The Mediocre Zone | #22 | Contract J.A.C.K.
3Contract J.A.C.K. ,a game that wanted to be a prequel to the sequel of the No One Lives Forever franchise ... but with game play placed only on macho action , then spy gadgets that you knew from the main game ...
So why was it so mediocre :
Some will say this game has great music ,weapons models and a cleaver AI... I will say, it also has Big empty maps , with nothing to do on them ... *COUGH* just like they made the same mistake in F.E.A.R *COUGH*
No story , well if you count the slapstick voice overs as story and 3 or 4 cut-scenes (in the whole game) as one ... or those WALLS of TEXT when the next map loads as story ... this would have worked in a game from the DOS era of 1997, but this one is from 2003...
Enemies are bullets sponges ... and speaking about them, many criticized NOLF for the low enemy count (always max 3) .. but here its ridicules , from 20 to 40 ... when to much Ai bots can ruin your game
Boring mission objectives ... the sad thing about it is, they knew about it and designed it as a joke (that backfired) ... as a not funny joke that is
and to end it , it has no pulling factor in its story or game play ...
That said , its sad that the NOLF series ended with a awful spin-off that killed the series ... but then again, this game rode on the HYPE wave from the Austin Powers movie series
Maybe if they would made another Austin Powers movie, Monolith would make another NOLF game ... but that is wishful thinking