Everyday Gamer

I was undoubtedly excited about this game when I first heard it was releasing this year. Another amazing game from the Soldier of Fortune franchise? This gamer’s wish was answered, however, the saying goes be careful what you wish for. Soldier of Fortune: Payback released with little fanfare for the PC and Xbox 360 on November 13th and for the PS3 the following week. One particular store *cough*Best Buy*cough* did not sell either the PC or Xbox 360 version until the end of the following week, so a trip to the ghetto Blockbuster around the corner had to suffice.

SOF: Payback is not flashy by any means – however, neither were the previous SOF games. What they did have was a meaty core of gameplay goodness that you just wanted to sink your teeth into. So I was not shocked by the lack of an introduction cinematic or the simple menu screen in SOF: Payback. It would have to be the gameplay and general FPS technicalities that would end up leaving a bad taste in mouth. First off the control scheme for the 360 version needs work: tapping the D-pad down “crouches” and Y-button cycles (one-way) through your weapons. So if you’re trying to hide and then stand back up to aim and shoot, you basically have to move your thumb from the Left Analog stick to D-pad and back again, all while trying aim and not get shot at the same time. A simple “click” of the Left Analog stick/L3 for crouch would have been a major improvement alone. Don’t bother looking through the paper-thin manual for instructions on how to change the control scheme, because there aren’t any. And before you go “Well that’s why FPS games should be played on the PC with a keyboard and mouse, n00b” I’ll stop you short because the PC version of SOF: Payback has a whole realm of problems on it’s own.

Another thing SOF & SOF: II were known for was the realism of the weapons – kickback from firing a gun such as the M4 or the natural bob and sway of your sniper rifle as you try to line up the perfect shot. Also being able to hold a live grenade and release it at the last second – also known as “cooking” – was another staple in the SOF arsenal. So where did it go with SOF: Payback? These would be the FPS technicalities that I referred to earlier and this latest SOF is lacking in them for sure. While graphics are not severely important to me, the realism of game is and should be to others who play non-arcade-ish FPS games.

The Single Player missions are not very exciting either; each mission is extremely script based and there’s a good chance nothing random will happen if you play the same mission three times in a row. The AI will pop out from the same place, run and hide in same place and more than likely die in the same place. Were are the great SOF:II moments of waiting for the guard to make his round and then jumping out and stabbing him to death? Or the fact that the AI would chase you from room to room like they had minds of their own?

The Multi-player could have a whole separate review dedicated to it; SOF: Payback’s multi-player is lacking in expected features. And by expected I mean general Multi-player features you’d find in most games out on the market. Such as player booting which SOF: Payback has none of. So if there’s some idiot smacktard in your match, you can’t kick him out without completely restating the match. Want to play with just your friends locally? Sorry! That is not an option in SOF: Payback, in fact you can’t even access the Multi-player menu screen if your Ethernet or Wireless adapter isn’t plugged into your Xbox 360. Want to change to a new map after the match is over? Feel free to drop out of the server and choose another – there is no map rotation or random map cycle to setup. Amongst all that, the Multi-player has 5 maps and holds up to 12 players per match.

After reading through the above I see I did not write one positive thing about this game, but left quite a few positives about its predecessors. I really wanted to enjoy this game and revel in what the franchise was known for. I even shot an email to the PR rep for SOF: Payback, to see if the game could be possibly salvaged in the future and was told that they didn’t have any information regarding updates as of yet. My hope is that within the next few months a patch is released otherwise I don’t see chance of me playing this game again in the future.

Unfortunately, in the end, games are reviewed on how they are out of the box, not how they will be once the developers scramble to fix things. The hard fact is the game is very disappointing especially with the line up of recently released FPS games. Prior to the release of SOF: Payback, I recently defended it saying that the game should sell decently next to COD4, Orange Box and others, since SOF fans are very dedicated to the franchise, myself being one of those fans. Well where is Miss Cleo and her fake accent when you need her? Too bad I could not predict the future on this one.

Overall: Definitely a rental, if that. If you wish to spend your money, buy Soldier of Fortune II: Gold Edition. Granted the game is over 5 years old but it was worth the money when it originally released and is especially worth the money now.