Soldier of Fortune: Payback Review

By Dan Whitehead Published 31 December, 2007

Activate turban boost.

Version tested: PlayStation 3

The Soldier of Fortune games have clung to the slender thread of infamy for one reason only - gore. A product of the late '90s FPS boom, the selling point of the original was that you could shoot the limbs off enemies using an arsenal of lovingly recreated weaponry. It wasn't bad, as such things go, but there were clearly better games around and they justifiably attracted most of the attention. A similarly average sequel followed in 2002 and now, apropos of nothing, here's a third instalment.

Once again, the only reason people will talk about is...the gore.

So let's talk about it. As in the previous games, your enemies are apparently made of plasticine and held together with sticky tape since they fly to pieces at the first hint of a bullet. And, as in the previous games, this gives the proceedings a certain ludicrous amusement factor. For about five minutes, at least.

See, the damage model doesn't seem to have changed since 2000. Every leg, every arm, blows off in the exact same way. Shoot someone in the head, and it vanishes. I mean, the head literally disappears and is replaced with a "spurting neck" polygon model. While the initial hilarity may be high, pay even the slightest bit of attention to the graphical detail or animation quality and an incredibly crude mechanism is revealed.

'Soldier of Fortune: Payback' Screenshot 1

They're foreign and therefore evil.

This shoddy craftsmanship is carried across to the physics model on the whole. If something explodes near a crate or barrel, the crate or barrel sails through the air. That's about as detailed as it gets. Anything more complex is either ignored (witness the impressive array of indestructible wooden fences) or simply breaks the graphics engine. There's a bit right near the start of the very first level where a truck filled with enemies races past you and comes to a stop around the corner. I lobbed a grenade at it, and the whole thing exploded. Pretty cool, thought I. When the smoke cleared, the truck was still there. Suspended in mid-air. Playing the same level again later, the exact same thing happened. Magic floating truck. Pretty stupid, thought I. Even the multitude of body parts splashing about the place are not exempt from the vagaries of this juddering physics simulation. Half the time, some rogue arm or leg will become embedded in the scenery and stick there, vibrating like a tuning fork forever. Ditto for the torsos and scenery that fall through the floor and thrash about like a goldfish on the carpet. Textures are clumsily painted in as you approach, and the frame rate frequently drops for no apparent reason, even when you're crawling through a dark tunnel with no enemies in sight.

Such quirks might be acceptable if the game itself was a cavalcade of entertainment, but it's possibly the blandest console shooter in years. Arriving after a period of innovation and excitement for the genre, when stacked up against BioShock, Resistance: Fall of Man, The Orange Box, Halo 3...Payback is left looking hilariously outdated. Levels are linear to a fault, full of doors that never open, buildings with nothing inside and passages that lead nowhere. You're funnelled forwards by pre-determined shoot-outs against enemies that only spawn when you reach a certain point. Your next objective is always marked by a floating white icon, so you just head for that, shoot everything in your way...and that's it.

'Soldier of Fortune: Payback' Screenshot 2

Look at him. He's definitely evil. And foreign.

The game uses the same health system as Gears of War, so you can soak up damage until the screen starts to turn red, and then you die. While this worked in a duck-and-cover game like Gears, in a game where your only defensive posture is crouching it renders the game incredibly easy. Your health recharges in about three seconds, so it's possible to just run around, back-pedalling and blasting away without ever really being in any danger. The only times the game catches you out is when enemies spawn right behind you - there's no map or radar - and its then you discover how the developers have attempted to make up for the lack of tactical challenge. There's no save option, and checkpoints are placed horribly far apart. Die, and you can expect to play a huge tediously scripted chunk of the level again. It's all horribly imbalanced, lurching between insultingly easy and frustratingly unfair with no real purpose.

Given such shortcomings, its no surprise that multiplayer is a waste of time. The expected game modes are present, but with only five maps and gameplay that rarely ventures beyond mindless run-and-gun screeching, there's no real need to check it out.

And then there's the question of morality. This is a game that is very much in love with the idea of shooting naughty brown people. The wafer-thin plot blabs on about terrorism in a macho gruff voice and uses real world locations, but it's little more than an excuse to mow down hundreds of cartoonish ethnic bogeymen, who come rampaging towards you, gibbering in their offensively impersonated accents. When you're not decimating these people, you're patronising them. Such as the subservient, fawning Asian slave who helpfully (and inexplicably) thanks you for not murdering him by handing you a keycard that accesses a vital oil "piperine". Yes, that's "piperine". Because he's Asian, you see. Me so velly solly. There's even an evil African warlord called The Moor. I guess they figured that just calling him The N-word would be too obvious, so let's be thankful for small mercies.

'Soldier of Fortune: Payback' Screenshot 4

Actually, these guys are OK. Nah, just kidding. They're evil foreigners. Lets kill them.

It's not the gore that's offensive here, it's the whole tone of the game. It's no surprise that Payback arrives on European shores with little fanfare since; despite being coded in the Slovak Republic, this is a game obviously designed to appeal almost exclusively to the American market. Specifically, those people who actually read Soldier of Fortune magazine, consider the Third World to be little more than a ragged, backwards sub-human terrorist factory and still believe that Saddam Hussein personally steered planes into the World Trade Center. The fact that you're playing a mercenary just makes it even more dubious - this is a man who kills for money, but here he is as a paragon of justice, delivering the payback of the title on behalf of a bloodthirsty passive audience that simply wants the vicarious thrill of gunning down some goddamn ragheads. The whole enterprise makes America's Army look like a subtle and objective exploration of world events. After five levels of violently dismembering dirty foreigners while my lumbering mercenary avatar growled about freedom and revenge, I honestly felt more than a little queasy.

Games set in and around the War on Terror are an inevitable fixture on the gaming landscape, but at least the likes of Call of Duty 4 and Full Spectrum Warrior couch their politicised narrative in a sense of reality, responsibility and - let's not forget - some pretty great gameplay. When Soldier of Fortune Payback isn't being generic and shallow, its being utterly crap and thus does nothing to mitigate its gleeful and deliberate xenophobia. This is gaming as lowest common denominator, feeding off a very unpleasant human urge. Whether you dislike the politics, or just don't like playing lousy games, there's absolutely no reason to give this gruesome farce your time or money.

3 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Dan.

About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

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Comments (56) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • OnlyMe #1 4 years ago

    !

  • Verwandlung #2 4 years ago

    haha

  • erp #3 4 years ago

    Damn, from reading the text I was hoping this would be (the first?) Zero out of Ten. :)

    It sounds horrendous.

  • urban #4 4 years ago

    it truely is.

  • Lexx87 #5 4 years ago

    I love the crap game reviews...they are always written so well. I guess it's the anger at the utter crapness that feeds the creativity.

  • mazzl #6 4 years ago

    we should get more bad games reviews, could you have a section of "insult to gamers games" would be a nice column

  • p00ntang #7 4 years ago

    I agree with every word here. Wish I could erase the memory of playing this at all..

  • Lemming81 #8 4 years ago

    "Arriving after a period of innovation and excitement for the genre, when stacked up against BioShock, Resistance: Fall of Man, The Orange Box, Halo 3...Payback is left looking hilariously outdated."

    *spurts coffee over keyboard*

  • lordofdeadside #9 4 years ago

    "Levels are linear to a fault, full of doors that never open, buildings with nothing inside and passages that lead nowhere. You're funnelled forwards by pre-determined shoot-outs against enemies that only spawn when you reach a certain point. Your next objective is always marked by a floating white icon, so you just head for that, shoot everything in your way...and that's it."

    Sounds a fair bit like COD 4. It does sound pretty awfull though.

  • el_pollo_diablo #10 4 years ago

    GAH!

    I really liked the first two. Mind you, I was about 14 when they came out...

  • SBfistfun #11 4 years ago

    "Activate turban boost" lol

    This is Living

  • Chtulie #12 4 years ago

    The first game had white supremasist as the bad guys, how things have changed.
    (and the second game had an awesomly balanced multiplayer going on, at least on the PC)

  • Davey #13 4 years ago

    Shame :( Maybe when I see it for a fiver in some bargain bin, I might give it a go. Even if it is just for the first five minutes of amusement

  • vegard #14 4 years ago

    ANOTHER SHITTY PS3 GAME?

    (not that this game was any good on the PC either...;)

  • BBIAJ #15 4 years ago

    Where's the button to say that you have this game!?

    Erm...

  • Waldo #16 4 years ago

    Too bad this game is fairly low-profile, otherwise the carefully-constructed jabbering about racism would have ensured many more page hits. ;)

    Anyhow, the first two games were junk, so it's not surprising to see that the third one doesn't break tradition.

  • Khab #17 4 years ago

    The first one was a fairly entertaining (for its time) ultra-violent romp, that only turned a bit sour in the middle, when it took itself too seriously. Then it introduced microwave-guns and whatnot, and got funny again. Not that that helps this any, or that it's even remotely playable today, but...

  • RicTheNinja #18 4 years ago

    i... i guess you didn't like it then?

  • BurningR #19 4 years ago

    That last hilarious rant about the political aspect of SoF is one of the main reasons I stick to EG. Brilliant, you can't separate the gaming mechanics and the narrative about the world that the overall game is trying to sell to you.

    Brilliant review.

  • The-Bodybuilder #20 4 years ago

    >" There's even an evil African warlord called The Moor. I guess they figured that just calling him The N-word would be too obvious, so let's be thankful for small mercies."

    LOL.
    I'm sure this is the funniest review yet. Just on the final day of the year.

  • YourMessageHere #21 4 years ago

    Lovingly recreated weaponry, indeed. SOF always had crappy representations of real weapons, to say nothing of AI, level design, inherent politics or indeed anything else to speak of. Take away the ghetto pathology gimmick and it was always a truly terrible bunch of games; I'm almost glad to see they can't even get that right now either. Still curious to know what stopped this from being absolute rock bottom marks though.

  • PapaSmurf630 #22 4 years ago

    SoF2 was awesome fun!

  • BurningR #23 4 years ago

    el_pollo_diablo: You stopped aging for a couple of years did you?

  • Nithron #24 4 years ago

    JSPOOLE does have a point... I mean, really, where's most of the fighting in the world taking place? The Middle East, and Africa. So we're kinda limited about villains in games based upon modern warfare, really.

    You could make the americans the "bad guys", i suppose. Or make up some fictional war involving the Chinese or something.

  • zoidberg #25 4 years ago

    SoF 1 was ace.

  • Megalodon #26 4 years ago

    JSPOOLE is spot on.

    What's next? Crying about why most of the protagonists in FPS are either males are extremely busty (and half-nude) girls? Why don't you use your oh-so-sharp wit about why don't they give you an option in a fucking shooter game to sit and sign a peace treaty with your enemies? Hey, let's make a game about a bisexual black girl trying to drive to work and get stuck in traffic when the car breaks down, eh? That's enough politically correct for you?

    It maybe a crappy game, but please leave the politcs to the blabbering politicians, will ya?

    This is just a dumb shooter. Sheesh.

    And let me guess, you guys didn't say anything about Call of Duty 4's same "political issues", right? And what about 3? and 2? and 1? Hey, the Nazis were human, too! Please, for god's sake, will someone think of the Nazis?!
    Edited by 1 at 31/12/07 @ 19:23

  • dllord #27 4 years ago

    But isn't this the PS3 version thats being reviewed? I bet the 360 version is loads better!

    /Gets coat ;)

  • DanWhitehead #28 4 years ago

    JSPOOLE does have a point...

    Not really, since I never said any of the things he oh-so-hilariously posted.

    The problem isn't that this game takes place in real world conflicts, or has ethnic enemies. It's the context, not the content, that makes this such a nasty little game. But I knew somebody would try and make that kneejerk argument, and that's why I was careful to highlight games such as CoD4 and Full Spectrum Warrior as examples of games that don't treat the Middle East as a stupid Quake mod.

  • TitusCrow #29 4 years ago

    think ill get this game for my little tosser of a cousin next xmas when its so cheap the box will be a better present than the game :p ahhh.. "cackles"

  • Dr_Fripp #30 4 years ago

    So this is a dumb shooter, with a dumb theme, and stereotypes that don't even deserve to be in the next Rush Hour, but the game shouldn't be marked down for it? Maybe the review needs to carry a tag, advising the SoF target audience to read something else instead...

  • PapaSmurf630 #31 4 years ago

    Still bloody good fun after a shitty day to load up on shotgun rounds and godmode and run down a corridor blowing people apart. Long live SoF!

  • Chufty #32 4 years ago

    SOF2 multiplayer was immense back in the day, I was really quite dedicated to it for a while.

    Awesome review!

  • NinjaWilliams #33 4 years ago

    I played the 360 version, its pants pants and just utterly pants!!! so bad framerate dat i gots motion-sickness, aye indeed!..

    3 out 10 is about right= CRAP!!!

  • Guv #34 4 years ago

    hah, review put a big smile on my face, thanks

  • DoKtoR #35 4 years ago

    Top review Dan, I'll give this one a very clear berth (not that I play more than 2 new games a year anyway!).

  • Stickman #36 4 years ago

    PC brigade gone mad! PS3 brigade a bit pissed off too.

  • BurningR #37 4 years ago

    Funny how much you can piss some people off by pointing out that a game is based on a stereotype racist world view...

    "political correctness! hippies!" they scream without even bothering to listen to the argument that Dan W is stating. Very sad.

  • ASHBERY76 #38 4 years ago

    I find the comments about killing brown people strange.Is the reviewer in the mindset that only killing Germans or Russians(white) is acceptable, but not brown folk?

  • Raziel #39 4 years ago

    I actually know someone who bought this. But then, he STILL plays the SoF II DEMO... yes the DEMO...

    A few days later he bought CoD4.

  • Lemming81 #40 4 years ago

    @ASHBERY76: "I find the comments about killing brown people strange.Is the reviewer in the mindset that only killing Germans or Russians(white) is acceptable, but not brown folk?"

    Actually, given that you are playing a mercenary, you should have been able to fight for the warlord. Maybe they offered more money? But that would probably cause a huge American outrage. *shrug*

  • Captain_Jono #41 4 years ago

    you’re misunderstanding the reviewer’s argument. Plenty of games have foreign enemies (CoD 4, Full-Spectrum Warrior, Battlefield 2; even going back to Delta Force). That you’re shooting Africans or Arabs or whoever else isn’t the issue! The issue is portrayal of these groups in terms of offensive stereotypes, as well as the storyline being loaded with propagandist rubbish about the War on Terror. Forget the “leave the politcs(sic.) to the blabbering politicians.” This game is loaded with pro-war propaganda! Maybe Eurogamer should furnish Cameron or Brown with a copy of this next time they go on about “knee-jerk anti-Americanism.”

    As for the review; brilliantly put! I liked SoF 2, but i’ll take you on your word, and give this one a miss!

  • malloc #42 4 years ago

    Remeber getting hours of fun out of a mp demo that was released several years ago. Had to get a briefcase from a building. Great fun.

    Good read. Not surprising news. For every few good FPS that get will always get one or two that drop that ball. I have a feeling after all the triple A game in 2007 we're going to be getting triple Zs in 2008.

  • Super_Zee #43 4 years ago

    Great, great review, funny and beautifully written. EG rules.

  • space_ace #44 4 years ago

    does it have a demo? :D

  • mechamonkey #45 4 years ago

    SOF2 multiplayer on the XBox (and PC) was brilliant, such a shame about this.

  • miiiguel #46 4 years ago

    These kinda games scare me the most, it might turn my son into individuals like jspoole and friends.

    And find it odd the "politically correctness" of beeing "politically incorrect" nowdays. In my house, with my friends, if politicaly correct means educated and polite, that's ok with me. That's the real western civilization after all.
    Edited by 2 at 02/01/08 @ 10:19

  • AbyssUK #47 4 years ago

    Erm the big bad guys in this game turn out to be white irishmen.. I am missing your point about the stereotyping. I don't agree because other games have done it much worse.. but yeah the game was buggy, easy as piss and the story boring.

    You didn't mention the terrible voice acting, this should be pointed out.. I lol'd many a time at that!!
    Edited by 2 at 02/01/08 @ 13:05

  • ice_freezer #48 4 years ago

    This game is horrifying and must be banished. Where the f*** is Jack Thompson I wonder.

  • mono_eric3 #49 4 years ago

    Little bit too much soap-box not enough game criticism for me.

    Totally throws away the review because the plot and its characters didn't sit well.

    Instead of ripping apart a game based on a misguided sense of morality and technical flaws, I'd like to hear about why the game deserves a 3/10.

    Poor heath system, and linear progression are the only items of use out of that review. 2 sentences for multiplayer ? - give me a break.

    I've played it, and its not great - I personally would give it maybe a 6. It's still great fun, but its also frustrating due to the amount of times that it feels like you die for no reason, and the technical problems do occasionally make the game impossible to complete. It's not innovative, but it actually stands out against all the other FPS games out there for its 'mindless run-and-gun screeching' most of the other games are more first-person than shooter.

    I put this game in the same league as something like 'Team America', its gross, poorly made, but generally fun. Though politically, they are indeed different, I'm not going to argue that payback in any way has a political statement to make. But for that same reason I see no need to get offended at material that is just regurgitated straight from the news.

    I'm not going to condemn or praise the material in this game, because for me, the fact that the game was fun for a while but not great on the whole is more important than anything else.

    This review is the final nail in the coffin for eurogamer reviews for me personally.

    D.

  • EmiliasHorse #50 4 years ago

    Terrible review!!

    Read like a 0/10 but received a 3/10. Not good at all.
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 13:54

  • YourMessageHere #51 4 years ago

    I really like this review, as it just goes to show that even professional critics can find a storyline/setting/underlying worldview uncomfortable to the point that they are unable to take a piece of entertainment on its merits. Personally, I had enough trouble swallowing COD4's story for the same reasons, if I had bought this I'd have taken it back, however good the gameplay was - I'm not giving my money to anyone who makes games with stories like this. Same as Black Hawk Down - great directing and I love a good gunfight, but the machismo and idiotic belief systems behind it were so disturbing to me that I found it really hard to keep watching it.

    Still waiting to hear why this gets 3/10 and not 1/10, though.

  • DanWhitehead #52 4 years ago

    Not every good review gets 10/10 and and not every bad review is a 0/10. This whole "read like a..." mentality is really odd.

    If you read the Eurogamer review guide, tucked way in the FAQ link on the left, it'll explain what each score means. A 0/10 or 1/10 means a game is fundamentally broken. It literally does not work. Payback works - it just works in an utterly pedestrian manner, and is blighted by sub-par technical aspects that, while not ruining the game, make it laughably inept by current standards.

    Although I do like the idea that a game where "it feels like you die for no reason, and the technical problems do occasionally make the game impossible to complete" should receive an above-average score because there's lots of shooting.

    As for the political aspects, they're in the game so I'm going to mention them. Anyone is free to disagree (provided you actually disagree with something I wrote, and not just looking for an excuse to launch into a pre-rehearsed "political correctness" screed) but to me reviewing a game is not that different to reviewing a movie. If we're to take games seriously - seriously enough to write and read about them critically - then why should we ignore such things as subtext and intent?

    You wouldn't read a review of a movie which just said "The acting was awful, the characters are shallow and unlikeable and the story is little more than cheap propaganda - but everything was in focus so 6/10".
    Edited by 1 at 04/01/08 @ 10:29

  • bloodflowers #53 4 years ago

    I'm interested to know if the game is fun, not fun, good or bad. It sounds like "not fun + bad". That's what you base ratings on.

    I really don't care about the politically correct morality garbage that followed the review. Mention the tone, if it's really there, sure. Get all preachy? No.

  • Maykael #54 4 years ago

    I do find terrorists and warlords bad. I do find Jihad crazy arabs insane and disturbing, but you right-winged christian fundamentalists are just as evil, insane and dangerous as any sucide bomber. People like JSpoole are the same as the people who drove those damned planes into WTC. They were just born in another part of the world. I'm sick of this hillbilly wisdom that says it knows where there's good and where there's bad with the kind of certainty that would make dr. Goebbls proud of the people that design the propaganda in the US. I know all of what your telling me you idiot. Going on a genocidal stampede (like they do it in this stupid game) is not the answer no matter what they do to us. We are not them.

  • BurningR #55 4 years ago

    YES! You're right Jspoole, i really dig Muslim terrorists and I don't think that black warlords even exist, you nailed me right there! *sigh*


    Maykael: Well I don't think Jspoole is a christian fundamentalist, but he definitely ain't too bright either...

    clearly he seems to think that there are no political nor ethical aspects in which groups you choose to portray as the bad guys, be that in a game or a film. The American mercenaries hired by the US military in Iraq comes to mind. Or the paramilitary death squads in Columbia, who the US supplies with weapons, so that they can kill anyone who criticizes the Columbian regime. Or....

    So Jspoole, please be a good drone and go back to work; the gaming industri needs your money.


    As for the criticism that the political/ethical aspect is irrelevant and the reviewer should concentrate on the graphics, game mechanics etc. instead: Well, I think we all agree that this game sucks. The tone of the review shows makes it clear that this game is a generic FPS, completely dated and broken to boot. I don't need to know how the health system works in detail. So in order to make it an interesting review, a good read, then you have to focus on something else. And the most interesting about this game is...tadaaa!

  • Captain_Jono #56 4 years ago

    Well done JSPOOL! Well done misrepresenting what Dan said yet again, and “launching into a pre-rehearsed PC-rant.”

    “Hell, the fact you even bring this all up in a soldier of fortune game is inane. I mean seriously, you are judging the ''story'' and ''politics'' in a game which, more or less and in a poorly written fashion, just asks you to go and shoot ''bad people.''

    That’s the bloody point. It’s all you do! As Dan said; this has been a year of innovation. Yet this game lacks any. After all, who wants to bother with innovative mechanics, gripping narrative, or even for that matter, decent graphics and seamless physics. Let’s run around this linear, and poorly rendered jungle shooting baddies and watch them explode! Haven’t seen anything like that since the last one came out.

    I’m not going to argue politics with the likes of you, seeing as you’re obviously incapable of responding to the real lines of argument. If you want to hold the naïve belief that America is a bastion of all that is good and just in the world; that’s your prerogative! But by the same standard, Dan’s entitled to put forward his own political reservations in a review that he wrote! All reviews; all writing for that matter, is subjective (any pieces which claim otherwise are lying). It’s up to you to get your brain out of neutral, and use some critical thinking. In short, if you like the idea of an old-fashioned shooter based on the war on terror, with gore; go out and buy it. No one’s going to begrudge you!
    Edited by 1 at 07/01/08 @ 20:42