Its hard to imagine these were the same folks who gave us No One Lives Forever and No One Lives Forever 2. The fantastic humor, varied gameplay are all gone, and all that left is monotones shooter which tries hard to capture the magic of the previous games, but fails at just about everything and ends up being very bland. its not a terrible game, but its just not very good.

I admit, I am not a fan of games with female protagonists. I played my share of Tomb Raider games as an adolescent, but I started to see what a poor stereotype Lara Croft is as I got older and I lost interest in the series so much so that I haven’t played any after tomb raider chronicles. No One Lives Forever had much more depth, both in characters and in gameplay. The first game was an amazing shooter with memorable characters and great music. The second game was just as good with greatly improved visuals, even more humor, interesting weapons.
Its repetitive as hell. I mean its repetitive as hell. Did I tell you its repetitive as hell?

Then came Contract J.A.C.K., the prequel. What can I say? Its a step backwards, no pun intended. The gameplay consists of mowing down seemingly endless droves of enemies, who keep coming out of nowhere. There is no stealth, no strategy, just mindless shooting. This is fun for a while, but gets boring really fast.

Its not often that i play a game and I don’t recollect anything about the story. All i know is that the main character is a gun for hire, who gets hired by the same agency Cate Archer worked for, and goes all over the world in search of something or someone. Remember the memorable anti gravity level in No One Lives Forever 2? They tried to do one of those, but it just didn’t work very well. The levels are set in different locations across Europe and space, but it really doesn’t matter. the game just isn’t any fun. It doesn’t help at all that the AI is pretty dated as well. Just about every enemy reacts the same way, and when you have tons and tons of enemies all acting the same way, it gets boring really fast.
Stupid game design. Couldn’t they at least have put up a higher wall? That’s how much thought went into the game!

At least its technically solid. The visuals are alright, but in 2011, its hard to not notice the sharp edges and the repetitive gameplay. I played this game for the nostalgic value, and by the time it was over, my hunger for No One Lives Forever was not satiated and I am left hoping i will one day see the release of a new NOLF game.

Hard for me to recommend this game except for fans of NOLF, who might to give it a shot just for the sake of nostalgia.

+ Somewhat retains the atmosphere of NOLF games

- Repetitive gameplay
- Lame story
- Absolutely no replay value
- Terrible AI

Verdict - Unless you are a really hardcore NOLF fan, don’t bother with this one.

This post is published on Apr 11, 2026 Saturday 11:59:32 AM CDT