John Mullins would not be pleased. Neither would Raven Software, I’d imagine.
Soldier of Fortune:Payback has almost nothing to do with the previous games, and the entire list is as follows.
- The Shop is still your outfitter.
- You’re a mercenary.
- There’s a system for enemy dismemberment.
I suppose we could count “It’s an FPS” as number four, but it’s not a good one, as much as I’d hoped it would be.
Graphically, Payback is pretty average. No nasty texture seams, nothing blurry or obviously low-poly. But nothing ever stands out, particularly very flat, artificial feeling buildings and enemies that never feel real. Lots of slowdown, for some reason, plagued the game, despite the fact it should be optimized fully for the console. Some texture pop-in is present as well, which annoys but is ignored by those of us who loved Mass Effect so much. The gore is over the top, and too much so even given the series roots. Previously extreme damage would remove limbs or decimate them, and that was certainly fun. However, now one low caliber pistol round blows an entire arm off, and it’s clear the game can’t decide if it wants to be tactical or arcadey anymore in looks or gameplay.
Stay in cover too long, and enemies will charge you. Step into the open, get blasted by an RPG. It’s hard to make the right move without already knowing where enemies are, and that’s not to mention the way they tend to spawn behind you, and how bad the AI is. Silently spawning behind you, they’ll walk up and melee you often. The rare times they flank you, they still don’t shoot, they run up and melee. It seems the only time they ever shoot is from your front, or above you on a rooftop. That is, when they shoot instead of just charging ahead and beyond you. Yeah, that happens too.
The game never really becomes intense, just annoying sometimes. Manning a machine gun is almost suicidal, enemies seem to have pinpoint aim when you’re on one, and good luck getting a hit on them. They seem to take less damage from .50 cal round than a Beretta to the hand. Fortunately it’s easy to let go and duck behind cover to regenerate health, but it shouldn’t be such an effort to mow down enemies in a game that’s all about blasting people into teeny bits.
The audio at least was good enough. Weapons do sound good, and the explosions are pleasing to the ears(even though grenades do fuck all against most enemies). The voices all come across clearly, and the acting is fine. Sadly, the audio just can’t carry the game’s lack of entertainment value.
Lots of weapons that you’ll barely get to use, lots of mods you’ll never use for them, and a lot of slogging about defines Soldier of Fortune:Payback. It’s a long way from the creeping around subway tunnels of the original, or even the hazmat assaults of the second. The multiplayer has dropped out severely and the GHOUL engine is looking pretty poor these days. It’s gone from intricate details like slicing off someone’s earlobe with a good shot to a head or arm blowing off with any damage in that general area.
Soldier of Fortune:Payback gets 2 out of 5 canes. It’s not an awful game, but it’s certainly not good, and the novelty wears out fast, even as short as the single player campaign is.
