Well, it seems like it's been comfirmed that Soldier of Fortune 3 is going to come out. Here is a YouTube video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bEA5Dg9L0ZM

Soldier of Fortune 2 was one of my favorite games of all time. I downloaded mods for it and I played it nearly every day for hours and hours. I was completely intoxicated with the "realistic" or "tactical" genre of first person shooters and applied mods to make it harder and more realistic.

HOWEVER, this preview does not look like Soldier of Fortune 3 would be "realistic" or "tactical" in the same way as #2. The player is strafing while firing off really accurate rockets, which is much more SOF1 style than SOF2. In SOF2 running out into the middle of a firefight like that would typically make you die and instead the best tactic was to use cover and move from piece of cover to piece of cover when the enemy started to throw grenades.

SOF3 looks really cartoony with blood and gore that looks faker than the blood and gore from SOF2. Enemies seem to have a lot of hitpoints!

I guess that since the company developing this game is not Raven they have forgotten about the appeal of the "tactical" or "realistic" shooter. It looks like now they're just going to go and try to be a Halo clone with human enemies and extra gore.

I think I'm going to skip this one. It always boggles the mind how these game companies think they can be successful making sequels that are nothing like the prequels. WTH is the point of making a sequel if you're not even trying to appeal to the people who liked the game last time?


EDIT: This was the mod I'd been using for SOF2, which I really liked: http://labyrinth.sof2files.com/mainmenu.htm

Basically, it made you take a lot less hits (both armor and health would be depleted, and without armor you'd basically die in a hit or two), added weapons with correct magazine sizes, and made recoil more realistic, so that it was actually wothwhile to use your rifle in semi automatic mode at longer distances. Massive spraying was only useful at close range.

It also made the rail shooter levels a lot harder as vehicles were less vulnerable to your machine gun fire and your accuracy was way down. The rail shooter levels went from being a cakewalk to being real balls-to-the-wall challenges!

Anyway, that mod was able to give me my dream game play for a very long time. However, it seems like SOF3 is going in the exact opposite direction with sprinting out through the open, not getting hit, and firing rockets while walking.

If you're really into realistic tactical shooter, you might be interested in the Infiltration mod for Unreal Tournament (the first one).

Deus Ex did indeed use the Unreal engine. That's not really a selling point, as the engine is the single weakest part about the game.

~J

The first unreal engine was quite good when it came out. And I really like the "feel" it has. I prefer it to the technically superior Q3 engine (but that's just personal taste).

Spoken like someone who never drowned in a dark, flooded tunnel because the engine doesn't have dynamic lighting and the level designers didn't think to put "lit" textures down there so you could actually find your way out.

~J

You're right, I played a great deal of Unreal/UT/Deus Ex (and mods) and I don't remember this happening. I see how it's possible, but either it never happened to me or it wasn't enough trouble to make me remember it.