Soldier of Fortune Review

Somebody got a band-aid?

The time of pyramid building in Egypt is known as the Old Kingdom. Last century

brought us the Industrial Revolution. If a name is truly drawn from the actions

that take place during an era, then the time we are currently in should be called

The Age of Ports.

This

is a strange time, when good and bad games are shared across the lands, er,

platforms. One of the most recent ports is Activision’s first-person shooter

Soldier of Fortune. First seen on the PC,

this game brings glorious and grotesque character mutilations via the gore zones

and hordes of enemies. It’s a shame that the rest of this operation is pretty

much pear-shaped. So grab your ammo, throw on your camo and let’s make history.

Soldier of Fortune is all about John Mullins, a retired military vet.

John now works as a mercenary, taking many of his jobs from the covert U.N anti-terrorist

group, The Shop. Although John is well seasoned in the arts of war, he has yet

to face a maniacal terrorist possessing four nuclear weapons, not to mention

countless thugs and hostile loyalists set up in many countries around the world.

As John, your job is to locate the nuclear arms, find the terrorist leader,

bring him to justice and lay the smack-down on any nefarious miscreants that

may block your path.

But dispatching gun-toting heretics is what you do best, which is a very good

thing, because this is the bulk of SoF‘s gameplay. Running and gunning

through SoF‘s 10 covert missions spanning 26 levels is the name of the

game. There is no gabbing with civilians for vital information, operating vehicles

or intricate puzzle solving. There are a few instances where you must find a

lever or switch to a door, but they’re always in plain sight and never require

any real thought. If you’re looking for the thinking man’s shooter, then keep

searching. Soldier of Fortune is all about the mindless yet blissful

twitch.

This is SoF‘s strongest draw. You’ll do battle with wave after wave

of heavily armed gang-members, arctic soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and many other

thugs who would love to list the assassination of John Mullins on their next

resume. Unfortunately, they’re definitely not the brightest bulbs in the pantry

closet. They apparently have no fear of hot lead projectiles. You rarely see

the enemy dodge or make much of an effort not to get shot. They must be relying

on their numerous forces, which are legion and armed to the teeth.

You begin your tour of duty with a knife, a 9mm and a standard shotgun, but

don’t fret. You get to loot weaponry from any poor sap foolish enough to wander

in your crosshairs. They carry various heavy machine guns, rocket launchers,

semi-automatic firearms, flamethrowers, C-4 charges, grenades, sniper rifles,

flash grenades, night vision and more. All of the weapons function really well

and give you a nice variety of ways to dish out the pain.

Too bad dishing out that pain is not as simple as it should be. Although the

control is not bad, it’s still an FPS game on a console; analog sticks and triggers

just don’t make an ideal setup. The learning curve is painful but not impossible.

Speaking

of pain, no game does a better job of punishing its characters than SoF.

Thanks to the gore zone technology, each character in the game has some 26 different

impact points on his/her body. Shoot a guy in the leg with a low caliber weapon

and it will put a very visible hole through it, along with making him stagger

appropriately. Shoot him in the same leg with a shotgun and most likely you’ll

take the whole leg clean off.

The appendage mutilation is tame when compared to the other impact points.

Hopefully you can imagine what happens when a character is shot in the gut,

groin or head, because explaining it is kind of gross. Suffice it to say it

ain’t pretty! For the concerned parents out there, you can adjust the gore level

to suit your approval.

But leapin’ lizards, it’s cool. NPC death animations are always key to a player’s

satisfaction when playing a shooter, and Soldier of Fortune delivers

like some interactive modern day action movie.

Unfortunately, the delivery guy accidentally left out all the cool graphics.

This game is not pretty. Grainy graphics, dull, featureless textures and jagged

edges have laid siege to all surfaces. Character models lack any detail. This

is easily the game’s greatest flaw and detracts from the experience.

There is a nifty multiplayer mode included. It’s only standard deathmatch,

but the game permits up to four players via the Playstation multi-tap accessory.

Plus, you can add up to seven bots to play with by yourself or with some friends.

This was sorely missing from the recent masterpiece Halo

and it’s great to see the developers thinking about it. But again, the grainy

graphics hold back the fun as the split screen modes suffer greatly.

Despite its problems, Soldier of Fortune on the Playstation 2 is not

a horrible port. It offers some decent fragging fun with hordes of baddies and

a fair multiplayer mode. There is definitely enough here for a rental, although

I would say if you need to own it, search for a preowned copy. The flaws make

it hard to recommend as a full $50 purchase.