No One Lives Forever (2000, Monolith)

Year 2000. 7 years after Doom, 4 years after Duke Nukem 3D, 2 years after Half-Life and one year after the release of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Half-Life showed us the power of pre-scripted events, Q3 and UT reinvented the definition of multiplayer FPS. The competition was fierce and it seemed that no other game could get even close to the greatness of the titans of FPS. But somehow Lithtech, who were quite small at the time (everything changed after NOLF and F.E.A.R) managed to create something totally new and fresh.

From 1997 to 2002 Austin Powers was taking over the cinemas with his 1960s "Flower power" charm and uhm... not so charming teeth. It's quite strange how there were no movies that spoofed the famous James Bond ones (except for maybe "Naked Gun", but it wasn't as close to 007 as the crowd would like).

This is where the brilliant hands of Lithtech came in. Take the charming '60s feel, the humour of Austin Powers (except the sexual references), add the amazing gadgets which you could only have seen in 007 movies add a very clever AI for the time, some scripted events, punchy and good looking weapons, a great and unlimited ability to sneak and finish it off with a great and memorable female protagonist. A recipe for success? You betcha!

You play as agent Cate Archer, a woman version of James Bond : sleek, cool and humorous. The story itself is very Bond-like too, there are good guys and bad guys and that is pretty much it, but boy, it's told so well that even the 007 movies could learn a thing or two from this game.




The gameplay is really well polished and smooth. Most of the time you can freely choose whether you want to sneak or go into the face-to-face combat. The latter works well, but the first one is much more fun, especially at the highest difficulty, which makes this game really well balanced and pure fun.

The AI was absolutely stunning for the time, even by today's standards it's not too shabby. Once you have been seen, enemies will try to sound the alarm (if it's possible) and try to get as many allies as possible. The more NPCs there are the more likely it is that they will just rush towards you, however once you take down most of them, the remaining ones start hiding, knocking over furniture, peeking around corners. Great and well-balanced guns add quite a lot to the feel too.



All the cutscenes have a cinematic feeling to them, which is quite impressive for the time, when every single game had static and plain ones. The dialogues and voice-acting are amazing too, actors did a good job and the sometimes quite lengthy speeches never get old.

The music has a '60s feel to it and there are some great tunes, especially the theme song which is a spoof of the 007 themes.

There is one but, though, the graphics did not age well, they were fine for the time, but now they look hopeless, if you're a graphic whore, you'll have to skip it even though I insist that you don't. That's where the 2nd part, released in 2002 comes in, but I won't be telling you about it. It's definitely great, but, in my opinions, it's just a tiny, minuscular bit worse than the first part (but it's a must play too).



I'd recommend it to every FPS fan out there, I think this is one of the best games ever made. Sure it's not as fancy as nowadays titles, but it's longer and far more open-hearted.

Release Date: 1993 (DOS)



Day of the Tentacle is, as usual for old LucasArts games, a point'n'click adventure, whichs story is a bit different.



At the beginning, you receive a letter from the tentacles, which have been locked by the bad Dr. Fred. So they're rescueing the tentacles with some bad consequences.



The purple tentacle is a fucking mutant and wants to slave down the humans on earth. Yeah. He drunk some nuclear water deep in Dr. Freds laboratory, so he turned bad (and he has haaaaaaands!)

So, to make this all unhappen, they need to go back in time. Easy said, but because the time machine isn't using real diamonds, they just get randomly thrown around time.

Hoagie, the fat metal drummer, is in the USA beside the founding fathers. Laverne, the girl is in future where the tentacle rules the world and they have to obey them. Their house is the new HQ of the tentacles. And Bernard, the small guy with the glasses now just needs to find 2 million $ to purchase a diamond to get them all back in time.

Now they all need to get back to get the tentacle before he drank up the water. The game is indeed very funny and you should have played it. There's also a HD Version for PS3, but you can still download it somewhere from the internet (or even buy it)!