The original NOLF is way up my top ten of best games ever made: it has flaws -- most obviously the excessively long cut-scenes -- but it's a decent shooter, a decent sneaker and often very, very funny.
NOLF2 tries to add more to the funny spy sneak'n'shoot genre, but falls flat. The story isn't bad, the characters are interesting if sometimes clichéd, but the game design itself lets it down.
The most obvious flaw is respawning guards: there are few things which destroy suspension of disbelief more than having cleared out part of a map and then having more guards magically appear there and shoot you in the back. Respawning is pretty much an admission that your game design is broken.
The other main flaw is the number of 'you can't kill anyone on this level and you can't be seen either', the 'we're sending you to fight an army but only giving you a pistol' levels and the various 'we're sending you against enemies your weapons can't harm' levels. In NOLF you could pick the equipment you wanted for a mission, here you're given what you're given and that's that, and I was particularly unimpressed by the way that guards would see me and raise the alarm when I was hiding behind a sofa in a room on the other side of a courtyard.
Now, that's not to say it's irredeemably bad. The mimes are funny. The 'Ice Station Evil' level is one of my all-time favorites, at least the first time when you don't know what's going on. The tricycle level is inspired, but poorly implemented. The tornado mission would be brilliant, but the respawning ninjas ruin it... I hate levels where it's basically impossible to complete without dying several times while you figure out the path through.
Lastly, the ending. Now, in a way I like the ending as it stands, but one of the rules of good story-telling is that your central characters should be responsible for saving the world, and not a deus-ex-machina. The basic ending could have been kept while allowing your character to have a far more significant impact rather than sitting back and watching.
Definitely worth a go if you find it in the bargain bin, but it's a shame that it could have been so much more.
NOLF2 tries to add more to the funny spy sneak'n'shoot genre, but falls flat. The story isn't bad, the characters are interesting if sometimes clichéd, but the game design itself lets it down.
The most obvious flaw is respawning guards: there are few things which destroy suspension of disbelief more than having cleared out part of a map and then having more guards magically appear there and shoot you in the back. Respawning is pretty much an admission that your game design is broken.
The other main flaw is the number of 'you can't kill anyone on this level and you can't be seen either', the 'we're sending you to fight an army but only giving you a pistol' levels and the various 'we're sending you against enemies your weapons can't harm' levels. In NOLF you could pick the equipment you wanted for a mission, here you're given what you're given and that's that, and I was particularly unimpressed by the way that guards would see me and raise the alarm when I was hiding behind a sofa in a room on the other side of a courtyard.
Now, that's not to say it's irredeemably bad. The mimes are funny. The 'Ice Station Evil' level is one of my all-time favorites, at least the first time when you don't know what's going on. The tricycle level is inspired, but poorly implemented. The tornado mission would be brilliant, but the respawning ninjas ruin it... I hate levels where it's basically impossible to complete without dying several times while you figure out the path through.
Lastly, the ending. Now, in a way I like the ending as it stands, but one of the rules of good story-telling is that your central characters should be responsible for saving the world, and not a deus-ex-machina. The basic ending could have been kept while allowing your character to have a far more significant impact rather than sitting back and watching.
Definitely worth a go if you find it in the bargain bin, but it's a shame that it could have been so much more.