| Allright.
I know this game has been out for months already, and in that
respect this review is incredibly late. But on the other hand,
it's bound to hit the Bargain Bins sooner or later, and when
that happens you'll need to be informed. Now that the justification
is out of the way, read on.
Soldier
of Fortune II: Double Helix is the unawaited sequel
to one of the most pointless shooters ever, Soldier
of Fortune. Both star John Mullins, a battle-hardened
soldier-for-hire that works for an outfit called The Agency.
So creative.
Shot you in the face!
The
Agency contracts Mr. Mullins to run all over the world and
kill dangerous people for them, something he does gladly and
with bravado. This time, some mysterious terrorists have gotten
their hands on a deadly virus that could easily wipe out whoever
they didn't like, from that smartass clerk down at the Starbucks
to entire cities (especially cities full of smartass Starbucks
clerks). There are some surprising twists and turns along
the way, I guess, but you won't be picking your jaw up off
the floor or anything. Not like the end of the first disc
of Final Fantasy VII, where ****spoiler deleted*** happened!
Man, that was crazy.
This
all means that Mr. Mullins gets to travel abroad again, and
shoot the faces of those who stand in his way on his path
to justice. At first, this is not a bad deal. The game itself
sends you through enough different locales to actually stay
fresh for awhile, from jungles to fancy villas and everything
inbetween. Close to the end of the game, however, it pretty
much tosses that variety out the window and replaces it with
what seems like endless amounts of subterranean corridor-crawling.
They even go out of their way to annoy you by having you knock
out the power, and then do a couple of levels with your Night-Vision
goggles on. Here's a tip for the designers - monochrome green
gets very, very tiring.
Shot! You in the face!
The
gore that was such a trademark of the first game has been
toned down significantly here, at least insofar as the torso
is concerned. It's been preserved and even upgraded for facial
gore, however, and if a comprehensive face-shooting simulator
is exactly what you were looking for, then by all means this
is your game.
The
much-lauded facial expressions they had been tweaking are
not as advanced as they had hoped, either, and now that the
game is out they seem merely standard. Sorry, guys.
Shot you! In the face!
The
game does have a redeeming feature, however - the Random Mission
Generator. Set the kind of mission you want (Assassination,
Escape, etc), the level type, and the difficulty, and the
computer will actually randomly generate an entire level for
you to mess around in. This works remarkably well, and I found
it to be rather entertaining. The only unfortunate aspect
is that even though the buildings are randomly sown around
the map, the guard placement within remains exactly the same
every time. One does not have to play the missions for long
to figure out exactly where each enemy comes from when you
enter a building, and this just takes some of the flair out.
I
never tried the Multiplayer, and though it's probably interesting
I'm sure there are many other games by now that completely
waste this game in that aspect. Everything
else about the game is pretty regular fare. Uninteresting
in-game cutscenes, a very straightforward and standard assortment
of weapons, and to top it off, your assistant has a terribly
annoying accent, and she talks alot. Great.
Shot you in! The face!
CONCLUSION:
If you liked the concept behind the Indiana Jones Desktop
Adventures, or Yoda's Stories, then get this game for the
Random Mission Generator. I enjoyed being able to just hop
in and release my frustrations on the faces of nameless terrorists.
But if you're looking for a satisfying single-player campaign,
just re-install Half-Life and save yourself the annoyance.
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