Silence

Is it golden? Perhaps, but there's a reason. A new FPS...:)

"Soldier of Fortune - Payback" has not been released in Australia, but that hasn't stopped me. The game has been banned here because the violence makes it an over 18 type game and we, in our infinite wisdom, refuse to have a game classification for over 18's. So, if your game requires an older audience, you are not allowed to buy it or sell it in Australia.

But that's ok, I'm not selling it and technically I didn't buy it in Aus. But isn't it amazing what you can achieve with a bit of bandwidth...:)

So how was the game? Well, if you are a practiced FPS player you probably won’t want to bother with this one in single player mode, except perhaps to get used to the weapons and movement. It’s very lineal, only took me two days to complete and that was with a restart half way through so I could get a better weapon selection. I restarted at about 5:00 yesterday afternoon and was finished by 2:30 this morning, with a number of hours off in the middle. I stopped to have dinner and watch “Hogfather” for instance.

It’s a little “arcadey” at times, especially with the ultra hard to kill dude at the end of each level, which is something I found a bit lame, especially for a PC game. That sort of thing is normally reserved for the console but if you’re going to do it, do it properly. At each stage in this one you had to shoot an unarmoured person that just wouldn’t die. Lame as…

Graphically however, it was superb, perhaps even spectacular. It has some of the best texturing work I’ve ever seen, but there are times when you will find a tyre or a shopping trolley hanging in mid-air in the street and no, they don’t make for very good cover.

I’ve only had a quick look around online, but it looks good so far. The couple of maps I’ve played in look to be larger than their single player equivalents, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve caused some serious carnage before passing judgement on the online playability. So there you go, that’s why I’ve been quiet for the last couple of days. I needed to concentrate…:)