spy novels,” Cottam continues. “No One Lives Forever is so engaging that you actually feel like you’re part of the action. In fact, it’s the one game I’ve been waiting to play on the Macintosh.”
Like many of the great secret agents of yore, Cate Archer has a wide variety of gadgets at her disposal, such as a barrette that’s really a lockpick or a cigarette lighter that doubles as a welder. All the gadgets in the game serve an important purpose because stealth is often just as important as — or even more important than — duking it out with the bad guys. Those gadgets really come in handy when Archer needs to infiltrate a building, obtain important information, and leave without alerting all the guards to her presence.
There is no escape from danger — even under water.
Of course, No One Lives Forever isn’t just a series of mindless exercises in avoiding or shooting guards. The game features a rich story that owes a lot of inspiration to its roots in the spy thriller genre. A movie-like video at the beginning of the game sets the stage for the action: Someone is killing off U.N.I.T.Y’s agents, and it’s up to Archer and fellow spy Bruno Lawrie to get to the bottom of the mystery. As you play, a short video that advances the story — known as a cutscene — appears each time you complete a level.
A Web of Intrigue
After a brief training exercise that’s designed to familiarize you with the basics of gameplay, such as sneaking around and firing your weapons with precision, it’s time for your first mission.
You travel to Morocco to protect the American ambassador to West Germany, Morris Munroe, from the H.A.R.M. agents who want to kill him.
Unfortunately, Munroe is almost blind and deaf, so he won’t know when danger is near. Thus the stage is set for action mixed with a bit of levity.
After returning from Morocco, you’re sent to Berlin, where the storyline deepens and the bad guys get tougher. It’s important to remember that the members of H.A.R.M. aren’t the kind of mindless drones you’ve encountered in previous first-person shooters.
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They can detect you even if you’re trying to sneak past them, and they have the presence of mind to activate the alarm if they see you.
You also need to watch out for the security cameras you’ll frequently encounter: not only can they detect your presence, but if they pan across a dead guard, you’ll find your cover blown faster than you can say “007.”
No One Lives Forever also departs from other first-person shooters in the variety of ways you interact with the environment. Thanks to the advanced capabilities of the Lithtech engine, at different times in the game you’ll find yourself riding a motorcycle or even falling through the air without a parachute.
You’ll run into all kinds of characters.
It’s All There
When you complete the single-player game, there are several multi-player levels in which you can take on up to 16 friends over the Internet or a LAN (local area network). Thanks to the GameSpy technology used in the game, your friends can use Macintosh or Windows computers as you duke it out in one of four deathmatch or six capture the flag levels.
(In a deathmatch, every player is on their own. It’s frag (kill) or be fragged. In capture the flag, each player chooses a team — in this case, U.N.I.T.Y. or H.A.R.M. — and protects their team’s flag while trying to steal the other team’s flag.)
Assorted vehicles are available throughout the game.
Whether you prefer single- or multi-player action, though, Mac OS X will help you get the most out of your experience, thanks to such advanced features as memory protection, multitasking, and OpenGL, a technology at the heart of the OS that enables lifelike 3D graphics.
“No One Lives Forever brings out the best in gaming under Mac OS X,” says Cottam. “Top performance, delicious graphics, a great storyline with outrageous characters and multiplayer action to die for…it’s all there.”
Want to get in on the fun? Check out the online Apple Store, a Apple retail store, or an Apple authorized reseller near you.
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Want to get the most out of No One Lives Forever? Come with us to page two, where you’ll find lists of gadgets and cheat codes as well as system requirements.     |