SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 2: DOUBLE HELIX
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"More fun and, yes, more violent..."

By MARTIN KINGSLEY

What would you do if you spent years developing a first-person-shooter, making it the best it could be, putting all your effort into it, and all people do is go on about how excessively violent it is?

I think you would leap out the window in a fit of rage.

Thankfully, the people at Raven have ignored these suicidal feelings and have concentrated on going back and making an even better game, more realistic, more fun and, yes, more violent.

The storyline is typical action-movie fare, with you taking on the role (once again) of John Mullins, ex-Special Forces and Vietnam veteran, now a "consultant" (read: mercenary) who takes most of his contracts from a secret, anti-terrorist outfit known as "The Shop".

This time around, the plot involves Russian biochemistry, Columbian drug lords and international terrorism. You can almost picture a slightly younger Arnie running around, blowing the snot out of everything within a 30-mile radius.

If this sort of thing doesn't appeal to you, the considerate people at Raven have included a random mission generator. You can choose the terrain type from snow, desert, jungle or hills, with missions ranging from Demolition (you blow stuff up), Infiltration (Get in, nick something, get out) Assassination (Take out a pre-defined target) and Escape (get out of a prison-like structure).

You can also select your gear, change the weather and change the time of day. With this many settings, it should keep even the most skilled of mercenaries preoccupied for a long time.

SOF2 doesn't pull punches when it comes to realism. Each character model is composed of over 30 damage zones, modelled using the GHOUL2 system. This makes for some very hectic (and gory) firefights.

For instance, you can quite easily blow the eyes out of a person's head. Or, if you're slightly more trigger-happy, take their head off completely. Then again, if you don't like the blood and guts, you can turn it off.

Realism is a big issue in SOF2 and the weapon selection reflects this. The weapons are all real, including the:

• M1911A1 Pistol: The basic pistol and starting weapon. However, do not underestimate its power. With .45 ammo and the ability to use two at the same time, this is the best weapon for winning over friends and influencing people.
  
  
• US Mk23 SOCOM Pistol: One badass pistol, able to give enemies a terminal .45 calibre headache from up to 50 yards away. Comes with a silencer, LAM (Laser Aiming Module) or Tactical Flashlight attachment.
  
  
• Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW): Now this is a gun. Comes with an underhand 20mm grenade launcher, 20x scope, integrated night vision and threat-detection algorithms. Can also operate your garage door and program your VCR.
  
  
• Micro Uzi: Ah, yes, the beloved Micro Uzi. Favourite of generic film goons for decades. Unfortunately, this is literally a "spray-and-pray" weapon, making up for accuracy with firing rate. You can wield two at the same time, allowing you to recreate those "John Woo" moments in style.

All up, there are 14 weapons, plus 9 (count 'em) types of grenade. Quite an arsenal, don't you think? And you're going to need it, because aligned against you are terrorists, Hong Kong smugglers, the Russian military, Columbian drug runners and other assorted nasties.

While I'm mentioning the enemies, I should mention my biggest sticking point with SoF2: Spawn points. Yes, spawn points. You would think that since Raven has placed such a big emphasis on realism, they wouldn't need spawn points. But instead, they've decided to do the opposite. The things are absolutely everywhere! At the hardest level, it becomes quite ridiculous.

For example: You go into a warehouse, clean it out (I'm talking top to bottom, behind every door, under every stairwell) and locate all the possible exits.

You can prove that there is not a single animated polygon anywhere in the warehouse. The second you step through the exit, three guys appear in the warehouse behind you and shoot you in the back of the head!

After the umpteenth time, this kind of thing gets rather annoying, to say the least. Spawn points are a nasty and pathetic way of jacking up the difficulty and shame on Raven for using them. Almost 10 years on from Doom and we're still resorting to this kind of cheap trickery...

It was this that stopped me from completing the single player game. In desperation, I turned to the multiplayer side of the Force, hoping to find solace in its adrenaline soaked embrace. I was not disappointed with what I found.

Using an enhanced version of the Quake 3: Team Arena code, the multiplayer experience is ultra-smooth.

With support for up to 32 players, a small number of professionally built maps (not including all the fun that you can have with the mission generator) and a truckload of player models to use (all out of the box) means there is almost nothing else that a multiplayer freak could want.

By almost, I mean that some might want some bot support. This is something that, unfortunately, was taken out of the final release.

However, a man (an Aussie, actually) named Kris Rigby went to the trouble of having a look at the SoF2 source code and found that the bot support was only deactivated, but not removed.

He then posted a mod ("Mandown", available at planetsof.com) on the 'Net with a few little tweaks here and there, plus bot support.

So, SoF2 MP is a very satisfying experience, all things considered. In fact, you could probably say that SoF2 itself is a very satisfying, if somewhat gory, experience. While there are some things that may cause some irritation (mumble-mumble-spawnpoints-mumble), if you can get past these small areas of concern, there's some fine gaming to be had.

ORIGINALITY 80%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 90%
PLAYABILITY 80%
ADDICTION 90%
ENJOYMENT 80%