Review

Soldier of Fortune: Payback

If I said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. There are a lot of First Person Shooters being released this year. In order for a game to stand out in the crowd, you have to strive for more than just the usual “shooter” gameplay. Soldier of Fortune: Payback, developed by Cauldron, is one of the many FPS’s released this year. How does it hold up? Read on.

Well, I am sad to say that this installment of SOF wasn’t developed by Raven Software, the ones who started the series. For a fan of SOF, that was a red flag signaling that this might not turn out the way I hoped. But who am I to deny a new development team a go at the series? I mean it’s the third installment, meaning that Raven Software left a decent blue print for Cauldron to follow. And, in some aspects, they did take note of what works for SOF. I just feel that they used CliffsNotes instead of doing actual research.

You begin the game as a mercenary hired to escort a high-ranking official to safety in Al Qa’im. Before long you are double crossed, the official is killed, and…you could care less. Really, the story isn’t all that interesting. Poor dialog, and bad cut scenes hinder the plot, making it hard to really care what happens to this fictional world, especially since many of the characters that you are introduced to get killed off immediately. As soon some of the more “interesting” characters joined the battle, I was forced to put a bullet in their heads. It seems that the story was just added so you would have an excuse to shoot people. That’s it.

What makes you keep going is the fact that SOF: Payback is extremely violent, even more so than the first two games. I found it enthralling to be able to blow off the limbs of my adversaries. Nearly every weapon you will wield in this game has the ability to surgically remove appendages and the enemies will react differently depending on how they are injured. A guy who’s had his arm blown off will try to limp away before dying of blood loss. A guy that I stabbed with a knife using my melee attack, grabbed the spot were he was stabbed before I finished him off. Things like these make the combat “seem” more action packed than it really is. The viewer automatically gets excited because he/she feels that they are Rambo, running through waves and waves of enemies. After a couple of levels, however, you will realize that there isn’t much to the combat. First of all, the enemies, albeit being very aggressive, aren’t smart. The AI just loves to run out into the open and stand still while firing their guns. Only after taking a couple of rounds to the body do they try to hide behind something. What surprised me the most about the AI is that many of the soldiers, with loaded guns mind you, would run out from behind cover in order to hit me with their weapons. I don’t understand why a guy would try to melee attack me with a loaded rifle when I have a shotgun in my hands. This of course resulted in me puncturing their vital organs in the most barbaric of ways. I even saw a guy run past me, around a table, then back towards me to hit me with their LOADED weapon. Adding insult to injury, the soldiers would also gather around explosive objects for cover. I am not making this up. The game would be much more fun if the difficulty were based on smart, tactical AI opponents and not on how many people are thrown at you at a given moment.

Solider of Fortune: Payback controls the same as any other shooter out right now. The left and right Triggers are for aiming/dual wielding fire and primary fire respectively. The left analogue is for movement and clicking it in causes you to sprint. The right analogue is used for looking around and clicking it results in a knife (melee) attack. The X button reloads, B interacts, A jumps, and Y switches weapons. The left bumper is for secondary fire and the right one is for throwing grenades. There isn’t anything really new in this department (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). The graphic quality of SOF: Payback, however, ranges from passable to bad. The character designs are ok, but the environments are bland. The guns are nice but the explosions look weak. The blood sometimes looked real and other times looked like Kool-aid. There is this constant up and down in the quality that leaves SOF feeling unfinished. The sound quality is a little better than the graphics. The music sounded out of place at first but later redeemed it’s self. The guns sound as they should. The characters, however, I wish I could mute. They’re delivery is either made up of a bunch of one-liners and/or are basic; as if they grabbed people off the street and said “hay read this”.

Bottom line

There really isn’t any reason to buy SOF: Payback, even if you are a fan. With all the heavy hitters out right now, take the fact that this game didn’t really get noticed as a sign. Even the online multiplayer options don’t provide a reason to pick this title up. As it stands, Solider of Fortune: Payback feels like Call of Duty 4’s little cousin. Both published by Activision, they share similar facets. There is even a “last stand” feature like in COD4 were, after you’ve been mortally wounded in multiplayer, you can fire a couple of rounds from your pistol in an attempt to kill your attacker before you die. The problem is that SOF: Payback lacks polish and falls far behind the bigger titles already in stores.