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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Disapointment and Fullfillment, all at once, November 29, 2003
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.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Lengthy and Awe-Inspiring Action Game!, October 24, 2004
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
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
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Don't under any circumstances by the Gold version of this:, March 13, 2003
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.
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