History VideoGame / NoOneLivesForever

The game is today not available for sale anywhere and is considered semi-lost to time. Creator/NightdiveStudios has expressed interest in securing the rights to put out a remastered re-release of both games, but so far their attempts have been caught up in a particularly nasty bit of legal deadlock due to three different companies potentially owning the rights to the IP: Creator/{{Fox}} (first game was published by their now-defunct Fox Interactive division), Creator/{{Activision}} (second game was published by Sierra Entertainment, who belonged to Vivendi Games, who were in turn absorbed by Activision in 2008), and Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment (acquired Monolith, the developers, in 2004), none of whom know who owns what or consider it worth the trouble to hire someone to search their pre-digital archives, but have all threatened legal action for any unauthorized use of the IP regardless. Fans have kept the game alive, however, KeepCirculatingTheTapes style.

* ExposedToTheElements: Defied -- Cate wears full winter coats in the snow levels. And when you fall into a frozen lake in one mission, your immediate objective is to find a place to warm up before you freeze to death.

It's also only one phrasing variation away from the John Gardner ''Bond'' novel ''Literature/NobodyLivesForever''. It is also unrelated to the 60's spy film ''Film/AgentForHARM'', despite sharing the name of a villainous organization.

The game is today not available for sale anywhere and is considered semi-lost to time. Creator/NightdiveStudios has expressed interest in securing the rights to put out a remastered re-release of both games, but so far their attempts have been caught up in a particularly nasty bit of legal deadlock due to three different companies potentially owning the rights to the IP: Creator/{{Fox}} (first game was published by their now-defunct Fox Interactive division), Creator/{{Activision}} (second game was published by Sierra Entertainment, who belonged to Vivendi Games, who were in turn absorbed by Activision in 2008), and Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment (acquired Monolith, the developers, in 2004). Fans have kept the game alive, however, KeepCirculatingTheTapes style.

''No One Lives Forever'' is a FirstPersonShooter game from 2000, developed by Creator/MonolithProductions and published by Creator/{{Sierra}}. A spoof of 1960s spy movies, it was followed by a 2002 sequel, ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way'' (which involved ''fighting ninjas in a trailer park in Ohio during a tornado'' and an ''evil assassin French mime'', among other things), and a MissionPackSequel in 2003 called ''Contract J.A.C.K.''.

The game is today not available for sale anywhere and is considered semi-lost to time. Creator/NightdiveStudios has expressed interest in securing the rights to put out a remastered re-release of both games, but so far their attempts have been caught up in a particularly nasty bit of legal deadlock, due to the fact that Sierra was been dissolved by Creator/{{Activision}} and Monolith was acquired by Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment in 2004, making it so that no one is entirely sure who actually owns the rights to the ''No One Lives Forever'' IP. Fans have kept the game alive, however, KeepCirculatingTheTapes style.

** Also in the first game, [[spoiler:Tom, who is revealed to be an imposter, keeps openly doubting Cate's abilities so she'll take on extremely dangerous missions just to show she is capable of doing them. "Tom" has no doubts she is competent, but deliberately exploits the chauvinism she is used to dealing with to get her to kill herself]].

* BrawnHilda: Inge Wagner, one of the antagonists in the original game is this.

* CombatHaircomb: With a poisoned blade no less.

** Also Misha, the pilot who gets you in and out of Siberia (though he may just be a sympathizer or a factionless hireling and not a full-out defector).

* {{Eagleland}}: Tom Goodman, with an exaggerated American accent and look.

** Justified in that you have to do the fading yourself, using "Body dissolving powder". Within the first game, it's stated that Cate, as a woman, lacks the upper-body strength to move the bodies, thereby requiring the body dissolving powder (or arranging to kill everyone before they can find the bodies). In the second game, she not only gains the ability to move the bodies on her own, but the villains in-game do the body dissolving if you don't, [[ComedicSociopathy with hilarious dialogue.]]

** The fez-wearing mooks in the first game strongly resemble and sound like Will Farrell's character in ''Film/AustinPowersInternationalManOfMystery''. Around the middle of the first level, you can interrogate one by asking him the same question three times. He even lampshades it!

* MakeupWeapon: Cate Archer has a wide array of girly themed destructive items (mascara laser, hairspray flamethrower, and the like) one could conceal in one's purse.

* NebulousEvilOrganization: H.A.R.M.

** Parodied. Nobody outside of H.A.R.M. knows what H.A.R.M. means. They rub it in your face by ending a lot of the various memos you find sitting about with what appears to be one of their slogans: "Remember what H.A.R.M. stands for". There's possible implications that almost nobody within H.A.R.M. knows what it stands for either.
** Monolith appears to like this. H.A.R.M., ''Contract J.A.C.K.'', [[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]...
** Some of the aforementioned intelligence documents you come across even mention a lawsuit lodged against H.A.R.M. by the "Hair Alternative Replacement Membership" for trademark infringement. (In ''Film/AgentForHARM'', it means Human Aetiological Relations Machine.)

** One of the rival criminal organizations mentioned is Evil Alliance, whose initials coincidentally happen to be the same as a [[Creator/ElectronicArts competing video-game company...]]

It's also only one phrasing variation away from the John Gardner ''Bond'' novel ''Literature/NobodyLivesForever''. It is also unrelated to the 60's spy film ''Film/AgentForHARM''.

It's also only one phrasing variation away from the John Gardner ''Bond'' novel ''Literature/NobodyLivesForever''.

* ActingUnnatural: An early level in a Hamburg nightclub has Cate being followed by a HARM spy. The tail is immediately suspicious with his fedora and raincoat, and Cate's partner for the level mentions that he's so obsessed with following her blindly that he'd probably wander into traffic just to keep up with her. As expected, he follows her right into the women's restroom and gets himself iced.

* BandageMummy: Volkov's condition in ''[=NOLF2=]'' as a result of [[spoiler: a skiing accident [[TheDogBitesBack caused by John Jack]] between that game and ''Contract: J.A.C.K.'']]

** In the first game, [[spoiler: Bruno feigns his demise to draw out the real traitor in U.N.I.T.Y.'s organization.]] As far as Need To Know, Cate didn't; [[spoiler: her reaction needed to be genuine. And when Bruno reveals all at the end, after the fight with the Goodman imposter]], Cate's understandably upset by this and ''very much pissed off'' about being kept in the dark about the gambit.
** Also in the first game, [[spoiler:Tom, who is revealed to be an imposter, kept openly doubting Cate's abilities so she'd take on extremely dangerous missions just to show she is capable of doing them. "Tom" has no doubts she is competent, but deliberately exploits the chauvinism she is used to dealing with to get her to nearly kill herself]].

* DuelBoss: ''[=NOLF=]'' ends with an ItsPersonal gunfight between Cate and [[spoiler: Tom Goodman]] inside a cemetery. You and the traitor are both armed with the same weapon (a revolver) and can take roughly the same amount of damage, so it's an even fight (although they cheat a bit by using poison-laced bullets). If you're being gutsy, you can run out of cover to grab the bottle of anti-toxin in the middle of the cemetery, which will nullify their poison and level the playing field.

* EnemyMime: The Mime King. At one point there's a tricycle chase.

* GratuitousItalian: Il Pazzo ("The Crazy One"), the BigBad in ;;Contract J.A.C.K.'', speaks with a lot of Italian swear words thrown in.

* ImplacableMan: H.A.R.M.'s Super Soldiers in [=NOLF2=] are like this, being essentially unkillable until you finally acquire specially treated chemical bullets that make them overheat and explode in the game's last mission. Lieutenant Anders in particular follows you halfway across the world (by walking on the ocean floor!) because Cate reminds him of his own daughter.

* IOweYouMyLife: The only reason competent and honorable AntiVillain Isako works for abusive CardCarryingVillain The Director is because he saved her life after a botched assignment. Isako remains loyal to the Director even after learning he set the whole thing up in order to recruit her. Only after the Director tries to kill Isako and Cate rescues her does she consider her life debt paid, at which point she promptly defends Cate from the Director.

* LowSpeedChase: The second game features a sequence in which Cate and Armstrong use a tricycle to pursue a mime on a unicycle.

''No One Lives Forever'' is a FirstPersonShooter game from 2000, developed by Creator/MonolithProductions and published by Creator/{{Sierra}}. A spoof of 1960s spy movies, it was followed by a 2002 sequel, ''No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way'' (which involved ''fighting ninjas in a trailer park in Ohio during a tornado'' and an ''evil assassin French mime'', among other things), and a MissionPackSequel in 2003 called ''Contract J.A.C.K.''.

** Also in the first game, [[spoiler:Tom, who is revealed to be an imposter, kept doubting Cate's abilities so she'd take on extremely dangerous missions just to show she was capable of doing them. "Tom" had no doubts she was competent, but used the chauvinism she was dealing with to get her to nearly kill herself.]]

* CallingCard: Volkov's flower in the first game, which he leaves by his victim's body or near where he killed them.

* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: The "Man-Handler", which smashes henchmen into "man-crates" (i.e. the body gets compacted into a cube shape) ''without killing them''. H.A.R.M. seems to use it for particularly incompetent minions, while Volkov subjects people to it since he's in a bad mood.

* DuelBoss: ''[=NOLF=]'' ends with an ItsPersonal gunfight between Cate and [[spoiler: Tom Goodman]] inside a cemetery. You and [[spoiler: Tom]] are both armed with the same weapon (a revolver) and can take roughly the same amount of damage, so it's an even fight (although he cheats a bit by using poison-laced bullets). If you're being gutsy, you can run out of cover to grab the bottle of anti-toxin in the middle of the cemetery, which will nullify his poison and level the playing field.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Averted -- The Director reacts to his mother's frequent phone calls with utter disdain and frequently hangs up on her. She spends the entire game attempting to browbeat her son into stopping his evil career, and at one point expresses her utter shame at her son's criminal actions, going so far as claiming a relative jailed for arson was a "saint" in comparison.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite the game being set in a far less progressive time, pretty much ''all'' the contacts in the second mission are horrendously embarrassed by the horrific sexism of the SpySpeak exchanges they have to say to Cate, with one even telling Cate to tell whoever wrote them to "grow up".

* ExposedToTheElements: Avoided -- Cate wears coats in the snow levels. And when you fall into a frozen lake in one mission, your immediate objective is to find a place to warm up before you freeze to death.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Cate gives [[spoiler: Baroness Felicity Dumas]] what for over [[spoiler:her]] excuse, scoldingly saying [[spoiler:she's simply a petty bully who's decided to take out her suffering (enduring a troubled childhood after losing her father to suicide, following a scandal which caused her and her mother to be ostracized by the high society they once belonged to) on innocent people when she could have done great things in spite of a hard life]] like Cate did, but just [[{{Foil}} didn't have the strength to make the right choices.]]

** [[spoiler:Kemal, Cate's contact in the Indian branch of H.A.R.M.]] You can find a letter where he explains why he got sick of being among [[GenreSavvy "cartoon villains"]].

* NoWomansLand: The entire theme of the first game revolves around Smith and later Tom Goodman doubting Cate's abilities because she's a woman. [[spoiler:Turns out both Smith and Goodman take her ''very'' seriously, and try to get her killed, and play up her failures to discourage her or get her removed from the case.]]

* TheOnlyOne: Justified in-universe. Prior to the first game's start, Cate Archer was only given extremely low-profile assignments. This meant that when H.A.R.M. started picking off top agents, she was the only one remaining and still capable of investigating without being assassinated in the initial flurry of deaths, as barely anyone within her organization or outside of it had even heard of her. Mr. Smith notes that U.N.I.T.Y. has several other pressing matters happening during the first game, and Mr. Jones apologizes for sending Cate on multiple time-sensitive, highly-dangerous missions back-to-back but notes that with the assassinations, they really don't have anyone else available. It's noted early on that more than half of the active roster of agents has been killed.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Averted. Since it's TheSixties, Cate has to deal with ''a lot'' of casual sexism from practically all directions. Despite her obvious ability, her gender keeps her out of field work until Volkov's assassinations reach the point where U.N.I.T.Y. is literally running out of field agents. And even then Bruno, a respected veteran operative, has to keep pushing and vouching for her just to get her foot in the door in spite of the very pressing need for her to be in the field.

* PuzzleBoss: Inge Wagner, who's completely invulnerable to bullets and melee due to her [[{{Valkyries}} Valkyrie]] armor. But she apparently insisted that her fight has appropriate background music, so she has a cassette player blaring operatic music where she's fighting Cate. The solution is to turn the player off, which causes Inge to drop everything to turn it back on, and then turn on an electrical box in the area since that player is sitting on a barrel in a puddle of water...

** It is 1960's Britain. Mr. Smith is one of the biggest sources of this in the first game, and the aforementioned SpySpeak and lady-themed {{Shoe Phone}} gadgets are clearly attempts to haze the girl ([[InsultBackfire although they wind up embarrassing the informants more than Cate]]), and she puts the gadgets to very good use.
** Tom Goodman doubts her espionage abilities because she's a woman. [[spoiler:Turns out "Tom" had no doubts about her abilities, and was goading her into taking increasingly lethal missions to prove herself to him.]]

* StealthEscortMission: In the very first mission in the original game, you have to snipe numerous assassins targeting a VIP without the VIP noticing you or them. The latter requirement is made quite easy by the fact that he is a self-important UpperClassTwit with zero awareness of anything that doesn't serve his immediate satisfaction, and also stone deaf.

* GilliganCut: Armstrong gets one in the second game when Cate asks him to assist in providing information on H.A.R.M.
--> '''Armstrong:''' "Well... I suppose I could make a few calls, but DON'T EXPECT ME to get involved! *cut* "Jamal? Magnus... I'm coming to India."

* GilliganCut: Armstrong gets one in the second game when Cate asks him to assist in providing information on H.A.R.M. "Well... I suppose I could make a few calls, but DON'T EXPECT ME to get involved! *cut* "Jamal? Magnus... I'm coming to India."

** And again later on, while you're crossing a bridge in [[SupervillainLair the BigBad's secret lair]], [[spoiler: a HaveANiceDeath sign (complete with smiley face!) pops up in front of you and the bridge drops out from under you, dumping you into a shark tank.]]

* ExposedToTheElements:
** Avoided -- Cate wears coats in the snow levels.
** And when you fall into a frozen lake, your immediate objective is to find a place to warm up before you freeze to death.

* {{Gasshole}}: Not from the usual orifice. H.A.R.M.'s secret weapon causes people to burp profusely before they explode.

* GiantMook: The [[SuperSoldier Super Soldiers]] in the second game are essentially this; huge, slow brutes armed with a repeating rocket launchers and have enough [[HeavilyArmoredMook armor]] to be capable of soaking 2 to 3 mags of automatic weapons fire before going down. They also won't ''stay'' down unless you shoot them with anti-supersoldier serum while they're disabled. Design-wise they seem to be a precursor to the Heavy Armor soldiers from ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon''.

** That conversation becomes a [[BrickJoke Brick Joke]] later when you find a letter that announces anyone who skips the "motivational concert" is automatically volunteered to be a test subject for HARM's next project.

* MeaningfulName: Baron Archibald and Baroness Felicity's surname, Dumas, although pronounced "Doo-mar" is an obvious contraction of "Dumbass", because Baron Dumas is an incredibly stupid man-child who only got by because of his wealth inherited from his family.

* OneManArmy: Subverted (plot-wise at least). Rather than not finding anything unusual about Cate mowing down hundreds of enemy Mooks per mission, her superiors find it so unbelievable that they mistakenly assume at first that she's making the whole thing up on her mission reports.
* TheOnlyOne: Justified in-universe. Prior to the first game's start, Cate Archer was only given extremely low-profile assignments. This meant that when H.A.R.M. started picking off top agents, she was the only one remaining and still capable of investigating without being assassinated in the initial flurry of deaths, as barely anyone within her organization or outside of it had even heard of her.
** Mr. Smith notes that U.N.I.T.Y. has several other pressing matters happening during the first game, and Mr. Jones apologizes for sending Cate on multiple time-sensitive, highly-dangerous missions back-to-back but notes that with the previously mentioned assassinations, they really don't have anyone else available. It's noted early on that more than half of the active roster of agents has been killed.

-->'''Baroness:''' Well, aren't you the clever little ''bitch''?

* TerriblePickUpLines: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]. In Berlin, all of Cate's (male) liaisons have cheesy pickup lines as their SpySpeak signs, while Cate's exasperated rebuffs are the countersigns. After exchanging them, both parties frown and ask themselves "WhoWritesThisCrap".

* {{Gashole}}: Not from the usual orifice. H.A.R.M.'s secret weapon causes people to burp profusely before they explode.

* BatmanGambit: In the first game, [[spoiler: Bruno feigns his demise to draw out the real traitor in U.N.I.T.Y.'s organization.]] As far as Need To Know, Cate didn't; [[spoiler: her reaction needed to be genuine. And when Bruno reveals all at the end, after the fight with the Goodman imposter]], Cate's understandably upset by this and ''very much pissed off'' about being kept in the dark about the gambit.

* KillAndReplace: [[spoiler:The real Tom Armstrong was killed and replaced with a double.]]

* CaneSword: At the beginning of the second game Isako has a sword hidden in her Japanese-style umbrella.
* ChekhovsGun: Throughout the first game, Cate will find pieces of an item simply referred to as the CT-180, without any clue as to what it actually is beyond that it's a brand new, experimental device of some kind. She may also occasionally find a note referring to it. In the second game, [[spoiler:Cate is given the CT-180 Utility Launcher, one of the most useful pieces of equipment ever created for a first person shooter, capable of launching everything from camera disablers, to sleeping darts, to tracking beacons.]]

The game is today not on sale anywhere and is considered semi-lost to time. Creator/NightdiveStudios has expressed interest in securing the rights to put out a remastered re-release of both game, but so far their attempts have been caught up in a particularly nasty bit of legal deadlock, due to the fact that Sierra has been dissolved by Creator/{{Activision}} and Monolith was acquired by Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment in 2004, making it so that no one is entirely sure who actually owns the rights to the ''No One Lives Forever'' IP. Fans have kept the game alive, however, Main/KeepCirculatingTheTapes style.

* TheSixties: Even the ''space station'' you visit has a ''go-go lounge''. PoliticallyCorrectHistory is averted, as Cate has to deal with a lot of sexism. It's downplayed in the sequel, which features a black guy as a liaison from the American branch of UNITY.

* SniperScopeSway: In the second game, you can level up your sniper skill to get rid of it.

* SpyCatsuit: In the first game, Cate's outfit for some levels is incredibly tight leather spy outfit. Played with in that it's bright orange and has a little leather miniskirt. She later trades it in for incognito clothes, winter outfit, and for the second game a short leather trenchcoat/jacket.