Introduction

Developer: Raven
Publisher: Activision
Soldier of Fortune official page: http://www.activision.com/games/sof/

Mercenary Fun

The gaming community is brimming with anticipation on the impending release of a multiplayer Soldier of Fortune demo. Today's demos commonly weigh in at 50 MB or more, so how is a modem user to know if the long download is worth his or her time? Luckily for you, Activision was nice enough to send over an early copy of the SoF multiplayer OEM.

Shotgun

C4 ready for pickup

We've spent a good deal of time over the last week or so playing the Soldier of Fortune OEM over LAN. You see, FS has been without T1 access for a few weeks now (up until last Friday), since moving into the new office. As a matter of fact, the entire workforce of Gamers.com and Firingsquad has been sharing 8 modem lines over that period of time. Yikes! Being LPB for so long has turned us into a bunch of softies - there was no way we were going to play Q3 over modem connect. Without fast net access, we've all been practicing a little too much at Dance Dance Revolution the last couple of weeks. Activision sent us the Soldier of Fortune multiplayer OEM just in time to stem the tide of madness.

ammo boxes

.44 magnum

Not just another Q2 game

As one of the last games based on the Quake 2 engine, Raven's Soldier of Fortune represents the end of an era. With Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament already out, many people might be asking what a Quake 2 engine game could possibly bring that's new? The fact is that Raven has done much more than slap a different face on the venerable id game - the developers packed a ton of fresh new technology into the game. True locational based damage, bolt on attachments, realistic weapons, and advanced animation make Soldier of Fortune into a much more immersive first person shooter than most people might expect out of a Quake 2 engine game. For more details on the technology, please refer to our earlier SoF preview. Otherwise, read on for details on the multiplayer OEM.