No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way (abbreviated NOLF2) is a computer game developed by Monolith Productions, and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was released on September 30, 2002. It is the second game in the No One Lives Forever series, an official sequel to the 2000 game The Operative: No One Lives Forever.
The story follows super-spy Cate Archer as she once again takes up arms against the international criminal organization H.A.R.M. This second game features even more exotic locales, such as a ninja village, a secret submarine base, and a trailer park in Ohio during a tornado. A whole new range of outlandish gadgets and weapons are also introduced, including a blowtorch disguised as a can of hair spray and a robotic bomb disguised as an adorable kitten. An interquel to the game, entitled Contract J.A.C.K. was released in 2003.
Gameplay[ | ]
As in the first game, missions can be completed by pure action, by using pure stealth, by using gadgets, or a combination of all methods. In many cases, the missions are more open ended. While the original game contained several missions that required you not to be detected or to avoid setting off alarms, the sequel contained only a few objectives that required complete stealth (i.e. do not set off any alarms while in the proximity of a certain objective.) However, to counter this, NOLF2 utilizes re-spawning enemies more often than the original to encourage the player to complete the missions in a surreptitious manner.
Plot[ | ]
A year after the first No One Lives Forever, tensions are rising between United States and Soviet Union over the tiny, but strategic Isle of Khios. Jones, now the sole Commander of U.N.I.T.Y. (after Smithy was discovered to be a H.A.R.M. spy in the first No One Lives Forever), is taking a vacation and leaves Temporary Director Lawrie in charge.
Cate is sent on a mission to infiltrate a secret meeting taking place in Japan. Her job is to photograph the Director (who now operates H.A.R.M.). After completing her mission, she is stabbed by the ninja woman Isako, and left for dead. Fortunately, she returns to England and is restored back to health by Dr. Otto Shenker, now working as the staff physician for U.N.I.T.Y. After she is back to full health, the U.S. military advisers inform her and Lawrie of the Soviets' plan for the small of island of Khios. We also learn that Volkov (from the first game) is still alive, though immobilized in a full-body cast and confined to a wheelchair.
Cate is then sent in to Soviet Union to discover the details of its plot. After discovering that the Soviets and H.A.R.M. plan to turn the island into the world's first Communist vacation spot with a five-star hotel, she then travels to Akron, Ohio, where Melvin Blitzny (a vacuum salesman who in the first game was groomed by H.A.R.M. to replace U.N.I.T.Y agent Tom Goodman) lived in order to recover information about Project: Omega. After doing so, Cate escapes a tornado while dodging ninjas before getting caught in a trailer home and having a swordfight in the middle of the tornado with Isako.
Cate then goes to India with Magnus Armstrong, where she is tasked with applying for and being offered a job with H.A.R.M. so that she can get access to their vaults. It is in India where Cate and Magnus run into one of H.A.R.M.'s most deadly operatives, Pierre, a midget mime who rides a unicycle under a heavy black cloak. After dispatching the Mime King, while riding on a tricycle piloted by Magnus Armstrong, Cate is sent to Antarctica to explore a base there and try to determine just what H.A.R.M. is up to. It is here that she learns the true intent of Project: Omega - turning soldiers into cyborg-like fighting machines - and where the first test case is found, an ex-Army officer who believes Cate is his daughter. Sadly, it is determined that the only way to kill these enemies is with an antidote that boils their blood, killing them almost instantly.
After discovering the abomination in Antarctica, Cate finds out H.A.R.M. is sending in more of these cyborg-like men to destroy their headquarters in India. She immediately returns to Calcutta to try and warn everyone, but it is too late. The machines are already attacking and all Cate can do is try to get everyone to safety.
After returning to UNITY, the headquarters are attacked by the Mime King and it is up to Cate to protect the entire building. After doing so, she is sent to an undersea base to rescue a captured Magnus. After rescuing him, she escapes via the Director's private deck, but is captured by a H.A.R.M. submarine on her way back up to the surface. Upon awakening, Cate discovers that she is in H.A.R.M.'s secret volcano lair, from which she must recover the plans for Project: Omega, defeat Volkov, and escape alive.
Once she escapes from the secret volcano lair, Cate is back on a plane and traveling to Khios itself, where she is aiming to stop Project: Omega once and for all. Unfortunately for her, the island is overrun by H.A.R.M. and Soviet troops with Super Soldiers. Cate successfully repels the invasion and Project: Omega is put to a stop once and for all. Meanwhile, the first test case, Lt. Anders, has escaped the H.A.R.M. submarine; as he walks up on shore in Khios, he destroys a missile sent by the U.S. to destroy the island.
It is unknown whether the franchise will be continued, and several plot threads were left unresolved in NOLF2.
Characters[ | ]
UNITY[ | ]
- Cate Archer (voiced by Jen Taylor): After the events from the first game, Cate is recognized as one of U.N.I.T.Y.'s top agents.
- Bruno Lawrie: (voiced by John Patrick Lowrie): A veteran U.N.I.T.Y. agent who has been appointed to Temporary Director.
- Magnus Armstrong (voiced by Andre Sogliuzzo): An aggressive Scottish man in a kilt and a former H.A.R.M. operative, who assists Cate in infiltrating and stopping HARM's latest plot.
- Isaac Barnes (voiced by David Scully): An official from an unnamed American agency who works alongside U.N.I.T.Y.
- Morgan Hawkins (voiced by Ken Boynton): A U.S. general who is working alongside Barnes and U.N.I.T.Y., though he seems more eager to provoke a war with Communist Russia.
- Dr. Otto Schenker (voiced by Jeff Steitzer): Largely operates as a medical practitioner at U.N.I.T.Y, though he does develop a serum to destroy H.A.R.M.’s super soldiers.
- Santa (voiced by Ken Boynton): An inventor who creates gadgets for U.N.I.T.Y. He never appears in person throughout the game, but instead contacts Cate through robotic birds, often relaying information and news on the current situation when she is in the field.
- Kamal Khubchani (voiced by Ken Boynton): A disillusioned H.A.R.M operative and friend of Armstrong, who assists Cate to infiltrate H.A.R.M.’s India HQ.
- Misha (voiced by Ken Boynton): A pilot who accompanies Cate and Armstrong in the levels based in Siberia.
- Mr. Jones (voiced by Nigel Neale) – The Director of U.N.I.T.Y. who leaves for vacation at the beginning of the game, leaving Bruno in charge, and returns during the credit sequence.
- Isamu Hatori – An agent that appears only in the first mission where he meets Cate in a village that is filled with hostile ninja.
- Yamata – Another agent that is killed by Isako at the end of the first mission while waiting for Cate to return to the extraction point.
H.A.R.M[ | ]
- The Director (voiced by John Armstrong): The director of H.A.R.M. whose quite camp and is often seen arguing on the phone with his mother (voiced by Deena Burke).
- Dimitri Volkov (voiced by Jock Blaney): The series nemesis, Volkov is now covered in full body plaster cast and confined to a wheelchair.
- Isako (voiced by Jen Taylor): A female ninja who is indebted to the Director for saving her life, and who is sent reluctantly to assassinate Cate in several missions.
- Pierre aka 'The Mime King' (voiced by John Armstrong): One of the world's deadliest assassins, he is the head of a crime syndicate which is made up of Mimes.(voiced by Ken Boynton and Gary Schwartz). He is hired by Volkov to kill Cate.
- Anoop Banerjee (voiced by Ken Boynton): Chief of Security at H.A.R.M.’s India HQ, he hires Cate after she destroys the headquarters of the Evil Alliance, H.A.R.M.’s rivals in Calcutta.
- Lt. Joseph Anders (voiced by Gary Schwartz): A soldier who is transformed into a cybernetic super soldier in a H.A.R.M. experiment and loses control and goes rogue. He also confuses Cate for his daughter, Abigail.
- Balaji Malpani (voiced by Ken Boynton): Is in charge of creating H.A.R.M.'s passwords.
- Terrence Sloggins (as Terrence Sloggins|himself): A guard who is easy to identify as he looks different to the other H.A.R.M. operatives with a thinner build and with blonde hair. He appears slow and dopey, often looking in the wrong direction when the attention is elsewhere and has one line of dialogue in the game, which he delivers poorly. Towards the end of the game, the actor who plays the Director of H.A.R.M. is heard complaining over the phone to his agent about Sloggins performance.
- Nicholai Zhukov: A Soviet general who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes and who is working alongside H.A.R.M. A memo recovered from H.A.R.M's secret Antarctica Lab where they were creating super soldiers, the Director expresses interest in using Zhukov as a test subject. Zhukov is assassinated by Cate in Siberia.
- Dr. Karl Kussman: An important unseen character who was responsible for creating H.A.R.M's super soldiers.
Technical details[ | ]
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way ran on a then-new game engine, Lithtech Jupiter. This engine introduced a number of enhancements over NOLF's Lithtech 1.0 engine, including higher quality graphics, facial animation, pixel-shaded water, and a rudimentary implementation of ragdoll physics.
Source code[ | ]
The source code for the game engine was released by Monolith Productions and Sierra Entertainment as part of the No One Lives Forever 2 Toolkit for "allowing you to create your own levels, models, music, sounds, and more, for MonoLith's FPS."[1] It is available for download.[2] Visual C++ 6.0 is needed for compilation.
Reception[ | ]
NOLF 2 won several awards, including Game of the Year from GameSpy.[3] It also received a nomination for the prestigious Excellence in Writing Game Developers Choice Award, but lost to Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.[4]
