We're constantly surprised by the ability of designers and developers to offer us something new and exciting in the crowded first-person shooter genre, and Activision's latest offering has certainly got our eyebrows heading skywards.
Andy Smith

You said it yourself, it's just a first-person shooter!
It most certainly is, but don't write it off there. Soldier of Fortune (licensed from the mercenary's favourite American magazine of the same name, whose mission statement says, "Our editorial policy is pro-military, pro-strong US defence, pro-police and pro-veteran. We strongly support the right of the individual to keep and bear arms") is rather special.

Okay, in what way?
Developed by Activision-owned Raven Software, the game uses a heavily modified Quake II engine and looks absolutely gorgeous. But more than this, the designers have given each of the enemies some 26 'gore' zones. Essentially, you can hit the baddies in 26 different places to cause different amounts of damage. This makes the action look terribly realistic. The version we had demoed to us recently was scary. If you thought the violence in GoldenEye was frighteningly realistic, wait until you corner someone in SOF, blow the gun out of their hand, watch them cower before removing one of their legs and then finish the job off by removing most of their head.

Cripes! Sounds like it won't be one for the squeamish...
It certainly won't. All the action's been motion-captured too, so you can imagine just how horrendously realistic it looks - the 'games turn you into bad people' brigade are going to love getting on the back of this one. Thoughtfully though, Raven have built in a 'don't show us all the blood please' mode, but we can't really seeing anyone wanting to use it.