Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

The Good
The game has got very good graphics: The Animations of your enemies and the other characters in the game are very good, because of the Ghoul 2 System. The game is particularly too brutal for children. You can shoot off the head of your enemies, and the brain comes out of the stump. The level-design is raven-like, very good designed with perfect textures.

The Bad
A little bit too boring levels, but all in all its very cool.

The Bottom Line
Buy the game, and have fun! You´ll like it!

The Good
We've still got a few more months to go before the next generation of FPS games kick off in earnest. Unreal II, Doom III, and other games using next-generation technology on spanking-new video cards are poised to blow us all away (and our wallets along with us).

Soldier of Fortune II is from Raven, who use the Quake III engine and use it well. This game isn't going to stun anyone with it's graphical prowess, as the engine is over two years old, but it's still serviceable, even if it's nearing its limit.

Stealing the show is the old stalwart of SoF, GHOUL. GHOUL is basically an animation system that allows what they call "realistic" amputation and gore. That's right, little Johnny can shoot those naughty terrorists in the knee and watch them go down screaming and clutching a bloody stump. Columbine reactionaries, start your class-action lawsuits.

However, realistic is a relative term. As good as GHOUL is (the box advertises "36 dismemberment zones!" the way blenders advertise mix settings), the Quake III engine can only take it so far. Plus, while somewhat toned down from the first game, limbs still have a curious tendency to go flying after only two or three bullets. The violence is rather cartoonish in the amount of blood and decapitiation it relies on, and while it might be enough to carry the game for psychopaths who never get tired of spattering blood on the wall over and over again trying to form a pentagram, the rest of us will soon ignore it.

Fortunately, the game features some very, very nice weapons. They're almost all based off actual weapons, and they feel real. The sound effects are top-notch, and the orchestral, patriotic music is above and beyond the crap industrial-techno we've come to expect from our FPSs. Epic MegaGames, take notes!

Damage is quick and GHOUL allows for realistic modeling. Since you're wearing body armor, chest shots are extremely ineffective in this game. However, a shot to the head with ANY weapon is instantly fatal, and shooting off limbs is almost as quick.

The multiplayer is also extremely fun. Weapons are for the most part extremely balanced, and in addition to the standard DM, CTF, and elimination, SoF2 features "infiltration" a mode that plays like a combination of CTF and Unreal's Assault. One team holds a briefcase somewhere in the level, and must defend it from a set amount of time from the other team, who must grab it and return to their helicopter before time runs out. This mode emphasizes teamwork, and all of the maps are masterfully designed, emphasizing everything from point-blank running and gunning to tense sniper battles. Infiltration easily steals the show.

The Bad
The single-player campaign is, I'm sorry, a great disappointment. Incredibly linear, and suffering from a hackneyed terrorists-capture-bioweapons plot. And when I say linear, I mean linear. Several levels (such as Colombia) go so far as to keep you on a path in a small valley between two sets of mountains, where you have no choice but to creep along and try to dispatch the terrorists before they do you.

Raven also falls into the do-what's-popular trap of throwing in several "stealth" missions, where you are forced to sneak around with a knife and dispatch enemies silently. It feels like an afterthought, and, like most stealth afterthoughts, ends up becoming a tedium of restarts and frustration. If I wanted stealth and realism, I'd play Thief. Here it just doesn't come off right.

Scripting is lame as well. Several sections have you working with allies, and the game doesn't let you go too far ahead. So you're stuck going at a slow pace, waiting for scripted events to occur, and taking damage from far-ahead snipers because the door can't open until your "backup" arrives. Ugh.

There's no real motivation to ever fire up the single-player game at all.

The Bottom Line
SoF2 is the most fun I've ever had playing multiplayer since Unreal Tournament. Infiltration alone almost warrants the price. But since there's a free MP test available for download, the primitive single-player and gets-old-quick blood'n'guts make this a questionable buy. But if you've got several friends to play with, or you're really tired of UT, go ahead and buy this for the multiplayer.

The Good
The game's graphics are currently the best on PC. Charachters have moving eyes, separate teeth and lips, even all five fingers are separate, and you can see commando teams communicating with hands. The scenery is equally beautiful, with ultra-high resolution textures. Jungle foliage waves in the wind and your gun's chrome shines bright, like the gun had just come out of the factory.

The audio of the game is at least on par with the graphics. The weapon sounds have reasonable amounts of bass ( Get a subwoofer! Even if it is only for this game, it's worth it!). The other sound effects are also very well done. Even the voice acting is excellent. I can't tell if the russian and chinese lines of dialogue are authentic russian/chinese, but at least the german ones are real. Moody music completes the audiovisual perfectness of the game. The music reacts to the happenings of the game, alternating between slow, beautiful themes and faster, action-packed parts. The credits list only one man responsible for both music and sound, and that man should get a medal or something for his efforts.

Level design is superb. Althought the levels, as with almost all the other shooters, are just a path from point A to point B with stuff to shoot in between, they never really feel like that. The maps have a lot of variety and that actually makes them different. Unlike certain WW2-themed shooter, here fighting in an enemy-filled town is totally different and requires different weapons and tactics than fighting in a snowy, fog-filled forest. And a hostage situation on an airfield is a totally different story.

Also, unlike that same WW2-themed shooter, the enemies are "fair". Their AI is very good, one of the best in the FPS-genre. However, that doesn't make them demi-gods, but just more human-like. They make mistakes, like accidentally shoot their own soldiers, or make a grenade bounce back at them. A very refreshing change from robot-like enemies from most of the recent shooters.

And the human-like enemies also get wounded and die like humans. Head shots kill always, and close-range shotgun attack ends up doing bodies without body parts and body parts without bodies. Althought the gore is still present, it seems to be a little downtuned from the first part. Total dismemberment is now very rare, and the cutscenes contain only a few killings (As an info for those who haven't played the first game; in original SOF almost half of the enemies ended up being less than whole humans, and there was something like one or two cutscenes where someone didn't die). However, the gore is more realistic, and in some occasions, can be pretty disturbing - partly because the figures are so real looking. Of course, you can turn mature content off, making the game less violent.

The weapons of the game are well done, well balanced, realistic and real. You'll end up using all of the guns, and even the pistols are somewhat useful, which is pretty rare in modern games. The enemies use weapons that they might also use in the real life - Colombian guerrillas use AK-74's, while Hong Kong's criminals use UZI's. This also apply to the grenades - there are many frag grenades, stun grenades, smoke grenades, thermite grenades and 40mm grenades for your M203 launcher under the barrel of the M4 rifle. There are even rocket propelled grenades for the RPG-7 weapon system and smaller, 20mm grenades that come in a clip and are used with the ultra-modern, computer aided OICW multi-purpose weapon. The OICW is very exotic and rare weapon. I've seen it only in one other game - Ghost Recon. In that game, it was just another assault rifle, but here it is represented accurately as a assault rifle with computer assisted grenade launcher and sniper capacibilities. The aiming of grenades with the computer thingy is a bit tricky, and slow, but it is well tutored during the game.

The Bad
The only REAL cause of complaint are the stealth missions. Althought I like stealth games (Thief 2 is one of my favourite games), here the stealth factor is made very poorly. The enemies see you through darkness, fog, rain and foliage, and when they see you, the alarm rings. No matter if the enemy dies a microsecond after he sees you. To make things even worse, you cannot use any guns - not even the silenced ones - without the alarm ringing. So you are stuck with the knife. Fortunately there is only one mission where you absolutely MUST remain unseen, and only three other maps with optional stealth. Failing to be stealthy in those maps results in an endless swarm of enemies, though not nearly as annoying and unfair like Medal of Honor. Just an enemy or a group of enemies here and there. In fact, if the stealth factor had been implemented like that in Deus Ex (with separate alarm consoles) or Thief (wounded guards scream and alert others), I would have loved it. Now it adds only to the fustration.

Another cause of complaint is the length of the game. Althought they say it contains over 70 levels (didn't count, could be), levels are a lot shorter than those in the original. This is made up by rising the difficulty level a lot. When the game is set to the easiest level, it is about as easy/hard as the Medium of the original. But when thinking that you could easily complete the first half of the original game with only your knife, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Beginners could still have more fun with easier titles than this.

The game is also has some bugs, like crashes here and there and invisible walls around some enemies (amusing while throwing knives, annoying when using rifles and really dangerous when using grenades). The user interface also makes it impossible to save over your old savegames, and if you are not using quicksaves or limited saves, you can reach hundreds of saves. The game started to crash in the load game menu, when I had a little over 200 save files, but removing the older ones corrected the problem.

On the other hand, quick- and autosaves are implemented very well. The quicksave slots store up to five most recent saves, and autosaves are made in the start of the mission - and you have autosaves for ALL levels, not only the most recent one.

The Bottom Line
Despite the bad stealth factor and some bugs, it is pretty much the best shooter I have played.

If the bugs are corrected, this might well be the game of the year, and easily worth your money and time.