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Introduction

Lara Croft seems to have some competition on her hands... there’s a new girl in town and her curves seem to be up to the challenge, that would be due to her high polygon count, of course. Introducing the gorgeous Agent Cate Archer, the starlet in Monolith’s new FPS spy game “No One Lives Forever”. Just take Tomb Raider and James Bond's Golden Eye and bash them together like a couple of terrorist skulls, add an essence of Austin Powers and you’ve got the idea. Confused? Okay how about, hot babe, bunch of bad guys, big guns, and bigger explosions. There you go. The title itself should tell you that “No One Lives Forever” is poking fun at the James Bond Series but don’t be surprised if you find yourself sweating and cringing on the edge of your seat instead of sitting back chuckling. There is some serious action involved here, we’re talking sniping, driving, swimming, shooting, code cracking, bomb defusing and lipstick impact explosives!

Here’s the story; you are Agent Cate Archer, (the computer reproduction of model Mitzi Martin) an operative for Unity, your everyday anti-terrorists-taking-over-the–world organization. Cate is struggling for recognition; the powers above believe girls have no place in the spy business. That is until the notorious Dmitrij Volkov kills off half of Unity’s men. Now Cate has a chance to prove herself to the sexist powers above. It ends up that this Dmitrij Volkov has connections with H.A.R.M. It seems that Unity know little about the H.A.R.M. organization, except that it appears they know an awful lot about Unity’s operation. Could there be a H.A.R.M informant working on the inside? With this generic spy vs. spy plot the answer is quite obvious, the question is whom can you trust. Now you’re probably thinking, I’ll just wait for a cut scene or for a character to double cross me to find out who that the rat is. Let me assure you, it’s more complicated than that. I will talk about the optional dialogue later on...

The gameplay is similar to James Bond's Golden Eye. After some basic training you are thrown into the plot, battling mission after mission trying not to get in the way of death. Sounds pretty simple, but this isn’t a Doom/Quake kill everybody in sight scenario. First of all, you’re going to have to avoid pegging off annoying innocent victims, which gets pretty tough in sniper situations because some of them really deserve it, it’s even tougher when the whole room is blazing up in an all for one slaughter house. Like Bond or Half-life, there are people you need for information and clues, if you kill them your mission is a failure. You might find also that you have no time to kill anybody because you’re running around looking for a pay phone, or connecting your code-cracking device to a key card lock. This of course all going on under a storm of bullets and grenades. Monolith also mixes up the action by giving you bonus points and awards for entering buildings undiscovered. Much like in the game Thief, you’ll find yourself peeking around a corner, and waiting until your opponent has turned his back, when you’ll then dive for the next shadow. In these stealth modes you’ll probably be reminded of Metal Gear Solid. You can throw a coin across the hall to throw off the enemy or when nobody is looking give then good ol’ neck chop to knock him out while you go about your business.