Who would have thought Monolith could come so far in just a year. After the atrocities of Blood 2 and the rather short-lived Shogo, the Lithtech engine seemed to be marked for mediocrity, but a year on, and No One Lives Forever is one of the best single player first person shooters since Half-Life. Enjoyable on so many levels, and stunningly attractive, it shows just what the technology is really capable of. Although at times rather too linear for its own good, NOLF has a pleasantly paced momentum to it, and the plot, which centres around swinging 60's UNITY agent Cate Archer, is fairly plausible, if a little too Austin Powers-ish. You start out on a fairly routine mission providing protection for the American Ambassador to Morocco, by picking off moustachioed assassins who dash from their trench coat-shrouded holes to try and pick him off. After the mission goes pear-shaped and your fellow agent is lost, you are reassigned on a mission to uncover his murderer, a nasty chap by the name of Volkov, part of an international terrorist organisation called HARM. Your search takes you to the darkened doorways of Berlin, and several infiltration missions later you have more clues. From here on, the game accelerates toward its explosive ending, stopping off in the Caribbean and the Alps en-route for some impressive James Bond-esque action, including sky-diving battles ala the intro to "Moonraker," and some snowmobile rides through the snowy Alps, ala "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."