Introduction:The original Soldier of Fortune for the PC was known for its excessive gore and repetitive but fun single player campaign. Soldier of Fortune II attempts to keep what made the original successful, but forgets the part about the game being fun. Instead we’re left with a bloody, redundant mess.

The Game:SoF II puts you in the shoes of John Mullins, a mercenary who works for a secret organization called The Shop. After hearing rumors of a new terrorist threat, the first mission has you locating and extracting a biochemist in Prague believed to have vital knowledge. From there, the story evolves predictably, sending you to the standard places where all lone, secret operatives go on missions: Colombia, Russia, Hong Kong, a freighter, multiple offices, laboratories, etc. The problem isn’t that the scenery is old and trite, it’s that SoF II lacks the good gameplay and graphics to make any place seem interesting. The level design is largely uninspired, breaking up the killing with simple tasks like flipping switches and finding keycards, and in many places it requires backtracking. Many times I’d come upon a lever and hit it, not knowing what I was doing or why, but knowing that I’d have to do it eventually. It’s this kind of mindless switch flipping that exemplifies the levels. And the mission statements are murky and may actually hinder your knowledge of what to do. In many cases, the mission goals couldn’t even be completed in the area you’re in. For example, in the Russian level I was constantly seeking a generator because I had to shut it down (although I’m not sure why). Unfortunately, after looking extensively for it, I discovered that it couldn’t be shut down in the level I was in currently. Instead, a new area was loaded and it was there that I eventually turned it off.

SoF II is a first person shooter and doesn’t claim to be anything else. No...wait...now it includes elements of stealth that you have to use in the tutorial, but nowhere else. During one part of the first mission, it was stated that I had to be sneaky and quiet, and that any alarms would signal mission failure. Attempting my best Sam Fischer impression, I crept about and even killed a few guards with my knife. After awhile a guard saw me, forcing me to kill him. The alarm promptly sounded, but instead of failure I completed the mission by killing everyone, flipping switches, etc.; just like a normal mission. Indeed, it seems that the stealth aspect was a late addition, and really does nothing for the game but slow down an already slow FPS.

As mentioned above, SoF II is a pretty slow moving action game. I was able to “run and gun” through the first few levels, but after that it was necessary to move slowly and lean around every corner. And even the “run” was pretty slow, more like a brisk walk. By level five, I was having to proceed with caution at every turn because the computer AI is based mostly on triggered actions. This means you find a good corner, run up to activate the AI, then retreat to your safe spot and take potshots at the enemy. At certain points, you trigger enemies that come from behind and shoot you in the back. The only way to get through parts like this, especially at the higher difficulty levels, is to reload and learn when and where they spawn so you’re prepared for it. Thankfully, you can save the game anywhere, but the constant saving and loading bogs the game down even more.

The only good thing about SoF II is that it’s a pretty long game when compared to other shooters. Unfortunately, a long game that’s lame is not a good thing.

Multiplayer is the one saving grace for this game, but it’s not as great as other online games. Many maps seem too big, and you spend more time looking for someone to kill than actually killing someone, even with a full 12 players in an elimination game. The other game types, demolition, infiltration, etc., played well, but the game doesn’t truly reward teamwork (as in Wolfenstein), so I ended up being an individual rather than part of a team. This is reinforced by the fact that hardly anyone talked. Don't get me wrong, the multiplayer is decent and enjoyable, it’s just that there are far better online games out there.

Graphics & Sound:The graphics and sound are uninspired and overly repetitive. The backgrounds are bland, and it seems like you’re in a cheap movie set; it’s supposed to look real, but just ends up looking flat. After playing through the inexorably long Kamchatka level, you’ll never want to see another laboratory or underground complex again. Another horrible “feature” is that everything is blanketed in a fog. I suppose this is their lighting effects, but it instead makes everything somewhat blurry and indistinct.

The character models are the bastard progeny of the backgrounds. They’re somewhat blocky, more as I would expect from a PS2 game than a PC/Xbox one. Within your first few kills of each new area, you’ll have seen all the models and costumes for that level.

The vaunted GHOUL II system is about the only decent aspect of the graphics. It really is satisfying to round a corner face to face with an enemy and then unload a shotgun shell into him. There are 36 distinct areas where an enemy can be hit, and the characters do a pretty good job of reacting. Shoot someone in the leg and they might drop their weapon and hobble around looking for another. Continue blasting at that same leg and they’ll go down screaming when it flies off. It’s detailed so much so that at one point I even took off someone’s jaw with a sniper rifle. The death animations are decent, but unfortunately they have some problems in the final position. Once dead, the bodies look unnatural, an effect from trying to make them slump against walls or down steps, although it ends up looking plain silly.

The sound is one of the better parts of the game, although it’s not without its serious flaws. The music is ho-hum and completely unforgettable, as are the majority of voice-overs (but I think half of that problem is the script writing itself). Most of the sound effects are dreary: at one point you man the machine gun in a helicopter, yet you can barely hear the chopper, making it seem unrealistically quiet when not firing the gun.

The one great aspect of the sound, however, is the effects of the guns. Combine that with the vibrating trigger, and it feels and sounds like a real weapon. They have a deep, meaty feel to them that is fully satisfying when you unload a clip at a group of enemies.

Mojo:As mentioned above, blowing off someone’s leg, arm, and even a portion of their head is undeniably sweet. Another cool feature is that Mark Hamill does the voice-over of a prominent character in the game. Say what you will, but Hamill is cool and an excellent voice-over actor (he did an excellent job in this game and as the Joker in Batman the Animated Series). Unfortunately, it would take a heavy dose of the Force to make this game cooler than a 5.

Lowdown:This game just isn’t fun. Playing through the single player campaign was nothing more than a chore. The multiplayer aspect was entertaining, but not worth buying the game. Gratuitous Games has done a poor job of porting this from the PC to the Xbox. With the exception of excessive gore (which by itself is not enough to make this enjoyable), everything in this game is done better in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Gameplay: 4, Graphics/Sound: 5, Innovation: 4, Mojo: 5. Final: 4