Soldier of Fortune does something that's hard to do: Unintentionally be campy and enjoyable.
In Soldier of Fortune, you play as John Mullins, a mercenary for hire. The game has the typical Hollywood-cliched plot: terrorists steal four nukes from a base in the former Soviet Union. In the game, you must find out their plans and stop them.
The game itself has your commonplace handgun, submachine gun, shotgun, plus a few out there weapons like a slugthrower and a microwave-pulse gun. It's a good balance between realism and futuristic weaponry.
Like in Quake II, you get to use certain items like grenades and plastiques in a seperate area, but the keys that are usually bound to it ("[" and "]") are a bit hard to use in the default WSAD config. This is a similar problem I realized in Quake II. And just like Quake II, you have settings where you can quickly use a certain item by using the keypad, but it's still a little unweildy.
Some of the weapons look oddly modelled, and some of the characters look pretty blocky. Also the "lip-synching" is pretty odd-looking as it's not done as an actual open mouth. The game also has a sound device that shows how noisy you are, but in the end it doesn't matter for you can make plenty of noise and not have to worry that much.
Another problem I had was that there's a few parts in the game where you must fight bosses (including the final boss) that take a plentiful number of hits before they go down, as opposed to other foes. This wouldn't be a problem if the bosses in question weren't human.
These shortcomings, however, are redeemed with the GHOUL system, which gives you the chance to blow heads off or someone's arm. It's amusing to constantly shoot your enemy in the arm and leg constantly seeing them wince in pain.
Every weapon in the game sounds as it should, and the music is over-the-top Hollywood-style music.
The game's multiplayer contains your common Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, as well as this new mode titled "Arsenal" where you kill people with strong weapons first, then as you kill more and more, you eventually have to kill them with the pistol or knife, which is hard when everyone has stronger weapons than you do. There's also "Assassin" where you must hunt down and kill someone while someone else will attempt to kill you. Arsenal is one of my favorite modes, and I hope more games make use of a similar mode.
I personally think Soldier of Fortune is an underrated game. While its sequel relied a bit more on realism, the original is still a fun, little romp. While this makes the game seem kinda silly with its stereotypical plot and other things, I think it makes the game more enjoyable. It's somewhat campy, but it doesn't try to be that way, it just accidentally ends up that way. If you like throwing most realism out the window, I'd suggest this game.
Pros: Nice amusing storyline, nice variety of weapons, great multiplayer modes
Cons: Sub-par graphics, unrealistic boss battles.