The Operative: No One Lives Forever

What works

Installation: works fine. The game installs smoothly without any issues.

Settings: semi-works. The display configuration must be changed manually before the first start by editing the autoexec.cfg file in the drive_c/Program Files/Fox/No One Lives Forever directory. Use the screenDepth=32 as otherwise the game will be VERY slow.

Playing: semi-works. There are issues, but if the game started successfully, the issues you'd experience would be the same you'd experience on Windows. The game is very playable.

What does not

Starting. The game doesn't always load on the first try. It may "hang" (really a crash) when showing one of the intro screens (there are 4) with a black square.Keep trying, for me it always started once in five attempts.

Settings: Using the Display menu resets the settings. Going to Advanced and then Display hangs the game. Other settings are configurable and work fine.

Missions: there are following issues:

- For the timed missions the in-game time runs faster than  on-screen timer. This means if the game says you have 90 seconds to complete the mission you really only have 50. Despite that it is still possible to pass the game, except one level.

- You will have trouble getting out of water in "TROUBLE IN THE TROPICS, SCENE 3" (where you jump into well) and "THE INDOMITABLE CATE ARCHER, SCENE 4" (a scene with a shark). This is a timing issue. In the first case just keep trying, as the timer isn't run. In the second case wait for the shark to come close and jump off the shark body - it will bite you, but you can take three bites so this is not a major issue.

- You won't be able to finish the "SUCH IS THE NATURE OF REVENGE, SCENE 1" mission because the timing is tight. You need at least 65 seconds to get 11 people off the streets; the game timer gives you 90, but really you're only getting 50 (see above). So just skip this mission by pressing "T" and typing "mpmaphole"

Workarounds

What was not tested

Multiplayer

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

• To get NOLF running on newer versions than Wine 1.5.1, run:

  winetricks dsound directmusic

  Afterwards, open up winecfg, go to the "Libraries" tab and set dsound to Builtin.
  You can also disable the music if you really want to play without it.


• If you are stuck on the loading screen, disable animated loading screens in the launcher, too.


• If the launcher fails to find your CD, start the game with lithtech.exe and all rez-files as parameters.

  ­$ wine lithtech.exe -rez rezfile1.rez -rez rezfile2.rez ...

  This script should w­ork with all version of NOLF:

  $ wine lithtech.exe $(for f in $(ls|grep -i rez$); do echo "-rez $f"; done)

• For widescreen, you can pass more options to the command line:

  ++screenwidth "1920" ++screenheight "1080" ++screendepth "32"

  However, this stretches the game. A better widescreen fix is available here, but you can't play online with it.


• To be able to play online, edit your /etc/hosts.