Customer Reviews

Soldier of Fortune II: Gold Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

SOF2 is what soldier of fortune 1 SHOULD have been. All the unrealistic sci fi weapons are gone. Gone is the stupid Comic-book villain wanna be bad guys. And finally we have a selection of REAL weapons to choose from, complete with selective fire, alternate fire modes, and some other nice touches.

SOF 2 definatley improves on the first. Based on the quake 3 engine, the graphics are pretty good, though not always great (by modern standards). There is an abundance of bland textures and less that perfect character models. Over all though, the graphics are pretty good, though in some places the detail is definatley lacking.

The infamous GHOUL engine form the first game, which allows for dismemberment and all sorts of gruesome graphical effects is back and much improved. Bullets holes and even throwing knives will now show up anywhere on a model where it is shot (the first game only had pre ploted points on models so you might shoot someone somewhere and have the bullet hole show up 2 inches left of there - but no more). The gore is more detailed and grittier than ever. More precise damage effects are obvious - shoot someone in the face and you can blow of thier jaw, or rip part of thier skull off. Really nasty stuff. Occasionaly a grenade will leave behind a dark real pool of sausage meat looking stuff that actually gave me shivers. But somethings are missing here... there are no more intestines hanging from the belly like in the first, which I thought was the nastiest effect in the game. There is also no graphic deption of brains either. Though what was done is surely disturbing enough. You'll want to keep this one away from the kiddies.

The weapons are fairly accurately modeled - much better than the first, but there isnt enough of them. Nothing like in Counter Strike or other games. Nor are there any varients of the main weapons, and the ad ons like laser sights are VERY few. The guns dont feel very different either. The game is still an action game and I suppose it plays the roll well - though more attention to realism here would have been good.

Gameplay goes from great, to disapointing. The story tries to use some "half life" tricks, but it ultimatley fails. And many of the missions and levels are pretty poor. The character AI is also pretty sad, and not believable - also the gameplay is completely linear. The environments arent very interactive, and the game feels old by the time you're half way through it. Online multiplayer is good, but not great... I still prefer counterstrike.

The random mission generator is a GREAT addition - atleast on paper. In practice it creats bland, unintriguing missions and maps, and creates the same ones over and over. THere is no real pressence of urban combat or interesting environments. and in general I feel disapointed.

The game is fun, and a VAST improvement over the first, but gameplay needs tweaking and the developers should both focus on detail and realism (this game needs polishing) as well as get a little more creative.

No doubt though, many SOF fans will be MORE than pleased with this game as it fixes the most obvious faliures of the first.

Yea, this game is gorey. Once you kill (many different ways to kill him/her) a terrorist, you can basically, at your leisure, just shoot the crap out these enemies. Once the limbs are eliminated, you will begin to see their lungs--no lie. It's that gorey. But it is great fun to watch!

Just like Soldier of Fortune 1, you will explore levels situated from dense Vietnamese jungles to a remote ship out on the Atlantic Ocean, from the Airport Terminal to Japanese urban streets. From mantions to massive mantions. Lots of variety. Also, for each level where you combat outdoors, it's either raining/snowing or just plain clear. In the beginning of one level where you enter the large virus-producing (discuss later) lab., it's like 50 degrees below zero, and terrorists aren't expecting you.

I love the music in this game. When on the main menu, you're greeted with orchestrated music, that sounds very suspenceful but critical music. You'll know what I mean when you hear it. Also, each level has slow-paced and fast-paced music. Each pace changes when the mood changes--what I mean is: fast, suspenceful music when you're in danger, and vice versa. I love the mantion level music, probably the best orchestrated music--kind of sounds like Medal of Honor, WWII type music.

Weapons range from a sidearm to the UZI, to an AK47, to an ultra-powerful shotgun. Grenades are awesome. Choose from either phosphorus (eye-blinding), stun (loud/bright) or flame (destroys objects and flames up stuff)grenades---and then you have your regular explosive grenades--NOT that the others DON'T explode also--they do explode.

The story is about John Mullins trying get face to face to Promethius and his connections with the illegally-operated labs that are producing a fatal virus that will kill everyone, which you will notice after the Vietnam level, where you're in a small city with sick people regurgitating.

Taylor, a partner of John Mullins, and Sam, John's advisor, are in the game. However, later in the game, after the ship in the ocean, when you fly back to the "the Shop" or headquarters in outskirts of NYC for a mission breifing, the 2-storey building partially explodes because of an "inside job". There's a fire, and must rescue Sam and bring him to the awaiting ambulance. I liked that part.

I have a GeForce FX 5200, 768 MB RAM while playing SOF2, and there are instances of slow-down, but not drastic but somewhat noticeable. However, that only occurs if there are many objects and buildings in the background, of course. You can also adjust the graphics settings to make it faster.

There are many reasons why you should get Soldier of Fortune 2. Excellent, driven plot; realistic graphics like eye-candy; sounds great on my computer; gameplay is excellent with unlimited gorey scenes; there are also great scenes of destruction, too.

Jeff

First off, I'll admit I have not completed the game. There may be awesome levels later that redeem the following ..., but I'm not impressed with the beginning. Second off, save the 10 bucks, and buy the regular version of this game. You can download a free patch from Activision's website that will give you all of the "content" added in the Gold edition.

First impressions: it's not any gorier than the first one. Yes, there are more damage zones, but it's pretty much the same as SOF 1. It was pretty damned shocking back then, but not so much now. Second, the blood pools are sprites. One edge of them always has a light gleam, and when you move around, it doesn't. Lame. Second, walking through the puddles should leave footprints. They could do it with Duke3D, they can do it now. My point: don't buy this game for the gore. They even used some of the same sound samples for screams as the first game. Get the first one, jack up the settings, and you'll experience the same gore. The character models are nice, but there need to be more of them. After the second level, I got tired of killing the same person over and over. It's all about little things guys. When a door opens in a cutscene, it shouldn't be raining on one side, and dry on the other. Stop making hexagonal wheels on cars. It looks lame. Window glass in cars should be breakable. Come on fellas, you're leaving out little things that should have been caught in playtesting. Half-Life is way older than this game, but it payed attention to the little details. When you pistol-whip a single pane of glass in a multi-pane window, they should not all instantaneously switch to the "broken-glass texture." Wait until this is in the bargain bins, then pick it up. Or shell out 10 bucks for the first one, and max the settings.

I was almost going to give this game five stars because it was really good. duh
First, let's get a few things straight. The guns in the game are sweet. In first person shooter games I think that most people would agree that the gun design is important. Well these guns are serious as in Serious Sam.
The gore is extreme, and I am going to leave that up for you to decide wheter that is bad or good. You can turn it off or tone it done though. The models in the game are very good and very fun to shoot because of their juicyness. And I think that the graphics are very nice on most of the levels. Some people thought that the story was confusing, but I thought that it was very interesting.
The bad things about this game would be the bugs, and the times where they don't tell you what to do next in the level. Overall, I think that it is a good buy. Also, the demo doesn't do the full game justice.

In comparison, this game is like Jedi Knight 2. The singleplayer is a fun and interesting expierience. The main characters are incredibly alike, and the graphics are alike. The multiplayer consists off pushing guys over and doing backslashes in jedi knight 2. That was a fault in jedi knight 2 that led alot of people to different games. This game has a problem with multiplayer as well. Namely... the people. There are so many little kids that believe themselves kings of the online gaming world that it is pathetic. The multiplayer brings nothing new to the table except when you play the outdoor maps. Namely the large ones with weeds and houses. Those are the best maps as you can hide in a house and guys are hiding all over the place. There are people hiding in the grass sometimes ambushing you or people in buildings waiting behind doors. Other than that, most of the levels get boring. Most of them.

The single player is truly an expierience. Jedi Knight 2's was fun, but this game has a great thing going with the GHOUL II engine. You basically dismember your opponents. Sometimes it's fun, others it can be a little gruesome. Namely guys falling over holding their arm sockets. On one hand though, it does make the game feel real, and fun. I The single player also has stealth. It's okay. There are some problems with steath that make it kinda boring.

The weapons are pretty cool too. The shotgun is fun, but what's cooler is customizing your pistol with laser sight and silencers. Now, the light attatchment would be cool if the editors made the light a little less bright. You can basically illuminate the land for a mile and have no enemy realize your existence. There's also some nice nades that are fun to use.

The singleplayer portion is the reason to buy this game. Multiplayer is rather dull and feels meaningless most of the time. That's why there's counter-strike. If you are expecting anything really new about multiplayer.... It is too easy. I haven't played multiplayer in a year or two. I logged on a big sniper server yesterday and was 58 17. It was almost laughable at how veterans of cs will excel in Solider of Fortune 2. If you haven't played cs than SOF2 is a fun multiplayer expieirience I would say.

There are also some bugs in the game. You may shoot a guy and bullets will go through. This is extremely rare and sometimes happens when he is running. There are also other things you'll see that don't crash the game, but they certainly tell you alot about SOF2's testing team. In one part a prisoner is holding an uzi, then he kills the guard and picks the uzi up again. It looks really stupid because the testers should of caught that.

Anyways, this game is a solid investment. If you enjoy the ability to fully dismember your foes then get this game.

Oh man. This is sweet. even after playing quake 4 and the F.E.A.R. demo, this is really a game i can truly enjoy. one of the biggest pluses to the game is simple yet important. you shoot somebody, and they have a bullet wound. its not like youre just shooting people, and youre kinda wondering, well is this guy dying or not? no, this time you can pull out your shotgun and blow the limbs off people one by one and hear them scream, or slice an enemys face right down to the grayish brain. this is a very realistic game, a few problems which take away from the realism, such as the fact that you can carry a ridiculous amount of weapons, and the one thing that REALLY bugs in me in the game is the fact that the blood isnt done too bad (try getting one of the blood mods for extra real blood tho) but after you kill an enemy, the blood will just ooze from the body in a way that is oh so similar to the grand theft auto series. and whats more the blood doesnt look like the blood that squirts out when u shoot their juicy bodies, it just looks horrible. just a big mistake made in the game. the weapons are nicely chosen, an assortment of different handguns, grenades, and powerful machineguns. even the combat knife can prove to be quite useful. there is a lack of "stealth" weapons though, which didnt make much sense since stealth is supposed to be a large part of gameplay, theres even a meter on how much noise youre making. the story is involving and very good, nothing more can be asked for however sometimes during the missions your objectives just arent made very clear. if you miss a soldiers orders u can be confused for quite a while... but not a problem to the game. the multiplayer is well, just all you would expect from multiplayer action. definetly not bad, i still recommend ut2004 or quake though. havent tried counterstrike but apparantly thats the best, sounds pretty fun from what my friends have told me, i plan to get it sometime. well thats just about enough for this game, i hope a sof3 is released, perhaps with the nextgen graphics of doom3, that would be plain sweet...

i got in the habbit of staying up all night playing this. The gore is excellent, the violence is off the hook, the multiplayer looks like alot of fun even though i haven`t tried it yet. dont realy have any complaints about this one except the graphics.

This game is probably the best in my library of PC games. Single player is fun, but I think the game is all about multiplayer. There are many maps, and you can get new maps from the internet; there are many game types including capture the flag, and classic deathmatch. This game is very fun - if you liked CounterStrike or any other game in its class, you will surely love SoF. There is a large variety of weapons, including grenades and the famous AK74. Overall, if you love FPS's, buy this game. And when will Soldier of Fortune 3 come out?

The original Soldier of Fortune game was groundbreaking in the way it rendered damage and the essence of its gameplay. It is one of the top ten most controversial games of all times (PC Gamer Dec 03) and rightly so because of that very concept of damage rendering. SoF-II builds upon that game with the GHOUL II system in which there are numerous hit zones and each of them inflicts a realistic amount of damage upon both the player and the opponent. Some critics will lambast the game because it might take several hits to take out an enemy but if you shoot a person in reality with an M-16 or similar small-arms and they're wearing a kevlar vest it would take numerous hits to get them to stop moving. Yet a single shot to the face in this game will take out all enemies.

The graphics are also unbelievable as the world textures create a vivid panorama and backdrop for the action and it allows for the camoflauged enemies to actually blend in with the realistic cover in the jungle scenes and for shadows to give away enemies indoors. The sounds that accompany the game also help to create a world enriched with vibrancy that is lacking in many games on the market today (that is if you have a quality soundcard and set of speakers).

The problems come with the actual gameplay itself in which the enemy AI can lob a grenade and hit your balls every time even if they're behind a wall throwing blind. It seems that without fail, if I'm crouching down the grenades will roll between my legs and blow John Mullins' family jewels into the wall behind him. Even on the normally dubbed "sissy mode" (for those hardcore FPS players that think 'easy' mode is for old people and kids) the AI poses a serious challenge (yet not impossible) to even the experienced player in the genre. For those new to the genre this game will be almost impossible to beat and might detract from the overall fun of the game. In a similar vein is the near-impossible Train Station level. It's the only level in which absolute stealth is required and it seems that I've found a bug in one of my saved games. Every single time I load the level from where I saved (after dropping off the Scientist in the train) I'm spotted by the guards and the alarm sounds. It takes 3-4 seconds, regardless of what I do, and I'm completely inside the train with nobody around me. That bug aside, one of the steps in the mission requires you to open a set of double doors and take out two guards who are walking around. The only way to actually know where the guards are is to 'listen' to their footsteps and for those that are hard of hearing or without adequate speakers it would go from fun and skill to dumb luck as to whether you opened the doors with both guards' backs turned.

The game is based upon a solid concept and if the bugs were worked out it would be an astonishing game (still nowhere near the level of the soon-to-be-released Call of Duty) but because of it's faults it can't warrant more than 3 stars.

Note: If I were a n00b to the FPS genre I'd surely rate this a 0 because I'd not likely be able to get past the first mission.

SOF2 is a great game. You'll get to fire the M60 machine gun, as a door gunner on a Huey, and from the back of a moving truck at attacking Czech helos. You'll get to fire a full-auto 12 gauge comat shotgun and shoot the legs out from under Spetnaz ski troopers! You'll get to wield the fearsome M16A2M203 similar to the one Tony Montana has in the film Scarface. You'll find yourself oft quoting "Say hello to my little friend" as you waste another of the drug lord's innumerable henchmen! Youll' be issued the fantastic prototype OICW=Objective Individual Combat Weapon, which boasts '500 percent increase in probability of incapacitation'.

Unlike games like DEUS EX, there's not much reward in going stealthily about, taking down the baddies non-lethally. Except for one misiion where you're required to bonk a couple of sentries on the noggin, most of the game is spent in full-on Rambo mode. The insructions say, "Don't kill civilians". But you never see many innocents. In one level if you don't grease the unarmed biowar scientists they'll pick up guns off the deck and shoot you at the first opportunity. I say, "Waste 'em all let God sort 'em out!'' ....