Posted on: April 2, 2024

QUAKETALLICA

Games: 211 Reviews: 14

Highly Underrated B-Movie Game

Soldier of Fortune: Payback has an unearned notoriety as one of the "worst games of all time," but this is far from true. What is more accurate is to say, is it's probably the buggiest game of all time, when you first get it, anyway. When shooting enemies, bullets go right through them and the crosshairs don't even register that you're aim is dead on. Ragdolls are hilarious, with enemies flying like rockets. However, all this is just compatibility issues, that are easily fixed by a quick moddb download of the 1.1 patch, followed by setting compatibility mode to Windows 98. This worked for me. Another solution for others was to force V-Sync from Control Panel (but that didn't work for me). Once the technical issue is gone, the game is everything I wanted and expected it to be. It's pretty much the same as any other "Soldier of Fortune" title, which if you are unaware is a sort of B-movie type game that takes the industry standard shooter of the day, and decides to add ridiculous levels of gore and dismemberment to it. The first SoF ran in Quake II engine and looked like Half-Life, with linear levels that you just run through, feel like an action movie badass, and enjoy near-Brutal Doom levels of gore. (Actually not quite that extreme. More like Mortal Kombat blood with Jedi Outcast's Dismemberment with the cheat code on.) SoF: Payback is no different, except it's got updated mid/late 00s graphics. In a nutshell, this game is like CoD 4 with awesome levels of gore. There's not much more to it than that, and there doesn't need to be. Is it some groundbreaking title? Of course not, nor does it need to be. Not everything has to be a Half-Life. The story is like the iconic John Carmack quote--it's like story in a porn movie. It's there, but just in the background. Not that important. It's welcome, but not meant to be taken too seriously. This is a game that is very easy to get into, turn your brain off, enjoy a few missions, and then you're done.

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Posted on: October 3, 2018

JarekESC261

Verified owner

Games: Reviews: 2

Not even fun for a few minutes

I remember having alot of fun with the demo as a kid. So i was kinda excited when i saw this game on GOG.. After playing it for a minute the excitement was competely gone and i wonder why i was liking the demo so much back in the day. When you start the very first mission, two enemy's come into the area. You can shoot right through them.. I had to use an entire magazine on the first one before he dissapeared into the air, the second one was only killable when i stopped aiming down the sights. I tried to change the resoultion to see if it was maybe a resolution issue, but i guess it was just the game after all. If i had a timemachine i would go back in time to ask the kid version of myself what's so good about it.

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Posted on: October 4, 2018

judge-cronos

Verified owner

Games: 184 Reviews: 1

what the hell happened

they went from making 2 amazing games with soldier of fortune 1+2 and then this is the third game did anyone even test this steaming pile of garbage the hitboxes are almost non existent and almost every weapon other than the assualt rifle is worthless the ghoul engine used in the other games feel under used in the first game bullet wounds appeared on bodies the goddamn first game what happened there is no way anyone tested this

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Posted on: March 7, 2023

BadSpot2Respawn

Games: 775 Reviews: 10

Avoid this insult to a great franchise

Typically I try to collect every title in a franchise, this one however I'm avoiding for life. I remember playing this many years ago, it is as others have stated one of the worst fps gams of all time. Do not waste your money on this, maybe someday it'll be free, but even then I'd avoid it.

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Posted on: January 29, 2025

Tobbe755

Verified owner

Games: 12 Reviews: 2

Unplayable...

I used to play this game with my friend when I was younger, and despite all its flaws, I had an absolute blast. It was like playing through a cheesy B-action movie—far from perfect, but still a fun experience. Now, I can’t even get it to run. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times since purchasing it, but it won’t load at all. I’ve followed troubleshooting steps from forums on several occasions, yet nothing has worked. At this point, the game is completely unplayable. Please fix this.

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