A great game placed during the 1960's that will entertain you for sure
How was this achieved?, there's no simple answer to this question, after all, this game has elements from stealth games such as Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell, solid combat engine such as Half Life, unique character design and humor.
Let's talk about gameplay, in No one lives forever 2 (or simply NOLF2) you assume the role of Cate Archer, a special agent from UNITY, which is in a mission of stopping the mean criminal organization known as H.A.R.M.
As you can imagine, being a spy game there should be some stealth mechanics involved, and you would be right, in many missions (if not all) you have to sneak into many locations in order to accomplish your objectives, many times you have to make sure that no enemy notices your presence or make too much noise.
The AI in the game is very sharp, the enemies react greatly to any change of the environment, as they notice your footprints, footsteps and sounds of your guns or distractions; the enemy will also react when they see a fallen friend, most of the time they switch to a alert status and they will be more aware to any sound that you would make.
Obviously the stealth is not everything on this game, after all, a FPS is nothing without any combat, and this game has many of it, most of the time on boss fights or when you have to escape of a given location you get to experience combat on the fullest (of course you can engage combat during an infiltration or any other mission), the firefights are really intense, and your enemies will not leave their guns ready to be taken, you have to search them throughly in order to get their equipment, this is useful when you are in stealth mode, but can be difficult to do when you are in the middle of a firefight (not necessarily a bad thing tough).
Cate can count on a very wide arsenal, which includes swords, handguns, machine-guns, etc, and as you might guess, your arsenal is different according the mission, in some missions you've got swords, cameras, bow guns and in another mission you've got a machine-gun and loads of explosives for your task.
This game also features a RPG like element, you will get some ability points by completing your mission objectives or gathering information by reading any given memo, searching in enemy corpses or by listening to enemy conversations. This ability points can be used to make your character more silent, carry more ammo or to improve many other abilities of your characters, giving the game some replay value.
In terms of graphics, this game still looks amazing, the modelling of the world is great, you can see even the smaller details of the background, even the animation of the characters are really good, the only thing that is not that great about the animation is the swimming portion, but you don't get to see it too much tough.
Sound department made a terrific job on this game, the voice acting fits well with the characters, this make the jokes in the game sound great (and terribly funny), your ears will be pleased with the music on this game.
This game has some multiplayer options, the classical Deathmatch and Team deathmatch, some co-op missions and a mode named "Doomsday", where you and your team must build a nuclear device in order to decimate your opponents, the parts of the nuke will vary and in some cases, carrying a part of the bomb will leave you defenseless.
There's not much to say about the multiplayer component, mainly the only portion of the multiplayer component who might catch your eye might be the co-op missions, who are placed during the events of the game and might shed a light on what happened in the mid chapters on the game.
Replay value can vary, according on how much did you like the multiplayer component or how many ways you want to upgrade your character. The game can keep you busy for a while.
Overall, No One Lives Forever 2: A spy in H.A.R.M's way, is an amazing game that can entertain you, either on the unique gameplay that this game offers, the solid combat and stealth mechanics or simply the simple humour found in the game. You can find that this game really worths your time.