NOLF 2 was released in late 2002. While I wasn't a fan of the original the reviews were more positive for this, I remember picking it up and enjoying it. It seems I liked it so much having traded in my original copy(I did this a lot as a broke teen it does not mean I didn't like a game) I at some point re-bought the budget release. I came across the "Best Seller Series" copy when taking boxes of old games from my Mam's house recently and for this play through I installed it from the CDs! Neither NOLF game has gotten an official release on digital stores although both are quite easy to find on the internet archive. Like Max Payne 2 this is not as big of an improvement over the original as I remember. It is an improvement though and I'd say this is worth a replay if you liked it back in the day unlike the original.

       

By far the first thing I noticed an improvement with was the cut scenes. They're far more succinct with a camera that has more than 2 angles and characters that move around the scenes. The writing is an improvement too and Cate isn't belittled at all. The voice acting is all much better too, there are no slip ups with Cate's accent any more and the supporting characters all sound good. I think this really helps keep things moving, at no point was I sitting through 6 minutes of the same 2 shots as characters gave an exposition dump. That said the story isn't particularly interesting and while the writing is better it's still just fine. This isn’t a game I was playing for the story.

Hot on the heels of cut scenes when it comes to improvements is stealth. There are loads of cool mechanic that have been introduced to improve this aspect of the game, you can now hide in dark areas, turn out lights to create said dark areas, alarms turn off after a period of time and the state of the level gets reset. There's a gadget that allows you to fire tracking darts at enemies to keep tabs on them and you can move the bodies of enemies you'd knocked out or killed. It's just such a shame you're given so few opportunities to really put all of this to use outside of one level during the section set in India. For most levels the layouts don't lend themselves very well to stealth and the fundamental unpredictability of the enemy AI still undermines everything. I was quick saving before peeking out from a corner in case the enemy facing away from me some how spotted me instantly. Beyond this, there's very little benefit to being stealthy when it's just as easy to go in guns blazing which is what most levels feel designed for.

When combat does kick off it's fine. There's a decent amount of enemy variety both visually and in their weaponry but outside of 2 late game enemies the tactics required against them are piratically non-existent. Enemies run towards you shooting whatever weapon they have at you and you shoot back at them. Even the arsenal at your disposal rarely matters. There are a number of machine guns, a shotgun, a handgun and a sniper rifle. There are maybe 2 occasions where the sniper rifle is of use and otherwise it's a case of using whichever gun you have the most ammo for. It's not like there's an advantage to having a shotgun in tight corridors, even outdoors it's so easy to close the distance that it's useful. Even the different ammo types for these guns make little difference, you’ll never have a reason to need to use fire rounds for instance.

Gadgets make a streamlined return, they've been pared back and their use is usually context sensitive. This is a good move even if all it does is add a bit of visual variety to the various gates in a level. The one exception to the context sensitive use is the camera which I had to use once. The more I think about all the systems and items in these games that go barely used the more I wonder what sort of cohesion there was between the game and level designers.

A new addition is an upgrade system. Completing objectives nets you points that you use to upgrade abilities in a system that feels very "other games do this so we will too". It's all very plain, weapons do more damage, you get bugger health and armour bars etc. The one bit of it that stands out is stealth. Fully upgraded it makes stealth actually useful as the time required to hide and evade alarms drops massively and if this was just the baseline stealth system it would be great! But instead it's hidden behind a simplistic and unclear levelling system. God knows what putting points into gadgets does, maybe you use them faster and if so why would you ever bother with that? Again, systems that just don't fit in with the levels at all.

Let's wrap this up with what kept me playing. Visually it's still a very nice looking game, there's strong art direction and we're hitting that point in games where animations and textures are of a high enough quality that you can tell what everything is meant to be still. The music is nice and the feeling of being a spy is very much there. Searching through folder of documents, zapping an enemy with your stun gun and hiding in a room are all very fun. The variety of locations is nice and the story zips along at a nice pace. I don't think this is shorter than the original and if it is it's not by much but this flew by in comparison to the first, I got through it in 3 sittings. The pacing is very good and they know when to slow things down after a prolonged period of action. It's a fun few hours for sure.