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Review: Soldier of Fortune II: Double HelixReviewed By: Bill Stiteler Review Date: November 25, 2002
I'm getting really tired of being told that "failure is not an option." In the first place, it's unrealistic to expect any person to have a 100% success rate. You've got enough trouble trying to stop world-conquering terrorists from releasing the latest bio-horror on the world; don't add more pressure to an already tense situation. Second, it smacks of laziness. Rather than come up with a contingency plan, figuring out the evacuation routes and immunization schedules, some fat-ass in the front office has simply decided to shove the problem entirely on to your shoulders, and cut out early for the weekend. Thanks, Carl. But, "We'd like for you to succeed, but don't worry about it," doesn't make for thrilling box copy, so here we are, with yet another renegade who must save the world with their devil-may-care attitude and copious amounts of gunplay.
So like Knight Rider, only with grenade launchers. You play John Mullins, the only mercenary in the world without an allusive name. You begin the game in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on a mission to liberate a scientist from a hotel full of guards. You're being sent in alone, in the guise of an American businessman, because a team of Navy SEALs would "create an international incident." Mullins decides (via voice over) not to try the front door, because it would be too heavily guarded. You then proceed to mow down everything that moves. I sighed. What had shown some promise as an intriguing premiseÑ-a bit of Deus Ex with a today's world settingÑ-had instead turned into Quake with cut scenes. So I dutifully made my way through the labyrinthine path leading you through every single guard post and machine gun nest in eastern Europe, killing every single person I met in some grim parody of a Bil Keane "dotted line" strip. Found the scientist. Yawn. Seen it a million times.
Dear god, how I loved this level. I was willing to bet, however, that they wouldn't base a whole game on that (which would sort of be the anti-Beachhead, I suppose). But SOF2 had another surprise for me; an actual stealth level as you crawl in, over, and around a train station, trying to get back to safe territory. All was forgiven. In the great line chart of FPSs, SOF2 plots somewhere between Quake and Unreal Tournament (mindless running and shooting) and Deus Ex (actual roleplay and multiple solutions). The story is tightly controlled and linear, but there is a plot...terrorists have taken control of a bio-agent, etc. etc. It's essentially Rainbow Six without all the planning. Which is fine. If Rainbow Six is that game where generals push little tanks with long sticks, then SOF2 is paintball; hectic, fun, and in a sense, more realistic. The interface for SOF2 will seem familiar for anyone who's played a FPS. The structure of the interface, your interaction with the world of SOF2, reflects the effort to marry a somewhat "realistic" game world with the more traditional elements seen in shooters. Enemies react in a more intelligent manner, taking cover and coordinating their efforts to hunt you down. Bullets do substantial damage, and you can be taken down before you even see your enemy. On the other hand, health packs and body armor (yes, in crates) abound, and you can carry as many weapons and ammo as you can find.
Also included is a random mission generator, apart from the campaign setting. You get several mission types, such as assassination, or escape from prison. The computer then generates a map from several presets, adds the enemies, and off you go. While I'd wouldn't call them infinitely replayable (the load screen will give you hints like, "loading map-A" which will give you some clue as to the setup after a few plays), they do add significantly to the game's duration on my hard drive. Oh, and, blah blah blah internet play. Please understand, I grew up in the age when cooperative play was asking my friends how to kill that damn thief after he took the clockwork egg. One area in which the game could use less interactivity is in the cut scenes. Entering a building for a meeting with my bosses, I was permitted to wander a bit (those mercenary organizations are so permissive!), but ultimately, I had to go to the elevator...and had to load another level. Then I got to the floor I was supposed to be on, and headed into the meeting room...and had to load another level. Even on my 800MHz iMac, SOF2's levels take a long time to load. This can also be a pain because you'll get killed so much. Fortunately, you can save at any point you choose.
Once you accept that SOF2 is a heavily structured shooter (as opposed to Rainbow Six, where the game was essentially a reaction to your planning, or Deus Ex, which was the had the widest structure of any game I've ever played), it's a lot of fun. Running straight in, guns a-blazing will often get you killed, so you have to think a bit. But just when you get used to that, you'll run into a situation where you should simply rush the enemies, catching them unprepared. Despite it's lack of any great innovation, I found myself enjoying it tremendously. American computer games have been in a rut for years now. The first-person shooter and the fantasy role-playing game have been dominating for so long, the only thing that most games can hype is their graphics. (Ooooh, triangles per second! Catch me before I faint!) Still, it's nice to see that creative people are still capable of breathing life into a tired genre. But then, I suppose their manager told them that failure was not an option.
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Nothing new there, but Soldier of Fortune 2 nevertheless bothered me at first. I think its because Soldier of Fortune is a real magazine where psychos place want ads to commit murder, but, in the game, they're presented as a benevolent megacorporation with worldwide offices, beholden to no government, with the suppression of terrorism its only goal.
Then, as if it were waiting for me to get complacent, Soldier of Fortune II staged a comeback. I played what may have been the most fun level I've ever seen in a first-person shooter. Having freed the scientist, he hotwires a flatbed truck and tells you to man the heavy machine gun on the back. What follows is a wild ride through the dead of night in the Prague countryside, trying to shoot your pursuers as the trucks swings wildly about a dirt road. And just when you think it can't get more insane, the helicopters show up.
Map designs are used to tightly control the flow of the story. Dropped into a jungle and told to "find alpha team," you'll be happy to know that you're surrounded by unscalable cliffs which will lead you right to them...if you can get around the machine gun emplacements and sniper nests along the way. Every level I played was the same way; you can go back, or you go forward.
Finally, there is an issue of gore. SOF2 takes an almost pornographic interest in the way that a human body can be maimed by a piece of lead travelling at a high velocity. One of its advertising points is the number of ways the models can have their limbs amputated, and sniping becomes a lot less appealing when you see a face caved in. And I'm sure some of you are saying "Cool!" right now. God knows I would have at your age. At first, I was turned off by this, and considered, for the first time in my life, using the parental controls included in the game to tone the content down. But then I considered this: is it better or worse to have a realistic depiction of what I'm imagining myself doing while I'm playing a game? Suddenly, attempting stealth to get around a guard became a more viable option than trying to slay every single person I met.