Comment by danielskogly

I'm in the speedrunning community[0] for NOLF and just want to chime in on the amazing work that haekb did (I believe the "community-driven project" is only them) for these games[1]. They made both NOLF and NOLF2 a lot more accessible to people casually picking up the game, as there was a lot of jank and configuration needed otherwise to get the games running in a good way on modern systems. In addition to fixing jank, they actually fixed tons of bugs and added other QoL and fun stuff like a jukebox in the menus to listen to the (great) soundtrack. Some stuff - like how if you have certain USB devices connected, the game will just flip out - still remains, but that's just a part of the _voodoo_ with old games like these.

Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.

It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)

The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!

They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)

Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]

[0]: https://www.speedrun.com/nolf <-- you'll find a link to the game here as well

[1]: https://haekb.itch.io/ <-- here you'll find all the lithtech stuff they made

[2]: https://youtu.be/q2PxxbJydBU <-- this is just one of many examples

[3]: https://spawnsite.net/