Soldier of Fortune was not
really a game I have been eagerly awaiting as
much as others such as Daikatana. I had seen
screenshots of it, and the level design didn't
look very spectacular. Good, but not great.
Nevertheless, I decided to download the demo
to see what it was like, and after about a week
of trying to get the nearly 100mb file I was
finally able to check it out.
As soon as the game started I was impressed.
There was a short cinematic sequence - nothing
spectacular, just enough to set the story. It
reminded me of Kingpin, except it was far superior!
Then the game started and I was quite surprised
about how it looked. It wasn't all that bad
at all.
The first level of the demo
you play inside a subway - not the most original
idea, but good nonetheless. And even better
when you actually start wandering around the
lonely and misty subway tracks. At the end of
the level there is a big fight on the tracks
with you surrounded by enemies which you can
hardly even see due to the fog. It may sound
very frustrating, but I made quick work of it
and it was a very fun end to the level.
The second level took place
on a train! I was instantly reminded of a recent
train assault mission from Unreal Tournament.
I like the SOF one better as there is also a
nasty helicopter to watch out for as it tries
to blast you away.
Both levels have objectives,
which is nice to see after Half-Life lacked
them. The first level you need to find a gang
leader... which of course escapes near the end.
The other is a James Bond type mission - some
nukes have been stolen and you have to get on
the terrorist train and destroy them before
the enemies can use them against you. Obviously
the whole game is going to be full of missions
like this, which could make it very interesting
for the custom map scene as mappers think up
unique missions, and hopefully not your usual
Quake2 'shut the place down and get out!'.
The enemies, while not all
that unique, were fun too kill. But obviously
this game is supposed to be realistic, so all
your enemies are humans (at least in the demo).
However, there are some other things Raven have
done with gameplay to set it apart from other
FPS' and keep it successful. There are a number
of difficulty settings, one of which is custom!
You can set how many saves per level you are
allowed, spawning of ammunition (I assume) and
enemy toughness.
I played on medium and found that it was in
fact medium! Unlike many games recently which
have been too hard such as the Wheel of Time,
it is good to see that Raven have not screwed
up the difficulty like many companies do.
You can kill your enemies many different ways.
A shot to the waist or legs often won't kill
them. But a clean headshot will drop them to
the ground. And a headshot with the shotgun
at extremely close range was awesome! You could
see as the body dropped that there was either
no head left of part of it had been blown off.
But don't worry, there are settings to turn
the gore down if heads being blown apart upset
you.
Overall I really enjoyed the
Soldier of Fortune demo and can't wait for the
full game now. Maybe the design isn't as spectacular
as in games like Unreal and Wheel of Time, but
it looked good enough and the gameplay was great
so it may just be a winner!
