The third Soldier of Fortune
game was developed by Cauldron, instead of Raven
Software who did the previous two. The original
2000 game was great; a purely fun action-packed
shooter. The sequel in 2002 was still a good
game, though not quite as good as the first.
So why hand the game over to Cauldron? Well
the surprise sleeper Chaser from 2003 was a
good, long game developed by Cauldron using
their own engine. This same engine is used in
Payback, a game released four years after Chaser,
so they must have made some hefty upgrades to
the engine.
Ironically, that's the only
redeeming factor for Payback - the fact that
the game doesn't look too bad. The engine has
all the usual bells and whistles you'd expect
to 'pretty' it up. Of course, what game post-2007
doesn't at least have decent looking graphics.
There's actually only 14 levels in this game,
most of which aren't even big. You could probably
rush through the entire game in a couple hours.
For me it would have been about five hours game
time, which is very poor. However each level
is a new setting, from jungle and cliff settings,
farming villages, middle eastern outposts, even
a hotel brothel before finishing in an awfully
designed car parking garage and nightclub. Some
levels look poor, but others are fairly well
polished. In particular the outdoor jungle levels.
Unfortunately, the game doesn't hold a bean
to Crysis, released the same month. Their outdoor
capabilities and size, level of detail and realism
are not even comparable. Payback doesn't look
bad at all, but it's only average for 2007.
And that's the highlight. The
low point of Payback is just about everything
else. Poor checkpoints with no quicksave, jumpy
controls and unrealistic movement, especially
when firing weapons. Inconsistent difficulty
where often you'll breeze through a level, only
for some enemy to suddenly take a potshot from
out of nowhere and drop you instantly without
any chance of survival. There were a few times
when I had to take on the same enemy several
times over because he'd blow my head off within
a micro-second of eye contact.
The boss fights, which are
all too common, are simply the same enemy you
face throughout the entire game just with insane
amounts of health added on. The standard fare
enemy are all the same, just with a different
weapon and model. They unrealistically drop
dead with a mere fraction of bullet spray in
their general direction. Their heads pop like
balloons and limbs just fall over the floor.
There's no sense of power or enjoyment when
your weakest gun unrealistically mows through
an opponent like that. Blowing off limbs used
to be fun, back Payback has lost that somehow.
Then you get the sniper scope weapons which
only hit enemies 50% of the time. The rest the
bullet just vanishes and misses it's target,
despite pointing clearly at the enemies eyeball.
The biggest problem with Payback
was the insane bug where enemies are invisible
to bullets. Yes, the bullets just go straight
through them as if they're not there. This happens
with probably 15% of the enemies in this game...
by the time you realise it's another invincible
enemy you're dead and replaying from the last
checkpoint. This time in god mode or you have
no chance of moving forward. It quite often
happens with enemies that are on higher ground
to you. But it's a ridiculous bug that ruins
the already bad gameplay.
Overall okay visuals for 2007
but the levels are small, extremely linear with
clipping all around you. The screenshots make
the game look better than it actually is. Then
again, it's hard to judge any games' visuals
as that great after you play Crysis.
The gameplay is easy for most
of the game until you get hit by a pot shot,
but the invincible enemies bug ruins this one.
Not really worth the playtime or money, but
at least it doesn't go for too long.
