Episode 43: The Operative: No One Lives Forever

Retro Spectives

First released in the year 2000 for windows, The Operative: No One Lives Forever (NOLF) was widely praised as the best FPS released since Half Life. The game openly celebrates the Spy genre, feeling like a bizarre amalgamation of James Bond, Get Smart and Austin Powers. Monolith Productions was struggling with giving the game a unique identity until they struck on the idea of making the lead character a woman. Enter Cate Archer, dryly sarcastic, witty and deadly, but surrounded by the blatant sexism of the 60s, with everyone questioning her abilities and blaming her emotions whenever things go wrong.

Cate Archer tackles the obstacles in front of her with aplomb, sneaking around enemy bases and shooting anyone who happens to stop her. But can the gameplay of this mostly forgotten relic hold up all these years later? Is the story really that fascinating or just a glorified homage?

On this episode we discuss:

• Can you have a story that features both ridiculous satire and a serious threat to the world? How does NOLF balance these two seemingly opposed tones?
• Do you need to have a wide variety of tools at your disposal to make stealth gameplay engaging? Or is a silenced gun all you need if the other elements work?
• Will we ever get tired of pressing hidden switches to unveil secret passages and world domination maps?

We answer these questions and many more on the 43rd episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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Intro Music: KieLoBot - Tanzen K

Outro Music: Rockit Maxx - One point to another

NOLF OST: Guy Whitmore

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To play NOLF on a modern PC, completely free:

First, download NOLF GOTY edition at this link. Remember to activate the included widescreen fix.

Then, download and install the NOLF Moderniser patch at this link! Enjoy your varied menu options and 60 FPS!

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Are there any hilarious conversations between guards that we missed? Is this a better stealth game than we give it credit for? Doe NOLF 2 do the original proud? Let us know what you think on our text based community discord server!