Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

The Good
We've been spoiled by the number of top notch war shooters in recent months. With titles like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Medal of Honour it's a pretty hard time to complain. The only things that really were left out for me was that I like my war shooters a little more modern and I want to see some damage being done! MOH was fantastic but when someone gets a point blank shot to the head they aren't going to just fall over without a scratch. The whole effect just makes me feel once again like I'm sitting in front of a computer. SOF2 addresses both of these points and keeps everything else at a high enough standard to stand tall alongside all the MOH's and RTCW's in the world. Basically an evolution of the overrated original SOF, SOF2 provides better everything. The graphics smack you in the face they look so good so high end Geforce owners are in for a real treat with this one. Jungles actually have foliage at last, character models are detailed with more explicit deaths and the damage models are more finely tuned than any I've ever witnessed in a video game. Gunfire will actually blast people backward with appropriate force and jets of blood pump out with dismembered limbs. Needless to say that this game is not for kids but parents or the squemish should note that a violence lock can be applied that allows for the fine tuning of any aspects of the gore or disturbing images in the game so you can make it very tame if you'd like. Weaponry is realistically depicted with even the aim going out if you hold the trigger for too long in the automatic firearms. Loads of great scripted sequences in the gameplay have been introduced such as clearing out a jungle village alongside a team of marines who work with you and a very cool escape along a winding road manning the mounted gun on the back of a truck. Thanks to a good balance of realism and good old fashioned action hero style gameplay the missions in the game are (mostly, more on that in a minute,) loads of fun to play. The difficulty level can be scaled to your liking in a custom difficulty mode too. Sound is also great with gunfire, screams and explosions being the main flavour peppered with the clank of footsteps and conversation, all of a high calibre and music is very nicely orchestrated, giving a perfect action movie feel.

The Bad
At times SOF2 can really push the frustration level a bit too far. Some stages are plain stupid such as the sneaking stages. An alarm can be set off the very second an enemy even hears you and I mean the very SECOND. Even if the enemy hears you stick a knife in the back of his head the alarm goes off before the slicing action is even complete which is just plain stupid. It feels a lot like the sneaking element of the game wasn't even finished. Sometimes the enemy see you a little too quickly. An example of this would be in a stage in the snow where seeing anything more than about 10 feet away is impossible. Suddenly someone with a mounted M-60 starts blasting away at you even though there's no way they'd be able to see you yet since they are over 20 feet away. There is also the annoying tendency of enemies to know exactly where you are just because they are on alert even though they haven't actually seen you yet.

The Bottom Line
A top-notch war fps that comes highly recommended but with some minor reservations. Not for the squemish.

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.

The Good
Max Payne eat your socks off! This is definitely the best shooter around!

The game excels in all round levels: graphical, sound, atmospherical, special FX, gameplay, strategy and tactics, innovative levels and situations, enemy AI (which gets to be predictive later - they wait for you and throw stun grenades before attacking), variety of weapons!

I really dunno where to begin talking about the greatness of this game. Here lies a true masterpiece in every aspect, in-depth detailed to the max. Not only this game is a good shooter, it has a tremendous atmosphere which sucks in the player, making him believe the virtuality of the moment as a true experience. No matter if you're in Prague where the game begins, the jungles of Peru, the snowlands of Russia, the steel and rust scented sea cargo freighter, or the mysterious Hong Kong, the programmers have captured the uniqueness of every environment in detail and manage to bring you the virtual equivalent.

Gameplay-wise we are talking about one of the most brutal and gore lusted shooters you've ever seen. A really lethal arsenal thirsty to turn enemy terrorists bodies to strainers is at your disposal. Good strategic points are included as well, where you're needed to sneak in, kill some terrorists in silence before the real mayhem outbreaks.

The Enemies AI is very good too. They have developed quite some tactics here, instead of heading for attack when they spot you, the enemies hide and throw grenades at you (stun or normal) hoping to render you blind for some vital seconds in order to attack.

The variety of missions and locations is truly enormous given the 2 CD space. Innovation comes to the point where there's a chopper flight level where you mount a M61 machine gun and blast away all ground units and structures!

The Bad
2 things that put me off (minorily) with the game are: The game needs top end equipment to really show what it can do. You gotta have some piece of machinery if you want to have your jaw dropped. And if this not enough for you here comes the worse part:

John Mullins (the main game character - you) himself!!! The guy is one of the worse characters ever to appear in a game of this style. Man! He looks like a damn farmer, or even worse a grocery store salesman. Things get worse when you hear him talking!!!! It's the kind of voice you'd expect to say "Uhhh that'll be 2 dollars for your cabbages ma'am!"!!! Simply I couldn't help myself from laughing when I saw the video cut scenes and listen to him talking. Especially there are parts where he plays it as a tough cowboy and this only made me laughing my eyes out...

...or maybe this is a plus!

The Bottom Line
If you're not convinced yet about the supremacy of that game from what I said (and the other guys too) then I'll tell you one last thing: Even if you don't like shooters this is the shooter that will make you like'em! Go and buy a copy now! (20 out of 10)!

Errrrr... done it! How about that payment check now mr.Activision???