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A GORE-FEST THAT DOES NOT PAY TO BE BACK

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 40 / 41
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The original SOF was a surprise sleeper-hit, developed by RAVEN, who also designed the SOF2: DOUBLE HELIX. They both were EXCELLENT FPS games!!

Unfortunately (as it turned out) the RAVEN group had nothing to do with this release. It was developed by CAULDRON who, I guess eager to please, overshot its mark.
Now, I enjoy a good blood-bath as the next guy - and the SOF series had always been gory and graphic. Who can forget the...crotch-shots reaction in the original SOF! (there was actually a..count of them after each stage, right after the head-shots!). Playing SOF-PAYBACK, however, never had I seen more limps get torn away, more blood-spaying torsos flanged back, more heads exploding like geysers . It surely deserves the M-Rating it got. The squeamish should not worry though, one can turn all this gore off - but why then play this game?

Graphically SOF-PAYBACK is nowhere close the latest major releases. Only the torn limps make good use of the engine's physics. Urban settings look like movie-studio lots; jungles feel like made out of plastic. In CRYSIS when trees get shot at enough they, well, fall. In SOF: PAYBACK they keep accumulating bullet-holes forever.

AI? What AI? It feels artificial and it sure is NOT intelligent. Your enemies do everything but line up in front of your sights. Currently there are many FPS games with good to excellent AI. This make SOF-PAYBACK shortcomings in this area show even more: total absence of defensive tactics, unnatural reactions and absolutely no use of their environment. Likely, there is a multiplayer to save the day.

The single player includes 15 levels and 40 weapons , all of which are customizable (with sights, ammo, silencers etc). The weapons look real but they are not - just close enough not to have to pay royalties. Hence their different names.
These 15 levels should take no more than 7-8 hours to polish off, so yes, on top of everything, this is a short game. Definetely not worth the $40.

Overall, this is a game that is not shy of depicting the immediate consequences of violence (that got it the 3rd star) but fails in almost everything else.

My Advice: wait for the rebates. Should be half-price by Christmas.

NON SEQUITUR:
This got released as it is - but THE WITCHER got censored for...language and some fleeing nudity?

Horrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Let me first say I am a huge fan of the Soldier of Fortune franchise. However this third installment is absolutely atrocious! The developer definitely dropped the ball. The game play is horrible, limited controls, you can't adjust the visual settings other than the resolution, and sounds are the worst I've heard in a game. For example, if an enemy is shooting at you 10 feet away there is no sound, you can't tell if you're being shot at by an enemy or listening to the background noise which is repetitive and loud! The only way you know you're getting shot at is by the screen flashing! There is no GHOUL; you can easily dismember your opponent with a BB gun or take an enemy's arm of by blowing on it hard enough if you want. Forget about an interesting storyline this is easily a competitor for worst game of the year. Multiplayer is nothing like SOF 2 its soo bad I won't even comment because it makes me nauseous! In short I have nothing good to say about this game... 30mins after I loaded it up I wanted my money back. If you feel like blowing $40 bucks on a game that will bore you to tears before you even finish the 1st level go for it, but if you're smart wait till this game hits the $5 valusoft rack where it belongs and pick up something worthwhile like CoD 4 or Crysis.

VERY Disapointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: November 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to say that I am very disappointed with this game. I really enjoyed the first two Soldier of Fortune games but this game did not live up to the franchise.

My first complaint, this game is broken out of the box! Yes, some of the updates help (at least I have sound now) but it lacks the polish of even mediocre FPS.

Second, the aiming in the game is terrible. You can be 30feet away with a M249 machine gun empty 100 rounds with the sight on the enemy and not hit him once!! It is extremely frustrating!

Third, even the dismemberment which Soldier of Fortune is known for, is surprisingly lame. It is hard to describe, whether it is too much blood (making it look like a cartoon) or the poor physics implementation, it just doesn't work for me.

Fourth, the options menu is pathetic! The game is extremely limited on customizable video, sounds, playability options and the options that are available and poorly done (why do I have to scroll through 30 resolutions and refresh rates to pick the one I want... what is this 1998??)

Overall, I just cannot recommend this game to all but the must fervent SoF fans and even then wait until this game is about 10 bucks.. you will thank me..

Give it a miss

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was excited to see a new installment of the SOF series was being released...but sadly, this is not what I was hoping for.

As the other reviews have already mentioned, this is a budget release in everything but price ($40 is waaaay too high for a budget game!). The gameplay is very different to SOF and SOF2, and fans of the previous two games are highly likely to be disappointed by the poor quality of this third installment. The enemy AI is non-existent, and the game as a whole is very boring and repetitive. This probably would have been a good game if it had of been released 10 years ago...but against todays games it just doesn't stand up.

Also, if you have Windows Vista then you will need to get the 1.1 patch for this game (yes, there is a patch already). I found the game to be completely unplayable on Vista without the patch (super super slow, and crackly sound).

Tactical? No. Revolutionary? No. Old-School-Run-Around-Blow-People-Away? Yes!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge fan of Soldier of Fortune 2. I have never played a game so long and had so much fun. Soldier of Fortune 2 became even more amazing as time went on because the online community really made it their own. There are an infinite amount of mods, maps, skins, and settings that people created which allowed Soldier of Fortune 2 to evolve far beyond its initial offerings.

Fast forward 4 or 5 or wow I don't know how many years I've been playing SOF2, but fast forward to now and we have Soldier of Fortune Payback. The expectations couldn't be higher. There is a devote SOF2 following which have eschewed the Halo's, the Call of Duty's, the high-octane, story-filled, first-person-shooters that have taken gaming to an entire new level. Sure, I've played all of the new titles, in fact, I love Call of Duty 4!! Yet I still find myself going to the SOF2 online gaming community that I love. The graphics are outdated, the realism is, well, it isn't; it's an old game and I love it!! And I love it for the same reasons I love the new Soldier of Fortune.

So why do I like Payback? Call it nostalgia, call it simple, call it whatever you want, it takes fps' back to where they started; running around blowing people up!! No storyline of substance, no tactically adept AI; just overly powerful weapons that rip enemies to pieces. Blood squirting, limbs flying through the air, halved assassins crawling in agony on the ground (ok hopefully this review doesn't put me on the terror watch list), but you know what I'm saying?!!! It's the punching bag of fps'!!! You have a bad day at work, or traffic is driving you crazy, or you just need a little stress relief, SOF Payback is perfect. Sometimes I just want to come home and let a little steam off. Sure a game like Call of Duty 4 is challenging, the graphics are amazing, the interface is spectacular, but I don't always feel like being pwned by a smack-talking 13 year old every 5 seconds while I'm trying to hold my breath in order to snipe good (Zoolander). Sometimes I just want to point my gun at something and blow it up.

So why only 4 stars? Well, Payback does have a few annoying things. One thing that really bugs me is that you can't lean around corners!! Common, if they built Payback around the same engine as SOF2 they had to purposely take that ability out. The other thing that bugs me is the way the game is saved. You can't quick save at any point during the game. You have to reach checkpoints, which is cool, but at least give me the option of a quick save. In single player, I'd also love to be able to carry an infinite amount of weapons. If the game isn't going for super-realism, why can't I carry an arsenal instead of a measly 3 at a time? Finally, which isn't the fault of the game, the online play is just not there!! There are only like 5-6 servers running online play and half of them you can't even log on to. When you do get on though, it's pretty fun :)

My hope for Payback is that it becomes what SOF2 became, but the modding community has to be behind it. Payback lays the foundation for some amazing possibilities. As is, it's a fun game that I'll definitely keep playing. It's not a COD4 replacement, it's more of a niche game that remains fun in its simplicity.

Will you like this game? It depends.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: December 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I had a lot of fun with this game. And frankly, I don't understand all the hate being generated at it. I've played the first two games in the series, and this doesn't seem to be much different, and in fact, is much better in the graphics department. The graphics and set-pieces are just stunning. Also, the dismemberment engine seems to work just fine, depending upon your weapon choice. I paid full release price for this game, and was not disappointed. Apparently, the biggest mistake the publisher made was in using the SOF license with this game, thus making angry a ton of loyal SOF fans. Although, as I said, I can't understand why, seeing as that the Single-player aspect plays very similar to the first two games. Maybe it's the multiplayer that's making everybody mad. I can't say, as I don't do multiplayer. All I can say is that I really enjoyed the single-player part.

There are some problems, but none that lessened my enjoyment. For instance, the levels are linear. Not as linear as the first two games though. The first two were extremely on rails. This one has opened things up quite a bit more in areas, although there are a lot of places I would have enjoyed exploring more. You can actually do some needless exploration in the cave system area, though never enough to get yourself lost. The enemy AI is nothing to get excited about either, but it gets the job done as long as you're not looking for too much realism. Gameplay-wise, I enjoy moving ahead, stopping, blasting a few baddies away, sniping a bunch more from far away, and moving on again. Enemies do spawn, which normally bothers me (in games like COD4 for instance), but here, they do not repawn endlessly, so eventually you'll be able to clear them out.

My favorite weapon to use in any single-player FPS has always been the sniper rifle. And here is where the game really shines. At the outset of every mission (consisting of a few levels each), you can choose your primary and secondary weapons. I always choose an assault rifle equipped with a scope (and silencer if you choose) for a primary, and a dedicated sniper rifle for secondary. There's a bit of tension in choosing this setup. Your primary scoped weapon will normally come with 200 to 300 rounds, and that's it. You won't find any more ammo for your weapons lying around the levels. When you run out of that ammo, you'll have to trade that weapon for an enemy weapon for the remainder of that mission. Ammo for the lesser enemy weapons is plentiful, though ammo for that weapon is exclusive to that weapon. So it's very important to make every shot count if you want to keep a primary weapon scoped. Conservation is important. However, I normally run out of my own ammo after a single level, and end up with an enemy weapon for the remainder of the mission, and that's fun too. I still had my secondary dedicated sniper rifle with 50 rounds for those emergency sniping situations. I just had to adjust to having no scope on the primary. I plan on replaying this game, this time trying to make it through with my original weapons.

As I mentioned earlier, the graphics are amazing. True, there are no advanced settings to adjust these graphics much, but it looks amazing the way it is. I'm playing it at 1440 x 900 on an Athlon64 3700+ with 2 gigs of ram and a geForce 7900GS/256, and I'm averaging 25 to 30 frames per second. My monitoring software shows only 50% of my ram is being used, so you should be good to go with one gig. I'm also using WinXp w/ SP2, so that may help too.

Continuing with the graphics, the set-pieces are incredible. Each level has a different setting and look, and are very memorable. Thus, I would have liked to explore more. Again, in this area, this game far surpasses its predecessors.

To sum up, each to his own. Gameplay-wise this game plays more like a budget shooter, while looking like a triple-A title. It's a little simplistic, but sometimes that's all I'm looking for. Did the job for me.

HUGE Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is an unfortunate blemish on what is a great series. The dismemberment killings are poorly done and make the enemies seem like mannequins. In previous Soldier of Fortune games the enemies would scream in pain as they slowly died from blood loss after having a leg shot off. In this one enemies simply fall to the ground, it's like fighting lifeless robots. The weapons are bland and boring with nothing you haven't played in a million other FPS games and the sound and music isn't even worth mentioning.

From what I've read Raven, who did the first two SOF games, had nothing to do with this one and it shows. Multiplayer was just terrible and it makes me angry to think about it. This was easily one of the worst games I've played in a long time and is 100% the worst SOF game in the series. I just can't recommend it all. The only positive thing I can think of is that the graphics are very nicely done......but that's pretty much it and it's not enough to make up for how poor the overall presentation of the game is.

I like this game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 26
Date: November 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is not as bad as other reviewers have said it is. It's a budget shooter and it may be just a tad bit over priced right now. I'm sure it doesn't satisfy as a third installment in the Soldier Of Fortune series and most all of the negative reviews come from people who loved the first two SOF games and were expecting something along the same lines for the third version.

But, I like this game. It's fun and the graphics are really good. The only graphic options you get in the pc version are the resolution and things like mouse sensitivity. But, that's really all you need. This game runs smooth and with the 1.11 patch seems very, very stable. The gameplay is addictive. I can't stop playing everytime I start. You get to choose any weapon from the start of each mission and it's fun to replay each mission too.

I'm glad I didn't listen to the other reviews from people who are fans of the Soldier of Fortune series. I have really enjoyed this game.

Underrated

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun to play, sure it has a few bugs but as far as fun factor, its just that Fun. I would reccommend to anyone, it has pretty good graphics. There is a few downsides tho, like no chat button is a pretty big one. O well i like it and there is allways someone online to play with. Dont let the bad reviews fool you, this game is fun bottom line!

A poor tribute to the SoF series

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is not like the original Soldier of Fortune games. Lame checkpoint save system that doesn't work correctly all of the time (i.e., you'll see multiple "save game" textual pop-ups, but if you die, you restart at the beginning of the level in my experience). Ridiculously unrealistic boss fights where 200+ rounds need to be dealt to a single man who isn't wearing body armor in order to "kill" him. A drastically toned down body dismemberment system (contrary to the advertising about this game being true to previous games in the way you can shoot parts of the enemy body off, while you "can" shoot pieces off, this isn't anywhere near as graphic as the previous SoF games were). Irritating Doom 3-style enemy spawns in areas you've already cleared (i.e., on one level, you'll shoot a sniper out of a tower and as you advance over a bridge another sniper magically appears in the tower in his exact place and starts head shooting you...)

The level environments are very linear with little or no reward for attempting to explore out of the way areas and machine gun placements are poor and nearly unusable in their turn radius (i.e., in one part of a level, I grabbed a stationary machine gun hoping to mow down droves of enemies in a mindless one way fire fight and the tangos spawned so far to the left that the gun couldn't turn to actually shoot them...I had to unequip the mounted MG and switch to a scope-equipped weapon to take them down before they killed me).

A poor tribute to the SoF series is this and not worth more than $10.00 bargin bin price at that (IMHO).

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