Soldier of Fortune: Payback

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Soldier of Fortune: Payback
NO! -John Mullins after seeing this game
Genre(s): First-person shooter Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Release: Microsoft Windows NA: November 13, 2007 EU: December 7, 2007 AU: March 19, 2008 Xbox 360 NA: November 13, 2007 EU: December 7, 2007 AU: April 23, 2008 PlayStation 3 NA: November 20, 2007 AU: March 5, 2008 EU: April 11, 2008 Engine: CloakNT Developer(s): Cauldron HQ Publisher(s): Activision Value (original) Activision (current) Country: Slovakia Series: Soldier of Fortune Predecessor: Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

Soldier of Fortune: Payback is a 2007 first-person shooter game released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Developed by Cauldron HQ and published by Activision Value. Unlike the previous games, which followed John Mullins, players now take the role of Thomas Mason to stop an arms deal. The game also received controversy regarding the game's high-level of violence, which led to the game being banned in Germany and Australia.

Why Its Not A Soldier Of Fortune

1. For starters, the story is very paper-thin and has absolute no connection to any of the previous two games. Instead of John Mullins as the protgaonist now you play as Thomas Mason and he alternates between being unlikable and just plain boring.
2. The game is filled to the brim with game breaking bugs and glitches.
3. The game is very short in length, only taking less than three hours to complete, and only has over ten levels set in four different areas.
4. The graphics are very poor and look like a PS2 launch game instead of a game that came out in 2007, Crysis came out the same year and looks miles better.
5. The gore system that the series is mostly known for, is very inferior and bad looking.
6. On the consoles, primary fire is mapped to RT/R2 but secondary fire is mapped to LB/L1 when RB/R1 would make more sense.
7. Stationary weapons are very useless and you can't hit anyone due to the insane amount of recoil they have in comparison to all standard guns.
   • On the topic of weapons, some of them are only avaliable on the console version, which makes no sense at all. Luckly they are avaliable as files on the PC and can be unlocked using mods.
   • Aiming down sights, doesn't actually aim properly.
8. While you can customize your equipment, you can't pick up ammo from weapons dropped by enemies; once you run out of ammo for a particular weapon, you have no choice but to drop it for another weapon. To make matters worse, there is only one mission where an universal ammo box is available to use. Why couldn't the developers place these boxes in all of the missions?
   • On top of that, ammunition can't be shared with any of the other guns, not even the shotguns, which all use 12 gauge rounds.
9. Artificial Difficulty:, even on Easy mode. This is also apparent when you have levels such as the Russia levels, where enemies have shotguns and can quickly kill you in only a few shots.
10. The multiplayer mode is lackluster and suffers through a number of glitches and frequent latency issues.
11. The enemies are poorly placed, to the point where enemies that can spawn out of the woodwork without even instantly knowing of where they are, resulting in frequent and very cheap deaths.
12. The voice acting is even more dull and uninspiring than the previous games.
    • Except that in the previous games, it played more like a 90s B-Movie
13. Lame and mostly very unfair boss battles, as they have more health than all the regular enemies, and have very powerful weapons which can instantly kill you.
    • There is also one of the bosses named Nam who shoots RPG's at the cliff side and for some reason, there is a glitch where he just wont die at all.
14. The loading times are very very long especially that when you die; you have to wait for a load screen before going back to your latest checkpoint.
    • As such, it also has a poorly-implemented checkpoint system. There aren't even quick-saves in the PC version!
15. The PC version is entirely unplayable by default, just like other cauldron games, your bullets will not harm any of the enemies, the animations, graphics and sound effects are totally bugged and collision detection is inexistent, leaving you to die a lot for no apparent reason. This is because there is no v-sync activated, but the problem here is that the game DOESN'T HAVE AN OPTION TO TURN ON THE V-SYNC!!! You have to enable the v-sync outside the game by entering to the control panel of your graphics controller just to make the game work.
    • On top of that, there are also no graphical settings, aside from the resolution settings.
16. The soundtrack is very dull and uninspiring which is also far worse than the previous games.
17. Cliffhanger Ending: After you kill the last boss, you get knocked out by Alena and steal's your briefcase and than the game ends
18. It Overall, killed the Soldier of Fortune franchise with no signs of return, it doesn't help that the game's ending is a cliffhanger.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Despite the bad graphics, the weapon models actually look good and detailed.
   • The weapons themselves are actually satisfying to use too because of the punchy sounds and detailed reload animations.
2. There are mods that makes the game actually playable such as: Soldier of Fortune: Additional Payback (which fixes some of the issues the game has and adds beta content stuff like: extended intro and weapons) and Functional Iron Sights (makes aiming down sights useful).

Reception

The game was met with negative reviews. Most critics cited the great character modeling and gore effects. Jason Ocampo of GameSpot scored it a 4.5/10. He claimed that "This shooter is a great exercise in pattern memorization and trial-and-error gameplay." He also said it "looks pretty". Jay Frechette of 1up.com scored the game a 5.5/10. Frechette said "Soldier of Fortune doesn't cross the line of being a bad game, but it hardly ever breaks the surface of mediocrity either."

Trivia

• Soldier of Fortune: Payback was banned in Germany due to its high amount of violence.

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