Know thy enemy
The AI of the enemy characters in the demo varied a great deal. Sometimes, they showed flashes of intelligence, coming to the aid of a wounded comrade, or running when injured. Other times, I would come around a corner and find them pointing their guns at the walls, ignoring me until I shot them. Remember, though, this is just a demo. I can’t make any harsh judgments until the full version makes it’s way onto my hard-drive. The AI is better than a lot of games out there, even at this early stage, so improvements are bound to happen.
Your best friend, Hawk | A good pic of the sniper scope, from one of the cut-scenes | Terorists invade a nuclear lab | Look at all the brass flying |
How does it look?
SOF plays pretty much like any other shooter on the market. Using the standard mouse/keyboard I found the controls a little awkward. I didn’t feel like I had full control over the character, and I found myself falling off the train a few times because of it. The control inputs were a little abrupt, which made small movements difficult. Practice improved my handling, but I hope the overall feel is improved in future releases.
There goes the nuke, damn those guys! | And here’s the guards on the train. Sheep to the slaughter | The helicopter will piss you off. | And, here’s Johnny…ready to kick some ass |
So what do I get for a 95meg download?
The single player game offers up a sampling of the full games weaponry: a 9mm handgun (Black Panther), 12-gauge shotgun (Berserker), a big-ass knife (Pig Sticker), and the sniper rifle (Eagle Eye). My personal favorite is the shotgun, nothing quite like taking a guy’s arm off, and then picking up his dropped ammo. The sniper rifle handles very much like the one in Unreal Tournament. Select alternate fire, and the view switches to the scope, and zooms closer the longer the button is held. The demo also includes two playable levels, one in the New York Subway, the other on a speeding train. They show a variety of locations, from the gritty subway, to the dark underground tunnels, and finally the nuke-carrying train.
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