Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition

A lot of brutality - my childhood is here just the way I remembered it

Soldier of Fortune was a magazine infamous for, notably, running small ads for murderers-for-hire. Weirdly enough, it also spawned this absolute banger of a video game. In SoF, you play as John Mullins, a mustache-sporting mercenary tasked with retrieving nukes. Efforts were clearly put in the plot of this game, but in the end, its sole purpose is to justify sending you in different countries to kill tons of bad guys. SoF is not the most mentally taxing FPS game of its era: levels are linear, barely requiring any key or switch hunting. What matters is: they're full of hostiles for you to brutally murder. Knives! Hand cannons! Automatics! Shotguns! Sniper rifles! Rocket launchers! White phosphorous rounds! This game has them all, and they feel great to use, courtesy of a surprisingly advanced dismemberment system: each gun has its own way of ripping limbs off, often leaving poor, mutilated foes agonizing on the ground. If you can handle the sordid nature of it all, there's an undeniable sadistic pleasure to shoot, explode and burn your way through levels. The gunplay itself is rock-solid: it's fast-paced, mindless fun that rarely fails to get your blood pumping. It has its share of flaws though: I felt the hit detection to be a bit off at times, which is weird for a game that relies heavily on targeting body parts. The “medium” difficulty is a tad too easy, but anything above it is tad too tough. Plus, the difficulty can be inconsistent, since it often alternates between throwing harmless goons and hard-hitting enemies at you. Still, it's worth noting that the difficulty is very customizable – you can choose yourself how tough you like your foes, your number of saves per level, your weapon limit... A great idea! In short, SoF is a great game for when you just want to slaughter tons of bad guys in brutal, gory fashion. Despite its simple presentation, it's one of these shooter you can play over and over again, with the same level of enjoyment for each playthrough!

For run cod.exe file must be renamed as moha.exe

I remember loving this game, but oh nostalgia how you have betrayed me. On the list of 10 FPS games you should play before you die, this game doesn't cut it. Get stuck on scenery 20times per mission AI that kind of bugs out, it's so ugly you can't see the mission-critical switches. I mean, I appreciate it for what it did... advanced gore and good level design/weapons (for the time). But the ONLY things that hold up is the shooting and sound. Loved it then, but playing now was a chore. Play ONLY with nostalgia goggles on.

Don't get me wrong, this game is pretty repetitive and most of the enemies are hitscanners. But thankfully, it doesn't go on for too long and is not the most difficult shooter in the world. On medium difficulty, it took me just under 5 hours to finish it. If you're having trouble launching this game, make a copy of the SoF exe, rename it and then launch the game from that exe. For some odd reason, that works for me.