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No One Lives Forever is coming back it seems

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#1

It looks like NightDive Studios managed to secure the rights for NOLF and they are preparing for a GOG release:
https://www.resetera...g-to-gog.57493/
Please be true, please be true...

If you didn't know this is why a NOLF remaster would be huge news:
https://kotaku.com/t...back-1688358811

Honestly if this ends up happening then I'll maintain some hope that other classic Monolith titles such as Blood will get an official remaster eventually.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 12:17 PM

6

#2

God bless Night Dive.

But come on, don't be so mean to Contract JACK :V
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User is offline   necroslut 

#3

View PostPikaCommando, on 25 July 2018 - 12:56 PM, said:

God bless Night Dive.

But come on, don't be so mean to Contract JACK :V

I never played Contract JACK... was it any good at all?

Honestly, NOLF is kinda overrated... surely it's good, but not as good as Blood.

This post has been edited by necroslut: 25 July 2018 - 01:11 PM

1

#4

NOLF is one of my favs, nice to hear it'll be available.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#5

View Postnecroslut, on 25 July 2018 - 01:10 PM, said:

I never played Contract JACK... was it any good at all?

Well, I hate that game. :unsure: If you ask me it's almost as bad Blood 2, the difference is that JACK is mostly a finished product so you know, it actually functions as a video game.

Imagine one great level (of course it's the first one) and a lot of a terrible ones with horrendous level design, uninspired enemy placements (most of the guys just run at you in a straight line, it's that bad), a lot of reused assets from NOLF 2 and a nearly non-existent story that manages to be terrible even in its non-existence.

As for NOLF being overrated: not at all, it's just that some elements of it aged badly, especially when it comes to the first game. When it comes to the presentation, the art style, the story and overall narrative NOLF 1 holds up just as good as any true classic would, maybe even a bit better. On the game mechanics side though the game has a few issues: game balance is not exactly good on higher difficulties and some mechanics are just weird for a game that aims to be just as much action as stealth. For example when I played NOLF 1 again around 3 years ago I found it very hard to adjust to how the game handles weapon accuracy: having to stand still and wait for accurate shots works perfectly well on stealth missions but when you have to go in with guns blazing shooting can feel bad since you have to stop to shoot while the enemy AI is sharpshooting you with AKs from a 100 meters away. I hope that if there is a remaster then those balancing issues will be ironed out, honestly NOLF's "spiritual successors", Wolfenstein The New Order and The New Colossus proved that you can have tense action-stealth gameplay even if your crosshair works like if you were playing Doom. :(

Anyway I think NOLF's value and importance comes from it's style and narrative, for example it's just insane to see that there is a game that does justice to a feminist narrative without all the PC and gender baggage we have now. You see NOLF 1 is about a female superspy who gets pushed aside in the organization she works at because she's a woman and she only gets a chance when Volkov kills basically all the male agents who work at UNITY. Nowadays a story like that would be handled with all the women empowerment clichés and it would be about how Cate gets the job done because she's a woman but NOLF does all of that differently and in a much more realistic fashion. Cate Archer is good not because she's a woman but because she's competent and her superiors slowly come to lose their prejudices and appreciate that as she gets better and better at her job (while she also fights her "feminist fight" with Smith and Goodman of course). As a bonus this never gets in the way of the kickass spy story and actually it's used to reflect on how women were treated in the old Bond movies but even that's done by using clever jokes instead of feeling like you're listening to some feminist seminar. It's feminist stuff through and through but not to its detriment, it's what elevates the whole thing to a smarter level... and it was all made by people who loved to play Duke Nukem and Blood. :(

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 01:56 PM

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User is offline   Avoozl 

#6

Honestly I tried the NOLF games and I didn't really enjoy them that much, I pretty much preferred the James Bond games particularly from the xbox/gamecube/ps2 generation of consoles, but I would still take NOLF over the Craig based Bond games are they are mostly CoD like games with a James Bond theme and they a pretty much dull and boring to me. It's a shame that none of those earlier James Bond games got PC ports. Hell I even think Perfect Dark was a better game than NOLF but it's just too bad that it will never get a PC port.

This post has been edited by Grand Admiral Thrawn: 25 July 2018 - 04:13 PM

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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#7

What's it going to cost, $30 per game?
1

User is offline   leilei 

#8

Here's hoping they'll poke a Sam to drop in some widescreen support and a scaled menu for the first one (NOLF's menu was locked to a centered 640x480)

and of course, non-Gamespy multiplayer.

This post has been edited by leilei: 25 July 2018 - 05:31 PM

2

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#9

Nice! Night Dive seem as caring of older games as GOG itself is. I managed to find the original NOLF games in jewel case form in thrift shops (along with AVP2), but I'm certainly looking forward to this.
1

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#10

View Postleilei, on 25 July 2018 - 05:31 PM, said:

Here's hoping they'll poke a Sam to drop in some widescreen support and a scaled menu for the first one (NOLF's menu was locked to a centered 640x480)

and of course, non-Gamespy multiplayer.

Have you tried playing NOLF 1 or 2 on Windows 10 (even on Windows 7-8.1 to a lesser extent for that matter)? It's safe to say that the original versions are not fit for digital release: you can run into a ton of compatibility issues since both games came out before DirectX 9 was a thing and both NOLF 1's version of LithTech and NOLF 2's LithTech Jupiter is pretty fucked up when they have to run on a modern system. The last time I played NOLF 1 I even had some problems I couldn't solve, for example the game locked my fps to 30 whenever the weapon or gadget selection parts of the HUD appeared on screen. NOLF 2 is a bit better but nowadays you absolutely need the dgVoodoo wrapper's DX8 (or was it 7?) emulation to run it properly.

To put it simply: the games don't work as they should anymore so any kind of re-release will have to involve a great deal of work, work that may not even be in the scope of a regular GOG release. If that's not taken care of we'll end up with a shoddy game like for example the GOG version of Requiem: it kinda works but the included Glide wrapper has some issues with it while the DirectX version is full of bugs. Night Dive and GOG are pretty close and NOLF is a very high profile franchise for a store like GOG so I'm sure that if there's a re-release it will be a remaster from Night Dive in the vein of Turok or System Shock 2.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 06:36 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#11

View PostGrand Admiral Thrawn, on 25 July 2018 - 03:51 PM, said:

Honestly I tried the NOLF games and I didn't really enjoy them that much, I pretty much preferred the James Bond games particularly from the xbox/gamecube/ps2 generation of consoles, but I would still take NOLF over the Craig based Bond games are they are mostly CoD like games with a James Bond theme and they a pretty much dull and boring to me. It's a shame that none of those earlier James Bond games got PC ports.

I liked Blood Stone from the Daniel Craig games, that was the only one that didn't feel like CoD. :(

Oh, and it had a really nice theme song from Joss Stone:

It's a shame what Activision did with the Bond license btw. Craig is the best Bond since Connery, he deserved better games.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 06:44 PM

1

User is offline   Romulus 

#12

There are community patched downloads available for NOLF, NOLF 2 and Contract Jack that are fully Windows 10 compatible.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun did an article on this some time ago, titled No one will sell No One Lives Forever, so let's download it.

This post has been edited by Romulus: 25 July 2018 - 07:57 PM

2

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#13

View PostRomulus, on 25 July 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

There are community patched downloads available for NOLF, NOLF 2 and Contract Jack that are fully Windows 10 compatible.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun did an article on this some time ago, titled No one will sell No One Lives Forever, so let's download it.

Those are mostly just the original versions extracted, patched up and repackaged for an installer = what you get if you install from your CDs and apply the official patches (maybe some compatibility presets on top of that?) and the LivesForever mod. Apart from some nice stuff like LivesForever for multiplayer NOLF never had extensive fan work done so the issues will persist and if I remember correctly that package has the old widescreen fixes (the ones that come with LivesForever) instead of the new - and proper - ones.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 10:24 PM

1

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#14

Since the topic of playing NOLF in the here and now came up I just checked and it seems like dgVoodoo 2 supports both NOLF titles. DgVoodoo is a Glide / DirectX wrapper for old games and since all of the compatibility problems come from old versions of DirectX being used it's highly recommended to use this stuff for NOLF:
http://dege.freeweb..../dgVoodoo2.html

Here you can find out what works and what doesn't (forced MSAA and resolution override seems like a no go for NOLF 1, not a huge issue):
http://dege.freeweb....mesGallery.html
Btw. this is what I use for running Duke Manhattan Project, Blood 2, Commandos 2 and a few other stuff, it's much better than running those games natively. People with very old PCs should beware though, there is a performance hit.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 25 July 2018 - 11:41 PM

3

User is offline   axl 

#15

If true, this would be amazing !

Night Dive Studios is quickly becoming one of my favorite studios. Turok 1 and 2 re-releases were great. Really excited about Powerslave and now Nolf ? Amazing news.
2

User is offline   Romulus 

#16

View PostZaxx, on 25 July 2018 - 10:24 PM, said:

Those are mostly just the original versions extracted, patched up and repackaged for an installer = what you get if you install from your CDs and apply the official patches (maybe some compatibility presets on top of that?) and the LivesForever mod. Apart from some nice stuff like LivesForever for multiplayer NOLF never had extensive fan work done so the issues will persist and if I remember correctly that package has the old widescreen fixes (the ones that come with LivesForever) instead of the new - and proper - ones.


You are partially correct.

These are patched versions of the game, with proper widescreen support and assets implemented, with DX8 to DX9 ENB converter properly implemented, making the game playable near flawlessly, except for when switching between alternate inventory where the framerate slows down a bit.

Edit: I just did a quick check and it seems you're correct. These do have the older Widescreen patch for NOLF, I wonder from where did I get the one with the DX8 to DX9 ENB converter? I'm probably mixing up NOLF with NOLF2.

Edit 2: Okay the widescreen patch is the recent one. Ignore the DX8 to DX9 converter bit, it's not applicable for NOLF.

This post has been edited by Romulus: 26 July 2018 - 06:02 AM

2

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#17

View PostRomulus, on 26 July 2018 - 05:54 AM, said:

You are partially correct.

These are patched versions of the game, with proper widescreen support and assets implemented, with DX8 to DX9 ENB converter properly implemented, making the game playable near flawlessly, except for when switching between alternate inventory where the framerate slows down a bit.

Edit: I just did a quick check and it seems you're correct. These do have the older Widescreen patch for NOLF, I wonder from where did I get the one with the DX8 to DX9 ENB converter? I'm probably mixing up NOLF with NOLF2.

Edit 2: Okay the widescreen patch is the recent one. Ignore the DX8 to DX9 converter bit, it's not applicable for NOLF.

Cool, maybe it was updated since I last saw it. Anyway instead of the NOLF Revival stuff I recommend using Unity HQ (a very-very old NOLF fan site), there the package is receiving updates it seems (and this one has dgVoodoo too):
https://nolfgirl.net...-goty-pc-media/

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 26 July 2018 - 06:34 AM

3

User is offline   Romulus 

#18

Zaxx, try the package from Nolfrevival, it's worth it. It's patched up to 1.04 GOTY (compared to UnityHQ's 1.03 version) and has a flawless implementation of fullscreen. DGVodoo requires you to disable in game FMVs (which are just the intros I suppose and not an issue at all) which the Nolfrevival package doesn't require you to do. The Nolfrevival package is splendid for gameplay.
3

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#19

View PostZaxx, on 25 July 2018 - 01:51 PM, said:


Anyway I think NOLF's value and importance comes from it's style and narrative, for example it's just insane to see that there is a game that does justice to a feminist narrative without all the PC and gender baggage we have now. You see NOLF 1 is about a female superspy who gets pushed aside in the organization she works at because she's a woman and she only gets a chance when Volkov kills basically all the male agents who work at UNITY. Nowadays a story like that would be handled with all the women empowerment clichés and it would be about how Cate gets the job done because she's a woman but NOLF does all of that differently and in a much more realistic fashion. Cate Archer is good not because she's a woman but because she's competent and her superiors slowly come to lose their prejudices and appreciate that as she gets better and better at her job (while she also fights her "feminist fight" with Smith and Goodman of course). As a bonus this never gets in the way of the kickass spy story and actually it's used to reflect on how women were treated in the old Bond movies but even that's done by using clever jokes instead of feeling like you're listening to some feminist seminar. It's feminist stuff through and through but not to its detriment, it's what elevates the whole thing to a smarter level... and it was all made by people who loved to play Duke Nukem and Blood. :(


Agreed with all of this. Feminism Done Right ™. I like it about as much as Blood tbh. It solidified Monolith as one of my favorite developers. Going from Blood to Shogo to NOLF. And unrelated, but I think Deus Ex came out the same year as NOLF and both of those games blew my mind at the time. The late 90s/early 2000s was such a great time for gaming.
3

User is offline   leilei 

#20

View PostZaxx, on 25 July 2018 - 06:35 PM, said:

To put it simply: the games don't work as they should anymore so any kind of re-release will have to involve a great deal of work, work that may not even be in the scope of a regular GOG release.

When I said "poke a Sam" I wasn't implying taking wrappers and existing hacks to it then calling it a day. Lithtech's got a modular rendering system for starters; a D3D11/OpenGL backend could be written and the engine doesn't use a lot of old rendering tricks anyway so it would adapt well to a generic multitextured shader system. Probably the most troublesome part technically would be the Directmusic parts, having to adapt that away from the DirectX6 API while retaining compatibility (the task of cloning Microsoft Synthesizer pretty much). Mod compatibility's another thing to watch out for too...

This post has been edited by leilei: 26 July 2018 - 01:35 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#21

View Postleilei, on 26 July 2018 - 01:27 PM, said:

When I said "poke a Sam" I wasn't implying taking wrappers and existing hacks to it then calling it a day. Lithtech's got a modular rendering system for starters; a D3D11/OpenGL backend could be written and the engine doesn't use a lot of old rendering tricks anyway so it would adapt well to a generic multitextured shader system. Probably the most troublesome part technically would be the Directmusic parts, having to adapt that away from the DirectX6 API while retaining compatibility (the task of cloning Microsoft Synthesizer pretty much). Mod compatibility's another thing to watch out for too...

Yeah, I agree, I think that if they are serious about it writing a new renderer is a must. What I'm worried about is that I've not seen much being done with LithTech even though if I remember correctly the source for NOLF was released a very long time ago.
2

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#22

View PostRomulus, on 26 July 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

Zaxx, try the package from Nolfrevival, it's worth it. It's patched up to 1.04 GOTY (compared to UnityHQ's 1.03 version) and has a flawless implementation of fullscreen. DGVodoo requires you to disable in game FMVs (which are just the intros I suppose and not an issue at all) which the Nolfrevival package doesn't require you to do. The Nolfrevival package is splendid for gameplay.

There is no 1.04 patch for the GOTY edition, 1.04 is for the original release and literally all it does is it lets you play multiplayer with GOTY owners. Unity HQ gives you the GOTY version too (which is not that extra in itself, you get one new mission that's pretty terrible) so the 1.04 on the revival site must be a typo or a mistake. Patches for old games are sometimes weird, in this case GOTY came out with a 1.03 version number but somehow multiplayer wasn't compatible with the original game's 1.03 version so they made the 1.04 patch for the original. :(

As for dgVoodoo keep in mind that it's still evolving software so what a guide writes won't necessarily be true today. For example I tried the Unity HQ package just now and you don't have to disable the videos with the newest dgVoodoo, they play fine. On the other hand it fixes the issue with the framerate dropping when opening the gadget select portion of the UI. It's not perfect though and I think the biggest problem of NOLF 1 is the mouse look which is pretty bad by today's standards (what's up with most early Monolith titles having terrible mouse look? It literally feels like Blood's original mouse :unsure:) so yep, a remaster for this game is essential.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 26 July 2018 - 06:51 PM

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User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#23

Does Blood 2 use the same engine as NOLF/NOLF2/AVP2?
2

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#24

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 26 July 2018 - 06:49 PM, said:

Does Blood 2 use the same engine as NOLF/NOLF2/AVP2?

Yes and no because all of them use LithTech but different versions of it:

- Blood 2 uses LithTech 1.0
- NOLF 1 uses LithTech 2.0
- AVP2 uses LithTech Talon
- NOLF 2 uses LithTech Jupiter
- Later games like FEAR up until Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor use LithTech Jupiter EX
- Middle Earth: Shadow of War is running on LithTech Firebird
4

User is offline   Romulus 

#25

View PostZaxx, on 26 July 2018 - 06:49 PM, said:

There is no 1.04 patch for the GOTY edition, 1.04 is for the original release and literally all it does is it lets you play multiplayer with GOTY owners. Unity HQ gives you the GOTY version too (which is not that extra in itself, you get one new mission that's pretty terrible) so the 1.04 on the revival site must be a typo or a mistake. Patches for old games are sometimes weird, in this case GOTY came out with a 1.03 version number but somehow multiplayer wasn't compatible with the original game's 1.03 version so they made the 1.04 patch for the original. :(

As for dgVoodoo keep in mind that it's still evolving software so what a guide writes won't necessarily be true today. For example I tried the Unity HQ package just now and you don't have to disable the videos with the newest dgVoodoo, they play fine. On the other hand it fixes the issue with the framerate dropping when opening the gadget select portion of the UI. It's not perfect though and I think the biggest problem of NOLF 1 is the mouse look which is pretty bad by today's standards (what's up with most early Monolith titles having terrible mouse look? It literally feels like Blood's original mouse :unsure:) so yep, a remaster for this game is essential.


Check out this readme file, it says "English (North America) Version 1.004" which I found interesting, I have attached the file. Since you seem knowledgeable and you know your way around the mods, can you integrate the fixed zooming with the release from Nolfrevival? I am definitely trying dgVodoo out in a bit.

And on that note of discussion on LithTech Engine, there is a bug in AVP2 which prevents it from being playable on Windows 10. You can play the game for a bit and then eventually if freezes and you are left with no choice but to close the game through Task Manager. Is there any workaround to this?

Attached File(s)



This post has been edited by Romulus: 26 July 2018 - 07:10 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#26

View PostRomulus, on 26 July 2018 - 07:08 PM, said:

Check out this readme file, it says "English (North America) Version 1.004" which I found interesting, I have attached the file.

I can remember badly and the GOTY version can in fact be called 1.04 and in that case Unity HQ messed up the version number. What I can say is though that I have the exact same readme file in the Unity HQ release and it's 1.004 there too.

Quote

Since you seem knowledgeable and you know your way around the mods, can you integrate the fixed zooming with the release from Nolfrevival?

I never really modded the game beyond using some fanmade fixes so I don't know if I can help you. Fixed zooming?

Edit: PCGamingWiki lists the patches, according to this GOTY is already 1.04 so the 1.04 patch updates the base game with the GOTY content, that's why there is no patch for GOTY:
https://pcgamingwiki...Forever#Patches

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 26 July 2018 - 08:21 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

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#27

Oh, Youtube's got my favourite moment from NOLF 2:

I don't know who at Monolith hates mimes this much but they sure weren't nice to them in Blood and NOLF 2. :(
3

User is offline   Romulus 

#28

View PostZaxx, on 26 July 2018 - 08:17 PM, said:

I can remember badly and the GOTY version can in fact be called 1.04 and in that case Unity HQ messed up the version number. What I can say is though that I have the exact same readme file in the Unity HQ release and it's 1.004 there too.

Edit: PCGamingWiki lists the patches, according to this GOTY is already 1.04 so the 1.04 patch updates the base game with the GOTY content, that's why there is no patch for GOTY:
https://pcgamingwiki...Forever#Patches


This what I can recall: The NOLF GOTY came out with the patches preapplied with the version number being bumped up to 1.04, however it wasn't perfect and often used to freeze while exiting. This could've been an issue with Windows 98 that may not have been present on Windows 2000 or latter Operating Systems. But I remember encountering this issue specifically, as I bought both, and felt like a chump afterwards.

I think there was an outrage among the consumers because initially, they didn't wish to update the retail users to 1.04 version of the game, but when people with 1.03 or 1.04 (vice versa) version of the game couldn't join MP servers, they had no other choice.

The retail 1.04 patch updated it to the GOTY version, but the main menu's background color was different, the retail game retained it's orange-yellowish background in the main menu whereas the GOTY shipped with a nasty blue applied to it, and the retail game when patched to 1.04 didn't exhibit any of the freezing issue the GOTY version did.

View PostZaxx, on 26 July 2018 - 08:17 PM, said:

I never really modded the game beyond using some fanmade fixes so I don't know if I can help you. Fixed zooming?


I was referring to this. It's really nitpicking and seems that applying this patch is a bit of a chore, but I'll probably do it sometime later and maybe I'll make a download for anyone who's interested. I don't think Nolfrevival included this in their package.

IMO NolfRevival+dgVodoo is the best combination for a very easy way to enjoy the game

This post has been edited by Romulus: 26 July 2018 - 09:55 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#29

View PostRomulus, on 26 July 2018 - 09:46 PM, said:




I was referring to this. It's really nitpicking and seems that applying this patch is a bit of a chore, but I'll probably do it sometime later and maybe I'll make a download for anyone who's interested. I don't think Nolfrevival included this in their package.

I think you only have to do the steps listed in the "How to install" segment, the rest is just an explanation on how he managed to add the new file into the REZ files. Guess it's there in case you want to modify it.
2

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#30

Hell fucking yes, NOLF 1 and 2 are excellent and highly overlooked nowadays because of the royal pain they are to set up.

Personally I think NOLF 2 was much better mechanically but NOLF 1 was a much more interesting game. The environments and set pieces were so varied, it really felt like a globe trotting espionage adventure.

Really the only problem i can think of with it was the instant failure stealth segments because everything else was fucking awesome. NOLF 2 was really cool and had some good moments too, and monolith fixed the stealth but it doesn't have the variety that the first game does. I would kill for NOLF 1 with NOLF 2's engine and mechanics.

I mean you even get a god damn motorbike in the first game.
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