Welcome fellow NOLFer’s to the first installment of a monthly column that
I will be contributing to NG and devoted to all things NOLF. For those of you
who don’t know me, outside of playing together online, let me tell you a little
bit about myself. I am a very competitive person who enjoys playing war games
of all varieties from chess and Avon Hill type board games to the latest PC
titles and who is, like many of you, a frustrated armchair general.
As I look around the area surrounding my computer I can see way too many
PC war games; Battle Zone I and II, Doom, Quake, Red Faction, Half-Life, Return
to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Age of Rifles, all of
the Command and Conquer series, every game with Tom Clancy’s name attached
to it, B-17 Flying Fortress, Falcon 4.0, something called Warzone 2100, which
I can’t even remember playing, and dozens more. If it is a computer game involving
shooting, flying, driving a tank, maneuvering a warship or swinging a samurai
sword it’s somewhere close at hand, probably hidden under a pile of books about
people named Patton, Napoleon, von Clausewitz and Musashi. But there is one
PC game that I never have to hunt for because it is always sitting in one of
my CD drives and that game is No One Lives Forever. I know that I can download
a patch so that I can play NOLF without the disk, but why take the chance of
messing up something I love? Yes, there it is, my formal declaration of unabashed
ardor for NOLF, my favorite all-time shooter. I could use all my other games
as coasters at my next LAN party and never miss them, but if I misplaced my
NOLF disk my life would become unglued. I think the first reason NOLF is my
one true love is that, like all true loves; it is breathtakingly beautiful
to behold. Most of the other online shooters look graphically challenged and
strategically anemic when compared to NOLF.
When I play Counter Strike I feel like a rat in a dark maze trying to get
out before the five-minute clock winds down. Five minutes, give me a break!
Who decided that all combat missions should be five minutes long? Someone who
has never heard of The Hundred Year War and whose idea of an attractive gaming
environment is a shadowy back alley, that’s who! Have any of you just walked
through a NOLF map by yourself, Marrakech for example, and just looked around?
I want to live there, for crying out loud! I’ll take the small apartment overlooking
the Unity base, thank you very much. The architectural details are amazing
and the weather is always perfect with bright sun in the plazas, multiple swimming
pools to cool off in and plenty of dangerous weapons and explosives to amuse
you. The only things missing are friends to enjoy it with, but wait, why not
use the Internet to invite some to visit? Friends with nice, normal names such
as [PM] Mojo, [JAB] 20/20, Hitman or the ever-popular Player will all be happy
to come over and play with you. You can enjoy chatting with them while trying
to reduce them to blood-splatter. Why this is more fun than a barrel of monkeys
is anyone’s guess, but it just is.
The weapons used in NOLF are better than in other shooters too. I’d play
NOLF all day with just a Geldmacher equipped with that wild night vision scope
or with just the Corrector. The Corrector, what a concept, a weapon with about
a 20 foot effective range with a scope on it, I guess so that you can accurately
blow off the first knuckle of the left big toe of somebody standing beside
you, as you injure yourself in the process. Then there are the explosives;
ah the explosives, just the thought of their awesome power makes me drool like
Homer Simpson passing The Lard Lad doughnut shop, mmm rockets and proxies gimme,
gimme, gimme! Another thing I love about NOLF is the people I’ve gotten to
know while chatting with them during a game. There are many friendly, wonderful,
funny, weird and just plain crazy folks who inhabit the NOLF world. The very
social nature of the game is one of its most compelling features and the reason
that the infamous “ chat kill “ is so despised, the etiquette of the chat kill
will be the topic of one of my next columns because it is one of the most misunderstood
aspects of the game.
The purpose of my monthly scribbling will be two-fold, the first is to entertain
you by keeping you up to date with the latest news from the front lines with
interviews and tips from the game’s best players and commentary from yours
truly about the state-of–the-game, and the second will be to answer any questions
that you may have regarding game play and good NOLFing manners. I will strive
to be impartial, fair and informative so email me your questions. I hope that
those of you who have played with me know what kind of a person I am and that
those of you who don’t know me will enjoy playing with me when we meet. I have
played NOLF online almost everyday for the last 9 months and enjoyed every
minute of it. I have also achieved a small measure of success as a player.
I believe I hold the record for staying at the #1 spot on CSports longer then
anyone else, about 6 or 7 straight weeks. I like to feel that it had more to
do with my NOLFing skills than the fact that CSports choose to shutdown and
revamp their Website during that entire time. To be honest, I was hoping that
they would go out of business, leaving me eternally at #1. Who says that No
One Lives Forever? G2G, CYA
