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.