Indeed :( That's an instabuy right there

You can fight as both the Alien and the Predator in MK X.

I think they are both okay, way better than Leatherface and Jason, but NONE of them can jump for shit.

Exploring the Mojave.
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It's only my second time playing the game, and now I get to play all the DLC, too. :) Somehow I'm enjoying it more than my first play-through years ago. *shrug* The writing quality is noticeably, substantially better in comparison to my recent run of part 4. Hell, 3's got better writing than 4. Anyway, time to snipe some more slavers. ;)

Our hero performs self-surgery after a lucky human scum got a shot at him. Then, to soothe his pain and anger, he summons the symbol of Quake (?) to restore his energy.

A little bit of dungeon crawling.

More dungeon crawling.

When Soldier of Fortune: Payback came to GOG, I remembered that I already had it. So, I reinstalled it.

The game has some issues though. I had to hex edit the profile.dat file to get it working in widescreen. Then I had to force vsync from nvidia settings to make aiming work correctly (otherwise you can't hit the broad side of a barn). Finally, I figured out how to remove the hud, because I can't not do that.

I finally got it working to a point where I could enjoy the game and actually complete it this time around. I never could finish it the first time I played it. The last 3 levels are still unfairly difficult though (one shot and you're dead, even on easy mode, not cool).

Is the game playable? Everywhere I look Payback has very unfavorable reviews. People are criticizing it for almost everything. I've never played it myself, but I like the previous SoF games. Does it include at least a comparable gore system?

I think it gets negative reviews for two reasons.
1. It feels more like a generic shooter than a Soldier of Fortune game. I like shooters in general though, so I'm fine with that. It feels slower than SOF 1, but faster than SOF 2. You often need to take cover, but it's not a cover based shooter. Just duck behind a wall so your health regenerates. I suggest only playing on Easy mode, unless you like dying.

2. It's got a few bugs and missing features that can ruin the experience unless you're willing to tinker with the game. I do that with most games anyway, so it didn't bother me.

So, it is playable if you're willing to tweak some things.

If you're considering it, keep in mind a few things:

1. There is no controller support. Keyboard and Mouse only
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2. You must enable Vsync in your graphics card options for sof3.exe. There's a weird glitch that ruins your aim if your framerate goes too high, but Vsync fixes that. There is no in game Vsync option. You have to do it from the graphics card configuration panel.
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3. There is no widescreen support in the menu options. You have to use a hex editor to make it work. First, you need to set all of your control and video options (brightness, etc). Then, you have to set your resolution to something with four by four numbers. The default is 640x480, which is only 3 by 3 digits (that's important because making edits with a hex editor requires not changing the size of any lines). If the resolution you want is written as four digits by four digits, you have to start with a resolution that is four digits by four digits before you can use the hex editor to enable widescreen. Or, if you want to use a resolution of something like 1280x720, then you first have to set the resolution in game to something with four by three digits.

Once you have all the options the way you want, you exit the game, go to your save folder, and use a hex editor (I use HxDen) and open the profile.dat file. You should be able to see text that shows the current resolution. Just type the new resolution you want over the old one. Again, there needs to be the same number of digits in the old and new resolutions or it won't work. Then save the file and the game will now be widescreen. If you change any menu options after that, you'll need to do that all again.
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4. There are 14 levels. I liked the first 11. On the last 3 levels the difficulty ramps up to obnoxious levels (one or two shots and you're dead). I played through those levels by popping in and out of cover most of the time and using the grenade launcher and a heavy machine gun to even have a chance against the enemies.
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5. There is no quick save or manual save option. It's auto save only.
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6. On a positive note, once you beat a level you can go back and replay it at any time. Sometimes, it's better to exit your game and restart a level with the mission select option because then you can choose a better weapon load out\.

As far as gore goes, There is dismemberment. You can shoot off peoples arms, legs, and heads. It seems similar to SOF 1 to me just without the animations of guys hopping up and down on one leg. Once you shoot off a guys leg in SOF 3, he's dead. They can still survive a little while without one of their arms though. I'm not sure how it compares to SOF 2. Something was wrong with my version of that game. It never had gore for me.

Thanks for the detailed description. I don't know if I'm a huge enough fan of the FPS genre to give it a try. I like this type of games, but I mostly stick to the high rated ones. Too bad there's no quick save. It's a major issue considering the difficulty of the final levels. Maybe I'll get it when it's on some bigger sale.

As for SOF2, maybe you had a censored version of the game? Or the gore features were turned off in the options menu? Anyway the game has its age, but not many titles can beat the system they implemented in it.

Riddick tries his luck on some gambling, but it doesn't pay off.

How is the save system in that game? I assume it's the GOG version, right?

Yes, it's the GOG version. By default, the game offers only checkpoints. However, you can activate a quicksave/quickload option by using the game's console.
https://www.gog.com/forum/chronicles_of_riddick_the/quick_save/post5

That's what the original version had. Do you personally need it?