Soldier of Fortune Shots

We recently had a chance to play an early copy of Raven Software's upcoming gore-filled shooter, Soldier of Fortune. The first-person game uses a heavily modified version of the venerable Quake II engine, which now features a richer 32-bit color palette instead of the original's 16-bit palette and incorporates several new technologies, like scrolling outdoor environments and hit-specific character reactions.

Players will take on the role of a mercenary who'll have to deal with terrorist and hostage situations in a number of hotspots across the globe. The levels, which range from a New York subway station to a speeding train in Russia, are surprisingly varied in their layout and objectives, and they prevent the game from ever getting repetitive. To ensure a measure of realism in Soldier of Fortune, Raven secured the services of John Mullins, an ex-Special Operatives, to assist in the development of the game.

The pride and joy of Raven, however, is Soldier of Fortune's GHOUL rendering system. GHOUL adds a devilishly fun level of realism to this game by giving each enemy 3D model a number of different hit locations. That means, depending on which part of his body is shot, an enemy's arms will recoil, he will cradle his knees in pain, or his head will explode. There are 26 of these hit-specific locations and corresponding pain reactions for each enemy in Soldier of Fortune. Couple that with the game's over-the-top level of blood and gore, also courtesy of GHOUL, and it's all but guaranteed that Senator Lieberman and company will be on the lookout for this one, come next year.

Soldier of Fortune is set to be released by Activision sometime in February 2000.