Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition

Soldier of Fortune is one the final games in the "attitude era" of FPS games where the action is just as bombastic as its comic book-style storyline. The singleplayer campaign takes you on a globe-trotting adventure from urban New York to Siberian military bases to Iraqi towns and have you fight enemy soldiers with weapons that range from the usual SMGs and Rocket Launchers to fictional weaponry like a Slugthrower. The enemy factions you'll face consist of thugs in New York to European terrorists and the Iraqi army among others, but they all function the same in that they mostly use the same weapons you do which are mostly hitscan. You'll be joined by allies such as the NYPD from time to time but they're expendable. The game is just challenging enough to keep you on your toes but not easy enough that you can just rush through it. It's hard to avoid damage because of hitscan enemies but the game provides just enough armor and health to let you push through if you can slide in and out of cover fast enough while dispatching enemies. The GHOUL system allows you to dismember enemies and see them scream for their missing limbs, although only a few weapons such as the shotgun can trigger the dismemberment system. However, the fun does not end once you beat the story mode. Soldier of Fortune in its Platinum Edition contains multiplayer bots that are just competent enough for you to have fun in its multiplayer modes if you are alone and friendless. Games with great singleplayer and multiplayer modes that features bots don't come easy these days, so Soldier of Fortune gets a full 5 stars for being such a complete package of fun.

I was 16 back in those days and it was a time where I refused to play the game, because it was way too realistic. Fast forward a year and I wouldn't stop playing this game for months! It is on of those titles which makes you wonder what just happened to Activision as a publisher of great military/shooting themed games into what behemoth it is todays. You can also find alot of concepts and topics which got later reused in Call of Duty 4+. You are John Mullins, a mercenary for "The Shop" which operates world wide. Over the course of the game in which you are hunting down some stolen abombs you come behind a secret society planing for world domination. And of course you move out to save the day (and redeem a personal score to settle ...)! The game is great and even by todays standards a well looking game with a - for its time - revolutionary gore system which devides the body into 26 gore zones and calculates what happens with the body in regard of what weapon (aka velocity) is used by the player. This also brings up "funny" scenes, where you can disarm a punk with an aimed shot into his hand or stop an assaulting Somali with a well placed shot into his nuts with your trustworthy pump action shotgun (which also makes you gringe in your seat seeing his pain ...). The game knows how to impress - even story wise. While it may be a 08/15 story to its core, its twist and personal motivations are something not that commonly seen even today! But be advised to be taken to a tour through anything which was deemed frighten to Americans in the late 90s/early 2000s! Which is hilarious on its own! I am so happy to finally see this game (series) on GoG now. I am excited to a point, which also let me come to pay for the ridiculous bad third part of the series. That's how much I love this single game! Go and give it a try. You won't be disappointed!

At first glance Soldier of Fortune may seem like a game that has only one thing going for it: an insane amount of realistic violence. There's bullet holes, knife cuts, detailed death animations but most notably pretty detailed dismemberment and even the ability to reveal an enemy's intestines e.g. via a shotgun blast to their stomach. It certainly is something that made the game recognisable and memorable. But that's not all. SoF is one of the last big titles of a particular era of shooter games. It kinda belongs in one bag with the likes of Half-Life, SiN or Kingpin. It was that particular era where most big shooter titles were powered by id Soft's technology which was all about "power". Big guns that delivered powerful impacts, bulky characters with huge hit boxes, huge amounts of gore and even physics that made everything feel massive. But it was also that generation of games that went from killing monsters in surreal dungeons towards story-driven experiences in somewhat plausible environments. And among these titles Soldier of Fortune stands out as that title that went for the biggest amount of realism (although cyber ninjas are included) and the result is a pretty unique experience. SoF beautifully combines that visceral experience of id Soft's classics with a rather realistic setting with human enemies and that makes it unique and, more importantly, ridiculously satisfying to this day. It's almost perverse how strongly this game attempts (with success!) to make killing people enjoyable. There's also some weird beauty in the (mostly) realistic locations powered by id Tech 2. But the cherry on top is how beautifully unaware the game seems to be of its moral implications, being driven by an utterly campy but serious plot with characters so badass that they are just silly. In a way SoF is the culmination of all the fury and cynicism that defined that certain aspect of 90's culture that also gave birth to Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. For me it's a timeless classic.

Soldier of Fortune is a great game, it is a cult classic when it comes to old-school shooters. Unfortunately, it wasn't available in digital markets for a long time - until now. The main feature that made this game so recognizable over the years was its gore system and a ridiculously powerful shotgun that makes the former feature VERY noticeable. Not that other weapons weren't fun to use - they all were, but the shotgun is definitely the highlight here. There is some story on offer here, about stolen nukes or something like that. Most likely you won't care about it, as the gunplay is so good it will carry you through start of the game to the end credits. Don't mistake it for a modern military shooter - it plays much closer to something like Doom and Quake rather than Call of Duty. Movement speed is very fast and you need to utilize that if you wish to survive on higher difficulties. Speaking of difficulty - this game can be very punishing. Thankfully, there is a nice system on offer here: it allows you to customize difficulty, in case you need it. You can, for example, have the AI on very hard but keep unlimited saves and carrying capacity. The graphics look like you'd expect from a game of that era. If you're used to other early 00s shooters then you shouldn't have problems with getting immersed. Environments are varied and don't look too bad. Character models are a different story, but you won't be seeing them for too long - as they will be turned into minced meat before you manage to say how ugly they look. ;) I could write a bit more but you get the idea. This game is brutal old-school shooting at its finest. If you're into that kind of stuff, its right up your alley.