Soldier of Fortune: Payback

"Games Now are Rather Impressive, but Something has Been Lost over the Years"

This game has that. It took me to get to the third level to find it, but it's there. There's a certain element of pure fun that derives from it's simplicty. Compared to the recent AAA FPS games, this game fails miserably. However, I'd say it's much better than it's getting credit for, although I suppose you'd have to like a) the series and b) a shooter that DOESN't take itself so seriously and isn't trying to be the next Halo or Call of Duty to think so.

GRAPHICS and SOUND

The game has really surprisingly great graphics, much better than you'd expect actually. It employs nice bloom lighting and motion blur when reloading, which is a nice effect that creates a depth of field effect. The vegetation in the jungle levels looks very nice, especially with the good lighting and decent water effects. There are cave levels that look marvelous, with high resolution textures and some nice texture mapping (bump and normal employed it looks like). The game has good sound (weapons have definite kick although I only used about 4 different ones). In terms of compariosn to other 360 games, I'd say it's up there. Somewhere in between COD3 and COD4 I'd say. No nearly as good looking as COD4, but better than COD3.

STORY (lol) and GAMEPLAY

The story and cutscenes are lame, no question. It's completely throw away, nothing to see here here fans of any kind of quality narrative or dialogue.

The difficulty is just right, perhaps even a bit easy, although it definitely leans towards cheap at the end (I was playing on Hard though). The last 3 levels were hard, but only because suddenly there's be guys hiding in corners with rocket launchers or 1 hit kill shotguns. And one problem that plauged the wole game actually was the fact that checkpoints are spaced much farther apart than in other games. Let's say in COD or Halo, you know how often you get a checkpoint (one every like 2 minutes?), well, in this game, you'd have to go through maybe 4 of those to get one in this game.

The AI sucks, they will run by you without shooting, or they'll run across the whole level just to melee you. On the other hand, there are lots of enemies to make up for it, so you are always blasting away and the gore, while not on the level of SOF2, is really quite something. I laughed out loud many times. I love seeing arms and legs go flying and heads popping like grapes, (and yet often enough the guy is somehow still screaming ). The pacing is excellent, you basically GO GO GO. And it doesn't drag on long enough to get boring (perhaps 6 hours). It ends up playing out like a flashy shooting gallery, the enemies are so stupid, yet so plentiful that it makes up for it (but only if you're the type of gamer I am),

MULTIPLAYER

As for the multiplayer, the ranked matchmaking system appears to be broken, as it tends to put you in a room by yourself rather than match you up with people, although Live has been problematic the last few days, so to be fair, it could be that (I haven't been able to get a match in Rock Band for the last 2 days) and also there don't seem to be many people playing. When I have managed to get into matches (usually player matches) it has run almost lag free and been fun, although there are only 5 maps and they are fairly small (which I myself like but most people hate). The options are basic, usual modes, no leveling, or bonuses, or custom games at all.

TALKY PART

This is certainly no Halo, it feels like an N64 shooter with modern graphics. That of course will make most of you dismiss the game but I say that's a shame. Sometimes simple is best. I can't tell you how fun simple, cheesy games like Earth Defence Force can be. This game, while more serious than that one, is sort of on the same level. If you are more of an old school gamer who doesn't need every aspect of a game to meet the standards set by every AAA game out there, than this game is for you, but ONLY if you love single player and don't care too much about multiplayer since that will be abandined soon and only works once in a while it seems.

If this game was $20 it's be a STEAL. At full price it's a bit steep. It's definitely a good rental.

Recommended to people who like more basic, arcadey, old school type games.

If you liked Lost Planet and perhaps Earth Defence Force you may like this, as those harkened back to the simpler days.

Overall score: 6.8/10, rounded up to 7.0. If it had been $20, I'd have given it an 8. (Much better value, and better than most budget games).

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/08

Game Release: Soldier of Fortune: Payback (US, 11/13/07)