DAILY MANIFESTO

Budget Game Review of the Week: Soldier of Fortune: Payback

Posted on Thursday, October 6 @ 16:33:44 Eastern by Silios

Here's the skinny, each week I'll go to my local Gamestop and buy a game under twenty dollars, I'll then write a lengthy review about the game, followed by a summary of rather you should skip it or buy it. I don't read video game reviews despite being on this site, I try to stay away from what people say, so I can form my own opinion on the game. Keep in mind these are my opinions, if I say something bad about a game you like, don't get butt hurt over it, it's just my opinion.

Today's review: Soldier of Fortune: Payback - Price $5.99

Ugh... This is why we can't have nice things. Quick story, back in the early 2000's a very gory game came out, graphically it was was pretty impressive, but most of the hoorah came from the game's ultra gory hit detection. Shoot a guy in the face, half his face will be gone. It was a twelve year old's wet dream.

I actually recall playing the first game at friends house, I remember thinking "this is so bland" and now I'm playing the third installment.

This is truly a budget game, it's the crap you expect to find in the bin.

GAMEPLAY -

How can I explain this? Image having to ride a bicycle without wheels up a dirt hill. Yeah it's just like that. Enemies have the worst AI I have seen in any game with the exception of Big Rigs. They're basically cannon fodder, and even on the hardest difficulty they'll stand out in the open pointing their gun at you and freeze like deer in headlights. I get that they want to show off the gore, but that's a major problem among its self.

The gore.... Postal 2 had better death animations and gore than this garbage. If you're a gore nut, do yourself a favor and pass on this trash, go watch Riki-Oh or play Mortal Kombat, this game is just plain pathetic. You want to know the sad thing? On the back of the case they actually say "The most outrageous damage modeling ever... Not for the faint of heart". It's like someone was actually proud of this.

Guns all feel the same, and all look the same. Rather you're shooting a shotgun or rifle, it doesn't matter, and it doesn't help that it's painfully obvious they rehashed a lot of textures.

The missions, You basically run from point A to point B killing as many people who get in your way, that's about it. I hear there's plenty of escort missions to boot, but honestly I could force myself to play that far.

I don't know what else to say, besides "terrible". I've literally played XBLA FPS games for the same price and they were leagues better.

SOUND -

You ever hear those stock gun shot sounds? Expect a lot of that in this game. Everything is so "meh" it's cringe worthy. The terrorists you fight have the most racist voice overs imaginable. I feel like the team just went to a local gun club and asked them to do the voice overs in their most bigoted way.

GRAPHICS -

GoldenEye looks better than this game, in fact I go so far to say Soldier of Fortune stole some of the textures from the game. Everything looks the same, cars look like the buildings, blood looks like the sky. There's absolutely no clarity.

SHOULD YOU BUY IT?

Not just "NO", but HELL NO. I paid $5.99 for this and I feel scammed. In fact I'm going back to my Gamestop and trading it in today. If you want a good gory FPS, get UT3. But stay the hell away from this garbage.

And let me just say this, normally with these reviews I try to spend a good portion of time playing them before I make a judgment. Meaning for an FPS I'll play for about two hours, and for RPG's I'll try to finish them. This was different. It was like every moment I left the disc in was akin to someone scratching a chalk board. I played for thirty minutes and had to quit, it's that bad.

Related Games: Soldier of Fortune: Payback

Tags: Budget Game Review

Comments

tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Thank you, Silios. Crappy games can be fun too, if your not the one stuck playing it

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LawnGnome
Joined: Apr 2007

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
I LOVE the idea of this column, but how about only posting cheap games that are good/worth playing? I already know that most everything in the $5 bin sucks. Letting me know about worthwhile games in there would be far more informative.

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danielrbischoff
Joined: Nov 2009

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
Every once in a while there's going to be a stinker. Honestly I encouraged Silios to write up the negative review this time, but he's already got a positive one loaded up and ready to move to the front page.

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tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
I encouraged Silios too. If all he ever wrote about was good games in the bargain bin, he wouldn't be doing much writing. A good game is a rare gem in the bargain bin, but if handled right a crappy game can be fun to read about too.

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Bretimus_v2
Joined: Jan 2009

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
This is like Man vs. Food in that sometimes I'm delighted, and sometimes I don't want to eat anything for a day.

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danielrbischoff
Joined: Nov 2009

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
Nominated for The People Speak.

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tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
That's what she said.

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MrrClean
Joined: Aug 2010

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I suppose the article is a kind of good idea, but I still find is slightly amusing that a guy who says "I don't read video game reviews despite being on this site, I try to stay away from what people say, so I can form my own opinion on the game," is writing reviews about games. But then, I have a fairly strange sense of humor.

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Silios
Joined: Jul 2003

Posted: Oct 6th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Hey thanks for all the support guys, and Daniel has been awesome. A lot more to come.

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usaglory
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Oct 7th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Like this column. A bad review is still a review, besides, as a reviewer how is he to know if the game is gonna suck balls beforehand. Fun review btw. Keep it up.

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