1-Oct-2003 Out with subtelty and camp overtones and in with full-on action and bravado - Monolith reveals all on the latest No One Lives Forever game That slick and lethal 1960s chick Cate Archer has hung up her guns for good is doubtful, but the star of No One Lives Forevers one and two is, bar a brief cameo appearance, taking a well earned rest for the next title in Monolith's FPS series, Contract J.A.C.K.
Deprived of playing the coquettish lass and prancing around in skin-tight catsuits, players will, in the latest NOLF game, instead be taking on the role of gung-ho action specialist and contract problem solver John Jack.
NOLF: Contract J.A.C.K. is actually a prequel to the second game in the series, A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way, and finds John Jack working for organisation H.A.R.M. with orders to plug a large stopper into the works of an Italian criminal faction that, in typical spy genre fashion, is cooking up some devious plot or other.
We recently caught up with Monolith creative director and Contract J.A.C.K. lead designer Craig Hubbard to find out more about the game.
Can you explain a little about the lead character John Jack?
Hubbard: His name is John Jack, he is a contract problem solver. He gets hooked up with H.A.R.M. and with Dmitri Volkov and you get to play out his recruitment and his involvement with H.A.R.M.
John Jack is not subtle. He is not like Kate who is very sophisticated and can be very discreet in her methods. He is more straightforward - if there is a quick way in, that is the way he takes so the game is driven by him.
Why did you opt to let Kate Archer hang up her boots and not let her take up the lead role?
Hubbard: Well, we wanted to do something that was little more action-oriented. We had just done a stealth game and didn't want to do the same thing over again, so rather than try and retro-fit Kate into a role she is not really suited for (she's more of a spy), we decided to come up with a new character, one that is more action-oriented by nature.
Does she become involved in the story at any stage?
Hubbard: She makes a minor but memorable appearance.
Can you explain the set up of characters and organisations in the game?
Hubbard: Essentially, H.A.R.M. is a criminal organisation and they get wind of this other criminal organisation known as Danger Danger. They are an Italian organisation which is making a play for the big time. They had previously been a third rate organisation.
All H.A.R.M. knows is that the plot Danger Danger has lined up involves H.A.R.M. in some way, and H.A.R.M. is obviously interested in what that is. They send you the gamer in to investigate and hopefully stop the plot once you find out what it is.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the Italian connection?
Hubbard: They are led by a man called 'il pazo', which roughly translated means 'the psycho'. He is a self-styled lunatic who is trying to make a name for himself.
In previous games, the characters have always had strong personalities and a certain sense of style in what they wear etc. Will this continue?
Hubbard: The style is less 'campy'. We have toned down some of the overt 1960s elements to try and make it more suited to the tone of the characters, the protagonists and to the nature of the storyline as it is unfolded. It is still stylised in the way that NOLF was but less campy.
The Italians are actually a Vesper gang so they actually have these Vespers with machine guns on them. They wear the leather jackets with the red stripes and the skulls on the back and the helmets.
Can you describe the environments in which this game is based?
Hubbard: You will visit a number of environments; the chief ones include Czechoslovakia where you are pursuing Danger Danger, Italy where you will confront the organisation and also the moon where you will have an adventure and figure out what they are up to.
What happens on the moon?
Hubbard: If you have played No-one Lives Forever, you will remember that you board a H.A.R.M. space station. At the end of this, it is destroyed by meteors and our premise is that a chunk of this space station crashes onto the moon and the one survivor is the man who designed and built the space station.
Out of the wreckage, he fashions the moon base and that's where the action takes place.
Can you explain some of the multiplayer aspects of the game?
Hubbard: We are including the multiplayer modes that were added to NOLF 2. These include deathmatch, team deathmatch and Doomsday, which is an elaborate capture the flag-style mode where each team vies for three pieces of a Doomsday device in order to assemble it.
There is also a Demolition mode. We created an early example of this with the mod tools - a 'how to create your own mod'; and liked it so much that we updated it and included it in this game. It involves three bomb targets.
The attackers have to destroy two out of three of those in a limited time frame and the defenders have to calculate which ones the attackers are after and prevent them from succeeding.
Will there be vehicles in this game?
Hubbard: The Czech characters have just received a prototype snowmobile with machine guns mounted on the hood; and then there are the Vespers with machine guns.
Why have you chosen a male character for the lead role?
Hubbard: We wanted to change the gameplay style and Kate was not the vehicle through which to do that. When we were brainstorming characters, Jack came up as a modification of a character we didn't get to use before so we decided to give him his own chance to shine.
You've released mod tools that allow gamers to create their own levels - why do you think this hasn't taken off with the community as well as similar things with Counter-Strike and Half-Life have?
Hubbard: Until you reach a particular sales level, you will not get the numbers within the community to do this sort of thing.
Our tools take a little bit of learning, whereas people still using Quake tools are relatively verse with the concepts. Our concepts are similar but require some more learning.
Are you hoping that Contract J.A.C.K. will bring in a different community?
Hubbard: We are optimistic. We will be putting out a demo for the game. We are hoping that people will like the flavour of the game and will like the style of gameplay. We are also hoping that people will like the multiplayer aspect and will go on and make content for the game.
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