Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix Preview

After making a leap into the world of Star Wars with Jedi Outcast: Jedi Knight II, this company is back to the game that continues the story of the cold-blooded mercenary, weapons Specialist and "Military Consultant" John Mullins - a true 'Soldier of Fortune'.

The AK-74 snowman!

That's right blame it all on education!

The story about this game is rather unique - the main character is based on a real-life individual renowned for countless awards for bravery as well as many other achievements through his extensive military carrier. The basic storyline of Soldier of Fortune 2 is as follows: 'A new and insidious threat has arisen in the form of a bio-terrorist organization and their two-pronged Gemini Virus. Now, you're off on a transcontinental mission to stop the terrorists and destroy the virus before it's unleashed on humanity. Full frontal assaults, stealth and subterfuge are your tactics. Sub-machine guns, assault rifles and grenades are your tools. The world is on the brink of disaster...' As always, Raven intends to leave most of the game's plot a secret, so that players may enjoy the suspense as much as the in-game action and visual effects. However, we do know for a fact that some of the characters from the previous installment will be returning to Soldier of Fortune 2 - Madeline Taylor and Sam Gladstone, the well-known individuals that represent vital constituents of the game's plot. They also revealed some of the locations where Mullins will be taking his difficult, yet exciting mercenary work. He will be traveling through various environments like Hong Kong, Kamchatka, Prague, and Columbia.

Soldier of Fortune 2 has an imposing array of graphic features, which is going to distinguish it from innumerable contending FPS titles. Where does this power lie? Well, mostly in the largely accepted Quake III Arena engine. Once more, the design team at Raven Interactive decides to employ this powerful engine as an effective tool for generating an authentic-looking environment, in addition to highly detailed realistic character models. These models possess life-like facial expressions displayed with a specific and thoroughly textured skin color; which will altogether convey a unique look for each character. The visual specifics go on and on - It is especially worth mentioning that the game will feature a true-to-life fog effect. If you think the features stop there, you can guess again, cause the game is going to be powered by the boundless possibilities of Nividia's GeForce 3 chip (besides fog, the grass slowly shifting in the wind will by all means be one of the most alluring effects we can expect to see in the game). Likewise, the game is going to be adapted to weaker systems and 3D accelerating graphic cards. There's also the built-in TORR terrain system that was designed to enhance the appearance of the environment when the player uses land or air vehicles.

The weapons were also given a nice look, which was achieved with the use of the digital photographs of real-life weapons (the same technique utilized for making the character models). Weapon models have about 3,000 polygons a piece.

The unavoidable brutality (so-called GHOUL technology) shown in the original game, made it reign supreme over other FPS games which were subjected to ruthless censorship measures, and, as a result, this restricted their goriness and consequently made them seem less realistic than Soldier of Fortune. The integration of the GHOUL technology encompasses the ability of your character to blow limbs off of his foes. GHOUL technology gets sort of a sequel (GHOUL II), which was explained to be even more powerful than its forerunner, displaying more genuine effects. The developers also assured that they will intensify the damage details by furnishing the models with more hit zones per-character. If I remember this right, the previous game featured 26 hit zones, while the sequel will present up to 36 damage spots per character.

Naturally, after such an exhaustive briefing on the game's graphics, one would expect a similarly meticulous approach to gameplay elements. To begin with, the main character has many alternatives for moving around during his assignments - for instance he'll often have to ride motorized vehicles, or in some cases even a chopper (I'm not sure whether he'll get to operate the chopper's controls, but he will certainly be able to open fire on his inferior opponents on the ground). This proves that the game's atmosphere is sure to change often enough throughout gameplay.