Ahhh Soldier of Fortune. I do remember it fondly. It was quite the pricey game when it came out, I remember it retailing for about 120 then-Guilders while most games were 99 tops. And yes, the engine was great, the first level in which you get to the subway and start shooting and see those enemies respond to where you shot them is fantastic. But then, mediocrity kicks in, and every level is more of the same. The surroundings change, I remember going to the desert at some point, but the gameplay remains the exact same (except that the enemies just take a hell of a lot longer to kill with no apparent reason other than the level) and well, even shooting kneecaps gets stale after a while. Then the biggest anticlimax of all, you don't even get to kill the endboss. The ENDING CINEMATIC kills the endboss. Online play was a blast though, that's definitely worth mentioning. Awesome deathmatch weapons.
This game was one of the first games I had running on a 3D accelerator back in 1997/1998, I believe it ran quite well on a Rendition 2100 chipset. The game itself isn't that special, except for the first part, where you get to fly a snowspeeder and take down AT AT's with a cable and hook just like in Empire Strikes Back. If you got 5 bucks to spare, it's worth it just for that part.
Both Pirates and Pirates Gold are constantly crashing on my system here. No such thing with other old DOS games, such as Civ 1. Pretty much makes them unreliable at best and unplayable at worst.
