[HN Gopher] No One Lives Forever (NOLF) Revival Edition
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No One Lives Forever (NOLF) Revival Edition
Author : Lammy
Score : 104 points
Date : 2025-02-23 04:37 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nolfrevival.tk)
(TXT) w3m dump (nolfrevival.tk)
| wvbdmp wrote:
| I own both games on disc and played part of the first one a
| couple of years ago on Windows 10. Absolutely stellar game, I've
| always meant to finish one of these days and get to the sequel...
|
| IIRC it did indeed require some fiddling with config files and
| maybe even community patches to get a wide aspect ratio to work,
| and weapon viewmodels would still end up stretched.
|
| Highly recommend giving these games a shot!
|
| The legality of this seems questionable, though? The site itself
| doesn't appear to acknowledge anything related to that.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Not just questionable - the rights to the game will either be
| with Monolith (now Warner Brothers) or with Fox Interactive
| (now Disney).
|
| I hope that whoever set this site up has protected their
| identity...
| maximilianburke wrote:
| There's an issue with the rights to the No One Lives Forever
| games which is why it hasn't re-appeared on Steam (et al).
| Nightdive Studios tried to get the rights to republish it but
| couldn't nail down between these parties who actually had the
| rights to the game and could authorize this.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Kind of absurd, but I guess it might be because there are
| multiple rights involved, ie art and music, characters and
| gameplay and whatnot? It's not just one neat "NOLF IP"
| package?
| maximilianburke wrote:
| If I recall it was something even sillier, like none of
| the presumptive rights holders could find the
| documentation saying who owned the rights.
| archagon wrote:
| Heh. Well, I guess whoever sues this site has to be the
| rightful owner!
| tame3902 wrote:
| Somebody once tried to clarify the situation with a
| similar stunt, but failed spectacularly. From the NOLF
| Wikipedia page:
|
| In May 2014, Nightdive Studios, a publisher of classic PC
| titles, filed trademarks for "No One Lives Forever", "The
| Operative", "A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way", and "Contract
| J.A.C.K.", Nightdive had also been able to acquire the
| source code for the games, which would enable them to
| remaster them for modern computer systems. However,
| Nightdive had yet to comment on the situation regarding
| who owned the rights to the game. At this point, the
| rights to the series were unclear, as the property may
| have been owned solely or in part by 20th Century Fox
| (which owned Fox Interactive at the time of the game's
| release), Activision (which acquired and merged with
| Vivendi Games, which in turn was the parent to Sierra
| Entertainment, the publisher of No One Lives Forever 2,
| and had acquired Fox Interactive in 2003), and Warner
| Bros. Interactive Entertainment (which acquired Monolith
| Productions). Warner Bros. did file opposition to
| Nightdive's trademark, leading Nightdive to try to seek a
| license arrangement. However, Warner Bros.
| representatives were concerned that if either Fox or
| Activision had a part of the ownership, that they would
| also need their approval. Nightdive attempted to work
| with Fox and Activision to search their archives, but as
| these transitions pre-dated computerized records, neither
| company wanted to do so. Nightdive's efforts were further
| stalled when they were told by Warner Bros. that they had
| no interest in partnering or licensing the IP, leading
| Nightdive to abandon their efforts to acquire the rights.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| Gosh. I can't believe that was more than a decade ago.
| Tempus fugit.
| chneu wrote:
| If the owner of the IP doesn't enforce their ownership of the
| IP then there isn't much to do about it. This is pretty common
| in the "abandonware" gaming community. Lots of old games are
| technically piracy but nobody cares.
| poisonwomb wrote:
| My understanding of this is that no one will actually confess
| to owning the IP, so this project also serves the purpose of
| baiting someone to actually come forward and submit a takedown
| notice as that would presumably reveal who owns it
| swhitf wrote:
| I haven't seen a .tk domain in probably 20 years. It was super
| popular with young gamers during the early 00s due to the free
| domain. What a blast from the past!
|
| Also a blast from the past, the OMM review of NOLF:
| https://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/751.html
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Probably won't see it for much longer. Once it expires it's
| impossible to renew now even if paid:
| https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/03/sued-by-meta-freenom-hal...
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| These games were great. They really pushed the style and
| creativity of first-person shooters forward with their level and
| mission design.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| What a great game series. This really shows what an innovative
| and campy gaming industry we used to have. You don't see games
| like this anymore, especially not from big studios. Maybe in the
| indie scene - but mostly not in the same scope.
| throaway89 wrote:
| Yes, not just creativity but actual humour and experimentation!
| Not to mention taste.
| keyringlight wrote:
| Underneath the campy humor and old spy movie/TV series
| references, there was a number of elements on spying, about
| manipulating and using people, attitudes to women, the dull
| work spying is for the non-super spies. and so on. If someone
| was to make a follow-up, I don't think a NOLF copy/paste would
| do so well beyond pure nostalgia (and I don't think NOLF ever
| set the world on fire with its sales), but there's enough
| substance there where they could make something interesting
| playing it straight.
| fmajid wrote:
| NOLF2 was hilarious. The samurai sword fiht in a trailer park
| while a hurricane blows through it! The fight against French
| mimes toting machine guns (Ah, ze pain is unbearable)!
| skibz wrote:
| I feel compelled to say that NOLF is awesome, and it's also
| source-available:
|
| - https://web.archive.org/web/20020217233624/http://pc.ign.com...
|
| - https://web.archive.org/web/20010720053220/http://noonelives...
|
| - https://github.com/osgcc/no-one-lives-forever
|
| - https://github.com/haekb/nolf1-modernizer
|
| Please be careful using a release distributed on a site without
| TLS and links to other certain well-known file sharing sites.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| This is my number one question - how to trust the executables
| from here :-/
| kennysoona wrote:
| You don't have to trust them to run them. Run them in a VM or
| sandbox.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I mean, NOLF was way ahead of its time. A parody that also was
| a really good game. Like, a parody that was not sarcastic or
| ironic. It is hard to describe.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Pastiche, perhaps?
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Monolith[1] made some of my favorite games growing up.
|
| It started with Shogo, but also No One Lives Forever, Tron 2.0
| and F.E.A.R. left deep impressions.
|
| What stood out was the combination of their well-done 3D engine
| with world building and art direction.
|
| It wasn't the same from game to game, each game had their very
| distinct feel, and always interesting.
|
| And I think few shooters have as good enemy AI as the goal-
| oriented[1] ones in F.E.A.R. (sadly not used in the sequels)
|
| Good times, good times...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Productions
|
| [2]: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/building-the-ai-of-
| f-e-...
| nullify88 wrote:
| Condemned was pretty atmospheric too. Good to see they are
| still making games.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Can I run this under linux?
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Yes trivially with wine and dxvk
| Beijinger wrote:
| Count me in.
| thehoagie wrote:
| Works for me on GE-Proton 9.9 . If you use Lutris there is even
| an installer for this already:
| https://lutris.net/games?q=no+one+lives+forever
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Hilarious, hilarious game. Nightdive Studios, known for
| remastering old games such as System Shock, Doom 64, and Turok,
| tried their hardest to get the rights to the game, but apparently
| nobody knows who owns it! https://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-
| behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-...
| throaway89 wrote:
| Wow I remember when this came out. Finding the different clues on
| the ground was pretty amazing back then. I played that PC Gamer
| demo over and over and over.
| romanhn wrote:
| Oh wow, outstanding game. One of very few games I played through
| to the end. Reminisced about it recently:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41753079.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| This game is on GOG's "Dreamlist" of games to preserve on their
| platform, so if you're interested in playing it, vote for it!
|
| https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/the-operative-no-one-live...
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(page generated 2025-02-23 23:01 UTC)