No One Lives Forever 2. The most underrated FPS of them all?

I was replaying this game and damn, it's absolutely incredible.

Every individual part of it is good: presentation, graphics, enemy design, level design, gunplay, stealth system, story, characters, you name it. And they all come together flawlessly to create an impressive game.

FEAR that was also developed by Monolith gets a lot of recognition so I'm surprise when I don't see NOLF2 getting similar praise.

Anyone else feels that way?

It´s an amazing game,better than the first in many ways,can´t believe there hasn´t been a re-release for that series.
Up until FEAR monolith had gem after gem,Shogo was also amazing.

yeah i remember. i never got around to playing it properly, but i wish i did. it should come to gog.

Yes . That game is masterpiece . Played it few days ago . Anyone who didn't play it is missing a lot . Graphics still look great .

Totally agree bro . They were one of the most respected PC developers out there . FEAR 2 was such a let down and after 9 years , there is still not a single game to top FEAR's AI .

It's a well made game without question. It's actually very highly rated (91 MC), so no, I don't think it's underrated. It wasn't on consoles, so it's not well known by non PC gamers, if that's what you mean.

It's recognized as a great game. No.

Shadow Warrior is recognized as a "barely ok game" when it is in fact, the best FPS in years.

This is obviously due to casual console media who have no interest in gameplay.

The monsters.

One of the best of along with Shogo,the lithtech engine in my opinion had some of the best shooters of its time.

I loved that series. It had great style.

Totally agree about Shadow Warrior .

I was just playing it not long ago. While I thought it was quite good, there were elements that I had issues with--primarily the stealth system. If you try playing it as a full blown stealth game, you're gonna have some problems. I got distracted with other games. I enjoyed it, but after just having finished FEAR, NOLF 2 didn't have much of a chance at keeping my interest for long (it's been very hard to play any single player FPS since FEAR--the AI just ruined other games). I am gonna try getting back into it once we get another drought. Hopefully by then the memory of FEAR will have subsided. It'd be really nice if they actually put it up for distribution somewhere.

It was quite a nice looking game though. Really surprised me.

@cfisher2833: Funny because I thought the stealth system is one of the outstandings parts of NOLF2. True, you will have trouble if you want to play it as a full stealth game, but then, it doesn't try to be one. All mechanics in the games support an "going for the kill" approach, the stealth game works in that frame. And it works really well. This is one of the few games that has both a fantastic gunplay and a competent stealth, generally it's one of the other.

About FEAR, I find the main difference between both is the cinematic approach FEAR has to its gunplay and some significant gunplay improvements, but a lot of things that were in this game were already in NOLF2. The gunplay was already excellent and so was the AI.

Yeah more Kate Archer would be nice.

@santoron: It was on console, I had it for the PlayStation 2, one of my favorite games from that period.

NOLF 2 was never released on any console.

Edit: well crap,dat necro.

What is your obsession with necro threads ?

@padaporra: What a lot of people don't realize is, NOLF didn't sell a lot of copies. It had great reviews everywhere (considering that game journalism was still worth something back then) and no doubt was one of the best games of the last decade or so but nevertheless sold really poorly. Even the sequel, which was so much better in every aspect was rather disappointing when it came to selling copies. To me NOLF2 is the single best FPS ever made. I'm afraid if the sequel was ever to come out it would get the Thi4f treatment. I guess Monolith and Vivendi or whoever held the rights back then thought that the mass audience could be persuaded to check it out if you would feed them a game with more shooting - thus creating J.A.C.K. When that didn't work out I guess they didn't see much interest in another sequel and turned to other projects and whoever held the rights after the takeover didn't really see much value in them. If NOLF would come out today with the same polish, witty writing, gun play, characters, and strong female front lead I believe it would do a lot better.

Fun fact: People remember the game by No one lives forever. How ever that was the subtitle "The operative" is what the creators wanted the series to be known by.

Such a talented team. Monolith ROCK!!! Captain Claw is one of the first games Monolith made before it made Shogo, that game is such an underrated gem. It was one of the best games I played growing up and that was also one of the first pixel-art platformers I played at 640x480. Commander Keen (id), Jazz Jackrabbit (Epic), Captain Claw (Monolith), Portal (Valve) ... bro noticed a pattern? Great PC platformers from the masters of shooters xD.

Yep, impressive engine! I remember Captain Claw sequel aka "Captain Claw 2 in 3D" was in development by Monolith using the first incarnation of LithTech, but they dropped the project due to copyright issues.

@R4gn4r0k: I was talking about this game to someone a while back, but could not for the life of me remember the name, I finally remembered, and stumbled across this thread while looking for gameplay videos. Funny enough, Necro was one of my favorite white rappers from back in the day, not his new stuff, but his early stuff with Mr Hyde.

Hahaha, I understand :)

But if you wanna discuss this game further, you best start a new thread, as this can get locked for being so old :)

If it's only single player I'm not interested

Shogo was amazing, I still have disk with a demo of that game on it. Wonder if I can find it.

All time classic. Still have the box, beautiful artwork.

@cfisher2833 said:

It was quite a nice looking game though. Really surprised me.

Lithtech engine held up really well.

I just don't remember anything about those games other than that I liked them.

Underrated... No. Overlooked... Absolutely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spxATsZoYIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP-MnlUEkVg

Back in the mid 90's-mid 00's where monolith were the best fps developer. I cant think of a game from them that wasnt great including NoLF2