Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Game Type: First Person Shoot'em-up
Similar To: Quake 2... very similar

By: Rice

*Note: Screenshots courtesy of Gamespot.com, Firingsquad.com, and myself.

    Raven Software has been around for a long time. Just nearly as long as id Software. As a matter of fact, I like to think of them as surgically attached to the hips. Everything id has done, Raven has taken it a step further. A few saavy gamers will point out Raven did a few top down shooters, but those were largly unsuccessful, and their main games have always been a follow up to id's tech engines. Doom led to Heretic. Doom 2 led to Hexen. Quake led to Hexen 2. Quake 2 led to Heretic 2.... and Soldier of Fortune, our featured game of review today.

    SoF is the 2nd game from Raven based on the venerable Quake 2 engine. Their first one, Heretic 2, was a big success counting both sales and critical acclaim. They then thought to themselves, "Hey, let's see what else we can milk out of this engine," and voila! Fondly called Quake 2.9 in-house, it's known technically as GHOUL. What it stands for, I have no clue. What it does, is it drives the fantastic locational based damage system and animation in the game. If you've previously read an SoF review already, you already know what GHOUL is... every single damn review out there has a spiel on GHOUL.

    As I previously mentioned, SoF has an extensive locational damange model engine they added to the game. Simply put, if you aim a .44 magnum point blank at an enemy's head and pull the trigger subsequently, the head will fly about 10 feet back leaving a bloody stump for a neck. Same for the arms, legs, chest, and... uh... crotch. All that is only half of GHOUL. The other half is the animation. Blowing the dude's head off results in the body staggering back and fall with a heavy thump to the floor. Slitting a bad guy's neck will result in him (or her) clutching their neck and gurgling to a messy death. Aim with a sniper's rifle right at a fella's jewels and he'll double over. It's so realistic, you'll feel the pain yourself.

Missing a head and a left leg. I'd say he's pretty dead.

    First complaint is in order now. While most of the time it works fabulously, other times it'd act erratically. Like if I aimed at the nads, my target would instead grab his arm in pain. Dammit, no! I want to shoot his balls, not his arm! The game brought this upon itself. After you pass each section / level, they list your statistics, and amongst those are the amount of head, neck, and nether region shots you've attained throughout the game. Head shots are the easiest. Because of that, my head shot to neck / crotch shots was about 3:1 the whole time, so I tried to beef up the stats of the other two. Pretty lame reason, but if you played SoF, I'd bet you'd get the same feeling.

    With a solid engine, well programmed animation (with occasional quirks) and models, Raven's off to a good start. The story's supposed to be engrossing ala the benchmark setter of the previous year, Half-Life. It ain't, really... it's just a thinly veiled reason to blow people up... which I don't mind at all! As the title of the game indicates, you play a mercenary by the name of John Mullins. According to the word out on the streets, John Mullins is actually a real guy that was really involved with the army back in the Gulf War or Korean War or something like that. Raven signed him up as an advisor to this game. Also, Soldier of Fortune is a real magazine dedicated to mercenary stuff. For reals! I checked it out on Yahoo! Pretty cool...

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat

    All I've got to say is, damn, if the life of a mercenary is this tough in the real world, they better be paid a hella lot better than a few hundred grand. Soldier of Fortune ain't Rainbow Six or SWAT. It's strictly shoot-'em up. I'm talking 50 goons vs. me, with me having the advantage. The single player story is as linear as it gets. Punch the button, open the door, kill the bad guys, repeat. We've all seen this formula before, but hey, Raven nailed the formula squarely on the head. You start off in a New York subway station (just like the demo) to rescue some hostages, but uncover this massive underground plot ran by this dishonorably discharged Colonel from S. Africa trafficking nuclear warheads. This looks like a job for... John Mullins!

    The way the game's played out, Raven should've saved the money they paid Mullins as a consultant and just created a character named John Rambo. Oh well. In single player, you travel all over the world trying to track down the bad guys. The periodic mission updates give you the story line, and all you (the player) are in charge of is to follow the ridiculously linear path the game sets up for you. Like for example, once my objectives was to capture some Iraqian general and grill him for answers. All I had to do was walk around opening doors and once I hit the motherlode, the cutscene would kick in and my job as a gamer was over. Just sit back and watch the story.

That's John Mullins.... We've all seen this action sequence a million times. Oil refinery blows up, hero barely escapes with explosion chasing his rear, etc...

    Actually, it's not that bad of an idea as it sounds. I kept playing for 3 or 4 days straight when I had time just to see how the story unfolds. It's basically like a B-rated action flick. The cutscenes are engine rendered, meaning there are no real actors or anything. You just lose control of your character and the camera pans out while the cutscene rolls on. The entire story spans nearly the whole globe. From New York to Iraq to Pakistan to Siberia to Japan... not in that particular order, but you get the point. Lots of locales to visit also kept me going in the game. As a sidenote, when I was in New York, I had a total deja vu of Kingpin by Xatrix (reviewed earlier on Rice World v2.0). Both use the Q2 engine, both have realistic weapons like shotguns and stuff... it was almost like SoF took a page out of their book.

    There are a variety of mostly realistic weapons, like the standard 9mm pistol, .44 magnum, 12 gauge shotgun, sub-uzi's, heavy machineguns, etc... They rock man. Even though I love Quake to death, sometimes I just get bored shooting fake, fantasy-ish plasma gun or lightning guns. Carrying the heavy machinegun just gives you such a feeling of manliness, I welcome enemies. A few shots is all it takes for this high velocity weapon to tear apart the body... and thanks to GHOUL, I mean that literally. It's not uncommon after a big firefight to see stumps and guts and gallons of blood all over the place. Of course, I stroll out of the vicinity unharmed. =)

Siberia. They're hiding a nuke in there. Time to kick ass and chew bubble gum.

    Another forte is their great level design. Not architechturally, but artistically. As I stated earlier, the game spans a crapload of locales. The artists at Raven did a magnificant job in portraying each one realistically and detailed. New York yielded dirty alleys and graffiti-loaded subway stations (Kingpin deja vu!). Siberia was dark and snowy. Germany's castle was exquisitly classic. Feels very Charlemange'ish. Quake 2 may be dead, but man, the engine in SoF is alive and kicking for its last hurrah. The only thing I found kind of annoying was the intensly low polygon counts of some objects in the game. Wheels on the armored vehicles look more like spinning rectangles. I guess that's attributed to the age of the engine itself, so I can't take any points off in my book for that.

Deep in the military heart of Iraq... Hey, is that Saddam?

    A few more things before I wrap this up: the sound effects are also very well done. I didn't notice them go above and beyond the call of duty, but they served their purpose fine. The weapons were the best part. Each weapon had its own effects. The shotgun had a decidedly powerful feel to it. The 9mm pistol felt like a pea shooter, but if you score a headshot, it's just as deadly. Of course, then there's the heavy machine gun. I can't let go of that baby. What a piece of hardware it is! Combine the power of the shotgun with the speed of an uzi, and this is what you get. The sound for the HMG was perfect. Once I caught myself peppering an enemy to the point where his corpse was bouncing around on the floor in reaction to the force of the gun.

    Speaking of enemies, they're not really smart here. The Unreal Tournament bots are far and away the smartest AI I've ever played in a computer shoot-'em up game, and I'm confident enough to say I've played 'em all. The SoF enemies are pretty retarded. Like once, I was standing at one end of the hall way, and they just sent a stream of them coming at me one at a time. I just mowed them down mechanically. Then another time, I was playing around, sneaking behind the two guards w/ my dagger. I hurled one right into the skull of one to the left, but the guard to the right never batted an eye. Weird. I then disposed of the 2nd guard without much trouble. SoF's AI motto here is apparently quantity over quality.

I just Planted a dagger in his face. Ouch.

    I dabbled a bit in multiplayer, but not extensively. I did play a lot back in the SoF demo days, though. If you've had experience with that, it's relatively the same. Just a few more levels, with the typical variations included like CTF or Assault, which reminded me a lot of Half-Life Counterstrike. The netcode is very well packaged, thanks to the Q2 engine. Not much lag in this baby. If you dig playing with realistic weaponary rather than typical plasma/rail gun type, then SoF is for you. Nothing beats pumping .44 lead into your opponent.

    All in all, the best part of Soldier of Fortune is the GHOUL character system and animations. It's boring as hell seeing enemies die the same over and over again. I had a ton of fun disengaging enemy limbs in creative ways, as well as placing a perfectly aimed sniper shot right between the eyes of an opposing sniper. You can bet there's gonna be controversy. This is easily the bloodiest game I've played, ever. If you put a shotgun to a guy's belly, you really see his intestines and guts spill out. Naaasty. Good thing Raven already thought of that ahead of time. You'll see plenty of warnings that it's gory. In addition, they also packaged a non-gore version for the conservatives in Singapore or Wal-Mart. The down point for SoF is the somewhat dated graphics and very linear gameplay.

Stay away kiddies. This is rated R for extreme violence.

    Bottom line? It's fun, if you're a fan of action movies. Chances are, you're already desensitized to violence anyway. Leave it on full gore. It's the best, and only way to play the game. Soldier of Fortune gets my recommendation. However, make sure your system is fairly beefy. Even at 640x480, my computer lagged a bit. Once you score your first head shot, you'll never turn back. Violence! Violence! *Clap in delight* (From WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF).

Final Grade: B+

The Scale is as follows:
A+: Cream of the crop. Revolutionary in every way. Game of the year.
A: Very top notch. I had a great experience. Must make my top 10 list to qualify as an A.
A-: Not too shabby. Entertaining and overall good. 90% of the population will enjoy it.
B+ to B-: Still above average. Recommend for people that enjoy the particular genre.
C+ to C-: Average stuff... weak recommendation on my part. Make your own decision.
D+ and below: Crap. Don't go for it, unless it's for a special occasion or something.