Soldier of Fortune: Payback on Xbox 360 (2007)

i believe this leg is yours?

KORNdog [Highly rated reviewer] , 16/11/2007

Ok, right off the bat I’m going to say there are far better first person shooters out there, especially now the likes of orange box and call of duty 4 have been released. Yet I still believe this game deserves a 4/5...the reason being simple....GORE...and lots of it.

If you’re looking for an immersive, high quality, highly polished game look elsewhere, this is not it. This is a budget title through and through, it has a few performance issues, massive AI problems and just a general lack of polish. But if you like violence and gore with no extra “fluff” to get in your way, then this is definitely the game for you.

First off, let’s start out with the story....well, what story there is. Basically you've been double crossed and your out for revenge, and if that means tearing off the limbs of countless terrorists then so be it, there is no moral high ground here. Your story is essentially to shoot guys in the face.

Now sound is a mixed bag, on the one hand the guns all feel adequately powerful and menacing, the terrorists all speak in their native tongue and overall the game sounds fine in terms of gameplay. Story wise it’s terrible, a half assed script delivered by half assed voice actors. But again, who cares when you’re making a guys skull explode with a single bullet.

gameplay is a pretty standard affair with its only saving grace being, yep, you guessed it, the gore....remove the decapitations, the dismemberment and the general violence and your left with a very bellow average game, but considering very few games give you this level of gore, your willing to let it slide.

The length while short isn’t much of an issue, the 6-ish hour campaign is perfect for this sort of mindless violence and so it doesn’t have time to truly get repetitive or old. that’s not to say it doesn’t start to however, once you’ve seen a guy lose a leg and crawl away to bleed out in a corner a few hundred times, the effect starts to wear off. Although seeing a group of enemies’ arms and legs fly around a room after an explosion always seems to raise a smile.

The one main stand out-ish area of the game besides the gore is the visuals, while there are better, and more consistent games out there, few budget titles look this good. And if it wasn’t for the odd framerate stutter and screen tearing it'd be perfect for what it does.

unlike others who will rate this game based on and in comparison to the likes of cod 4 I’m reviewing it based on what it is, a mindless, fun, gory, BUDGET title. If your expecting production values of half life episode 2 then your expectations are set far too high. But in comparison to games of similar price from similar budget ranges, soldier of fortune: payback offers some great, albeit cheap thrills. There’s a certain satisfaction that only a soldier of fortune game can give a player. Those that have played the past games will know what I’m talking about, and for those that haven’t, now’s a great time to start.

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Yet Another First Person Shooter

A customer from Scotland , 21/02/2008

With games like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor and Orange Box amongst other FPS already out there there are better looking and more challenging shooters out there. The game in itself is not bad, the graphics and sound are what you would expect of a next gen shooter and the gameplay will be fairly familiar - which is the problem since I felt I've played this game before. The xbox 360 market is becoming overcrowded with FPS which offer nothing new or original to the genre. If you like FPS get Halo 3 or Call of duty before considering this.

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SOF Payback

mtype101 from Warrington [Highly rated reviewer] , 21/01/2008

For Xbox 360 title this game is not so good the graphics are spot on but the gameplay is repative (also its too easy)

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not that good

nipper from Telford [Highly rated reviewer] , 12/02/2008

i did not like it at all

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Yet Another First Person Shooter

A customer from Scotland , 21/02/2008

With games like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor and Orange Box amongst other FPS already out there there are better looking and more challenging shooters out there. The game in itself is not bad, the graphics and sound are what you would expect of a next gen shooter and the gameplay will be fairly familiar - which is the problem since I felt I've played this game before. The xbox 360 market is becoming overcrowded with FPS which offer nothing new or original to the genre. If you like FPS get Halo 3 or Call of duty before considering this.

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One good thing about this...

BobSyko from Runcorn [Highly rated reviewer] , 09/03/2008

...and that's that the gorehounds will love it thanks to the fact you can blow bits off people. Pretty much everything else is terrible.

It controls...not bad, it's easy enough to get a shot on the stupid bad guys that will run out into the street that you have just gunned down a load of their mates in. That's pretty much where anything nice you can say about the game stops.

Like I said, enemies are stupid. They will run out in front of you where you will blow off both of his legs. Then his mate will think, 'Wow, that looks fun!' He'll run out, bam, no legs and so on. Sometimes they will just decide to go legging it past you of course, running to...somewhere.

There are also a load of glitches which will try to prevent you from completing the game. The worst of which involves a slave you have to escort to a mine. He will disappear, stop moving, die for no reason and to top it all off he seems to have had his brain removed so will constantly run forwards even if there is a bad guy with a AK and an angry face standing right in front of him. Once he gets to these people he will, of course, stop.

The one good thing about the game is that when you get to a point where you think you can't carry on anymore it will finish. I killed a guy, nabbed his briefcase and thought to myself, sod it, I've had enough, then, all of a sudden the game ends. That made me laugh about as much as the rest made me cry.

Still, you can blow bits off people so if that's how you roll then go for it. It will be fun for at least ten minutes. Achievements are crap as well, mainly online....where no one plays.

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