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Platform:
Xbox Genre: Shooter Publisher:
Activision Developer:
Gratuitous Games / Raven Software ESRB:
M (Mature) Released:
Q2 2003 Support AE! Buy Games Here:
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Soldier Fortune II: Double HelixScore: 6.5 / 10 |
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Pros: -
Great Xbox Live multiplayer setup -
Wide selection of weaponry, including some nifty sniper rifles -
Plausible storyline
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Cons: -
Numbskulled enemy A.I. -
Very dated graphics -
Nonsensical, no-action “missions”
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Related Links: Review: Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (PC) Review: Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC) Review: Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Tides of War (XB)
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"SoFII on the Xbox comes up shooting blanks with a very mediocre adaptation that has few redeemable features outside its strong multiplayer Xbox Live presence." |
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Metal Gear
Solid, Splinter Cell, Brute Force, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides
of War, and Ghost Recon are some of the most notable Xbox games
featuring clandestine soldiers of fortune/mercenaries/ultra-secretive
military strike forces as their lead characters. Joining their ranks is
the first-person shooter Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (SoFII), a
port of the well-received PC game from last year. Unfortunately, SoFII
on the Xbox comes up shooting blanks with a very mediocre adaptation
that has few redeemable features outside its strong multiplayer Xbox
Live presence.
High-fiving
worthy features imported over from SoFII’s PC version start with the
credible storyline. You get to lace up the combat boots as
mercenary-for-hire John Mullins, another in the long line of gruff and
tough Duke Nukem-type characters. Mullins gets most of his work from The
Shop, an underground operation inconspicuously hidden beneath the depths
of a city bookshop that does all the “dirty” work that the CIA and
other worldwide governmental agencies can’t handle. Mullins is signed
on to trace the insidious path of a deadly germ-warfare virus and those
involved in its creation and planning to use it all around the globe.
Mullins’ pursuit of the virus gives the developers an opportunity to
include many varied levels for gamers to play including city streets,
cargo ships, South American jungles, and snow-covered regions. But
while all those exotic locales add up to 50-odd missions for the
single-player story campaign, SoFII starts to have some of the
vulnerable chinks in its gameplay armor exposed within its single-player
experience. Yes, it’s true there are plenty of missions to occupy you,
but it’s a real stretch calling some of these “missions.” SoFII
has some of the absolutely worst gameplay mission levels ever designed
since video games have been around. Get this for an enthralling
action-packed “mission”: you must walk the halls of The Shop
searching for the right elevator and door to get you to the office for
your meeting with the head honchos and to learn your assignment details.
Just wandering the halls looking for the right elevator and door to
enter. No enemies to fight. No time-clock to race against. Nothing. Just
looking for an elevator and door.
Too
exciting for you? How about the “mission” that has you walking
through a germ-proof plastic tunnel in the unlucky town that was
actually used as an experiment for the deadly virus. Again, no enemies,
no threats to your well-being. Just walking leisurely through the tunnel
to the field laboratory. No wait, it gets more exciting. There’s
the mission that requires you to walk across the street and ring the
doorbell of the bookstore that acts as the cover for The Shop. There was
a individual walking around that I wasn’t sure about. He looked like
he most likely was a Shop lookout, but since I wasn’t sure, I shot him
dead. I wasn’t penalized for shooting him, still gaining admission to
The Shop without incident or mention of my homicidal tendencies. Mixed with these action-packed “missions” are ones that are just plain annoying. After buddying up with a separated elite military unit, you must do the required mission objectives in the exact order needed or the unit commander will actually shoot you. There’s no direction as to what you need to do first, and it takes more than a few attempts trying to complete it before you actually get a clue as to what needs to be done in what order, but until you figure it out, your reward for helping the military unit search and rescue their captured teammates is a bullet in the back of the head.
I
even tried to shoot the three members of the unit, thinking that would
alleviate the bullet headache I was being inflicted with, but
even though there was no one around to shoot me, the game actually
killed me because I hadn’t played the mission correctly. I was
literally left to ponder out loud: if these missions were actually in
the PC version of SoFII, then how could it get such high review scores?
There are more than a few missions like in the jungles of Columbia and
the surprisingly enjoyable mission that places you at the helm of the
gun in an attack chopper attacking enemies below, that are smartly
designed and do actually compensate for, in the words of Comic Book Guy
from The Simpsons, the “Worst. Videogame missions. Ever.” Making matters worse is the bad graphics that strain your eyes. The Xbox is capable of some great graphics and SoFII on the PC was commended for its visuals, but it’s clear that there is an aging graphic engine behind the looks of SoFII, because they aren’t up to today’s standards.
On
top of a shoddy appearance, the enemy artificial intelligence comes up
12 inches short of a foot in a lot of areas. While the enemy will hide
behind objects, too many times they’ll display bad judgment when
trying to eliminate your hide from the face of the earth. Speaking
of headshots, the only good graphical touch is the gore that occurs when
you shoot enemies square in the head, especially when zoomed in at 20%.
The head explodes away from the body in a realistically bloody mess and
at that magnification, you get the full visual effect.
SoFII
does have a few more saving graces that rescue it from being a total
disaster. It has one of the most impressive collection of weaponry in
any shooter game, with more than 25 items to help Mullins complete his
task. Featured are numerous pistols, rifles, machine guns, rocket
launchers, and a vast selection of incendiary devices. Although the
rifles and machine guns are the more effective weapons, the ability to
use two pistols at one time packs a pretty impressively powerful punch. What
really raises SoFII from the ashes of mediocrity is its magnificent
multiplayer gaming via Live. A worthy rival to Ghost Recon and Castle
Wolfenstein in Xbox Live play, SoFII not only has a myriad of
multiplayer online modes immediately familiar to Counter-Strike veterans
such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Elimination,
Infiltration, and Demolition, it also features incredibly large maps. There’s
so many areas of a map to explore it’s easy to get lost, especially
after getting fragged and re-spawning in an unfamiliar area in the map.
But it also allows for better ambushing of unsuspecting enemies and also
increased effective team-based combat with plenty of take-cover quarters
for prolonged firefights. The voice communication function through the
walkie-talkie takes some configuring to get it to work properly in-game,
but other than that, SoFII’s multiplayer gaming is solid. SoFII’s
single-player mode has little to offer Xbox gamers that they can’t get
better in other titles. There are just too many other good games to buy
instead of the flawed SoFII. Its multiplayer mode offers all those
Castle Wolfenstein and Ghost Recon players an alternative similarly
designed title to hit the online battlefield with, so only those with
Xbox Live should really consider adding SoFII to their game brigade. -
Lee Cieniawa (August 10, 2003)
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