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Buy Delta Force Or Ghost Recon Instead

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: March 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Last Year After I was tired of dominating the Delta Force Series, I decided to try out SOF2. The first thing that disappointed me was that although the cover of the package plainly shows a guy holding an H&K MP5, but the game doesn't even have this weapon! Next is the online gameplay, It plain sucks. There are very little number of game servers to choose from (unless you download the upgrade patch, then you will be about to play on many more servers). The upgrade patch is a pain in the a** to download, Activision & Ravensoftware refers you to 1 of 10 download mirror sites to get the patch from. Most of these, however, want to charge you money to download the upgrade! Then, after downloading it (the patch is almost 50mb, so even with DSL it takes a while) I couldn't figure out how to install the patch. I doesn't come with any instructions. When I tried installing it (I was guessing at how to do this) I must have done something wrong, because the game wouldn't run at all.
This game has okay action, but the levels are too linear, and are very small in space, the bad guys are too hard to kill. I would give it 2 stars if it weren't for the patch issue, but I think it was the biggest waste of $39.99 + tax that I ever spent. My suggestion: Buy all 6 of the Delta Force series from Novalogic they have easy upgrades, great single player action, and kick a** online fun.

Excellent Concept with Mediocre Results

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The original Soldier of Fortune game was groundbreaking in the way it rendered damage and the essence of its gameplay. It is one of the top ten most controversial games of all times (PC Gamer Dec 03) and rightly so because of that very concept of damage rendering. SoF-II builds upon that game with the GHOUL II system in which there are numerous hit zones and each of them inflicts a realistic amount of damage upon both the player and the opponent. Some critics will lambast the game because it might take several hits to take out an enemy but if you shoot a person in reality with an M-16 or similar small-arms and they're wearing a kevlar vest it would take numerous hits to get them to stop moving. Yet a single shot to the face in this game will take out all enemies.

The graphics are also unbelievable as the world textures create a vivid panorama and backdrop for the action and it allows for the camoflauged enemies to actually blend in with the realistic cover in the jungle scenes and for shadows to give away enemies indoors. The sounds that accompany the game also help to create a world enriched with vibrancy that is lacking in many games on the market today (that is if you have a quality soundcard and set of speakers).

The problems come with the actual gameplay itself in which the enemy AI can lob a grenade and hit your balls every time even if they're behind a wall throwing blind. It seems that without fail, if I'm crouching down the grenades will roll between my legs and blow John Mullins' family jewels into the wall behind him. Even on the normally dubbed "sissy mode" (for those hardcore FPS players that think 'easy' mode is for old people and kids) the AI poses a serious challenge (yet not impossible) to even the experienced player in the genre. For those new to the genre this game will be almost impossible to beat and might detract from the overall fun of the game. In a similar vein is the near-impossible Train Station level. It's the only level in which absolute stealth is required and it seems that I've found a bug in one of my saved games. Every single time I load the level from where I saved (after dropping off the Scientist in the train) I'm spotted by the guards and the alarm sounds. It takes 3-4 seconds, regardless of what I do, and I'm completely inside the train with nobody around me. That bug aside, one of the steps in the mission requires you to open a set of double doors and take out two guards who are walking around. The only way to actually know where the guards are is to 'listen' to their footsteps and for those that are hard of hearing or without adequate speakers it would go from fun and skill to dumb luck as to whether you opened the doors with both guards' backs turned.

The game is based upon a solid concept and if the bugs were worked out it would be an astonishing game (still nowhere near the level of the soon-to-be-released Call of Duty) but because of it's faults it can't warrant more than 3 stars.

Note: If I were a n00b to the FPS genre I'd surely rate this a 0 because I'd not likely be able to get past the first mission.

Not Bad, but not amazing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game seems to mix the arcade world of FPS with a tactical simulator and at times, it seems they do a good job. But as others have said, sometimes the lack of attention to detail can really make it seem like an arcade game with no realism at all. Like: The M203 does not shoot far at all, pretty weak. No firing from the prone positoin? Pathetic. Bullet balistics...not very good. Also, the handguns have a very low rate of fire, no double taps in this game. Bang!........Bang! What, does Mr. Mullins have joint pain? Bummer. Makes using the handguns pretty pathetic, especially since the knock down power of the SOCOM .45 is not what it should be. I don't care where you get hit with a .45. You would go DOWN. The way to compensate for this slow rate of fire is to use the cheats and use a .45 (or .50) in each hand. Yeah, Resevoir Dogs was sweet, but I don't think I'd see a Green Beret trying to clear rooms with a gun in each hand. There are mods to create more realisic damage. Also, the hype about all the realistic damage is all centered around the gore content, not on the people reacting realisticly to their wounds. And the screams? Not very scary. I think they could have asked a few people who did actually kill people and listened to they scream, and ask them if SOF does a good rendition. I'm sure they would have said no. It sounds comic, which adds a whole element of cheese to the game. AI is fair, some will always complain about bad AI, but in this game it is not that bad, not amazing, but not terrible. I've seen far worse. The Delta Force games come to mind. Also, just like the arcade first person shooters, there is really no playing with large maps where you can use tactics that keep changing. It is just pretty much, walk, shoot. The weapon depiction is ok, nothing too incredible, but entertaining, except the handguns, as I said before. Weapons balistics are pretty weak too, no bullet drop, everything pretty much shoots the same, not like Operation Flashpoint (which is what you should get if you are really looking for a realistic combat simulator).

Some complain about the graphics being poor, and perhaps I'm old fashioned or something, but they seem pretty amazing to me. Especially if you have a computer with a fast graphics card and something over a pentium III 733, you should be dialed in for the high end of this game. I played it on a 1.8 gig, and it was awesome. Where this game shines is in all out battles indoors, where the action is fierce and I don't get annoyed that I can't run through the woods with reckless abandon. Try that in this game when outside and you just run into little barriers that corral you back to where the game wants you to go.

Fighting in a drug dealer's pad with a shotgun, silenced (actually probably more like suppressed, since if you are trying not to alert the bad guys and you fire it off, they hear you and alarms go off...even in the pouring rain on the deck of a ship with no one around) MP5 is damn cool, the rounds impacting wood, glass, brass going everywhere...not bad. And of course, it is to their credit that when you shoot people, they blead and there is gore. They are trying to depict the act of taking human life after all. Perhaps when they really get it down, players will realize that taking life is a horrible thing and nothing to idealize.

Oh yeah. The story. Pathetically stupid. Some like it, but they probably read Tom Clancy and think that is authentic too.

the most awesome, yet graphic game ever

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My opinion on this game is that it is GREAT!!! this is simply because it combines a good story line with heart pounding action and well lots of blood and gore. which video games are all about

Don't under any circumstances by the Gold version of this:

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: March 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First off, I'll admit I have not completed the game. There may be awesome levels later that redeem the following ..., but I'm not impressed with the beginning. Second off, save the 10 bucks, and buy the regular version of this game. You can download a free patch from Activision's website that will give you all of the "content" added in the Gold edition.

First impressions: it's not any gorier than the first one. Yes, there are more damage zones, but it's pretty much the same as SOF 1. It was pretty damned shocking back then, but not so much now. Second, the blood pools are sprites. One edge of them always has a light gleam, and when you move around, it doesn't. Lame. Second, walking through the puddles should leave footprints. They could do it with Duke3D, they can do it now. My point: don't buy this game for the gore. They even used some of the same sound samples for screams as the first game. Get the first one, jack up the settings, and you'll experience the same gore. The character models are nice, but there need to be more of them. After the second level, I got tired of killing the same person over and over. It's all about little things guys. When a door opens in a cutscene, it shouldn't be raining on one side, and dry on the other. Stop making hexagonal wheels on cars. It looks lame. Window glass in cars should be breakable. Come on fellas, you're leaving out little things that should have been caught in playtesting. Half-Life is way older than this game, but it payed attention to the little details. When you pistol-whip a single pane of glass in a multi-pane window, they should not all instantaneously switch to the "broken-glass texture." Wait until this is in the bargain bins, then pick it up. Or shell out 10 bucks for the first one, and max the settings.

Crispy Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was almost going to give this game five stars because it was really good. duh
First, let's get a few things straight. The guns in the game are sweet. In first person shooter games I think that most people would agree that the gun design is important. Well these guns are serious as in Serious Sam.
The gore is extreme, and I am going to leave that up for you to decide wheter that is bad or good. You can turn it off or tone it done though. The models in the game are very good and very fun to shoot because of their juicyness. And I think that the graphics are very nice on most of the levels. Some people thought that the story was confusing, but I thought that it was very interesting.
The bad things about this game would be the bugs, and the times where they don't tell you what to do next in the level. Overall, I think that it is a good buy. Also, the demo doesn't do the full game justice.

Go medieval !

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

SOF2 is a great game. You'll get to fire the M60 machine gun, as a door gunner on a Huey, and from the back of a moving truck at attacking Czech helos. You'll get to fire a full-auto 12 gauge comat shotgun and shoot the legs out from under Spetnaz ski troopers! You'll get to wield the fearsome M16A2M203 similar to the one Tony Montana has in the film Scarface. You'll find yourself oft quoting "Say hello to my little friend" as you waste another of the drug lord's innumerable henchmen! Youll' be issued the fantastic prototype OICW=Objective Individual Combat Weapon, which boasts '500 percent increase in probability of incapacitation'.

Unlike games like DEUS EX, there's not much reward in going stealthily about, taking down the baddies non-lethally. Except for one misiion where you're required to bonk a couple of sentries on the noggin, most of the game is spent in full-on Rambo mode. The insructions say, "Don't kill civilians". But you never see many innocents. In one level if you don't grease the unarmed biowar scientists they'll pick up guns off the deck and shoot you at the first opportunity. I say, "Waste 'em all let God sort 'em out!'' ....

Great game but could use a little polish

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: July 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is very good game but the graphics engine is a little iffy with shawdows getting stuck inside of people sometimes. The grapchis are great however, you just have to crank them up (I heard some people complain that this game is ugly, not the case if you can just learn how to up your graphic settings. There are a great deal of fun weapons in this game as well as varied levels, although some of them are a tad annoying (one mission if you wonder too far from your squad you get shot from your team) The gore in this game does add a level of specialness with a geomod engine for bodies basically.
Suggested for any fps fan.

good game but buggy as well

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Blood and gore is good but I found lots of bugs in the game. In the train station you can jump toward their back or just jump and they cant even hear you, stealth is not required for this game because the developer gave up with the stealth probably, picking up the body is stupid and useless. the prone is useless as well cuz the enemy can see through the tall thick grass. The effect sounds are crap except the voices in the game and the weapon color looks different than the real weapon, that is why you'll see a lot of mods or modifications for sof2. Too make this game better I replace most of the sounds and weapon skins. Lots of people are playing multiplayer, I'll recomend you to get this game for multiplayer. I would have given this game a higher score if it had fix many problems in the game. SUPPORT ACTIVISION AND RAVEN AND BUY THIS GAME NOW!!!

Disapointment and Fullfillment, all at once

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

SOF2 is what soldier of fortune 1 SHOULD have been. All the unrealistic sci fi weapons are gone. Gone is the stupid Comic-book villain wanna be bad guys. And finally we have a selection of REAL weapons to choose from, complete with selective fire, alternate fire modes, and some other nice touches.

SOF 2 definatley improves on the first. Based on the quake 3 engine, the graphics are pretty good, though not always great (by modern standards). There is an abundance of bland textures and less that perfect character models. Over all though, the graphics are pretty good, though in some places the detail is definatley lacking.

The infamous GHOUL engine form the first game, which allows for dismemberment and all sorts of gruesome graphical effects is back and much improved. Bullets holes and even throwing knives will now show up anywhere on a model where it is shot (the first game only had pre ploted points on models so you might shoot someone somewhere and have the bullet hole show up 2 inches left of there - but no more). The gore is more detailed and grittier than ever. More precise damage effects are obvious - shoot someone in the face and you can blow of thier jaw, or rip part of thier skull off. Really nasty stuff. Occasionaly a grenade will leave behind a dark real pool of sausage meat looking stuff that actually gave me shivers. But somethings are missing here... there are no more intestines hanging from the belly like in the first, which I thought was the nastiest effect in the game. There is also no graphic deption of brains either. Though what was done is surely disturbing enough. You'll want to keep this one away from the kiddies.

The weapons are fairly accurately modeled - much better than the first, but there isnt enough of them. Nothing like in Counter Strike or other games. Nor are there any varients of the main weapons, and the ad ons like laser sights are VERY few. The guns dont feel very different either. The game is still an action game and I suppose it plays the roll well - though more attention to realism here would have been good.

Gameplay goes from great, to disapointing. The story tries to use some "half life" tricks, but it ultimatley fails. And many of the missions and levels are pretty poor. The character AI is also pretty sad, and not believable - also the gameplay is completely linear. The environments arent very interactive, and the game feels old by the time you're half way through it. Online multiplayer is good, but not great... I still prefer counterstrike.

The random mission generator is a GREAT addition - atleast on paper. In practice it creats bland, unintriguing missions and maps, and creates the same ones over and over. THere is no real pressence of urban combat or interesting environments. and in general I feel disapointed.

The game is fun, and a VAST improvement over the first, but gameplay needs tweaking and the developers should both focus on detail and realism (this game needs polishing) as well as get a little more creative.

No doubt though, many SOF fans will be MORE than pleased with this game as it fixes the most obvious faliures of the first.

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