Hot on the heals of a Activision classic in Call of Duty 4, comes another war related title, called Soldier of Fortune: Payback. Now not many people may have heard of this one, after all it hasn’t been given much in the way of publicity, but then usually when this is the case there is a good reason.
Payback sees you take the role of a mercenary who has been double-crossed, this story unfolds pretty early in the game and to be honest it doesn’t change much after that and that’s really about as deep as the story gets. While the story may not be all that, it’s the action that counts and for certain moments at least, Soldier of Fortune: Payback can be quite fun.
The main talking point of the game is the gore, everywhere you look there will be arms, legs and every other body part you can mention being blown off with bullets, not to mention the gallons of blood that drain from your enemies as you take them down.
Unfortunately that is where the fun ends with this game and this is mainly due to the poop enemy AI, sometimes they will just run at you, not even firing their gun, which means that all you need to do is take a swipe at them with your knife, sending them to the floor in a heap.
The levels themselves are pretty easy to get through, overall the game should take you about 5-7 hours to complete, although at least on your way through the levels you will have plenty of weapons to play with thanks to the twenty odd varieties on offer. Weapons vary from Shotguns, Machine Guns and Assault Rifles to the heavier types such as Grenade Launchers which allow you the opportunity to blow your enemies into a thousand pieces. Some of the weapons you find are very powerful indeed and will send your enemies flying through the air. The main problem with the weapons is that you will have to change them quite frequently because you will find yourself running out of ammo a lot.
Visually Payback isn’t too disappointing, sure it’s no Call of Duty 4, but it does have some redeeming features, the explosions for example did manage to make me jump a few times, and once they go off the area affected will continue to be ablaze, blocking your path and causing you to find an alternative route. As previously mentioned there is also a lot of gore, which looks very gruesome, the effects in this respect are quite detailed.
The online mode over Xbox Live offers all the usual games which you will have come to expect, deathmatch and capture the flag both make an appearance along with all the other usual suspects, the problem with the multiplayer however is that it doesn’t do things better than any other game on the market and this ultimately is it’s downfall.
The most exciting thing about Soldier of Fortune is it’s gore, other than that it is a standard FPS which never really stands out amongst the many others in the gaming market, if you are desperate to play a war game with limbs flying everywhere then sure, this is for you, but otherwise keep playing Call of Duty 4 because that’s where it’s at.
