" Take a good long look...and you will understand why my head is so bloody. Banging one’s head on the wall is not conducive to a healthful lifestyle. It will however help with the memories of playing this game. "

      Title: Soldier of Fortune by Crave Entertainment

      Format: Dreamcast FPS

      Reviewing Monkey: Chimpan-A

      The Hype: Hey, in case you missed out on this… beauty… on the PC, this First Person Shooter has been ported to the Dreamcast. Follow your on screen mercenary as he shoots people for fun and profit. Featuring Gore Zones and more blood than you can shake a stick at. This game takes you on a romp around the world to stop terrorist action. Right now, let’s just romp through this review and then promptly forget about the game.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Graphics: Well the humans do look like humans. I’ll give them that. Blocky, grainy, ugly, eye hurting humans, but humans nonetheless. The backgrounds are dull and worthless. Don’t get me started on the horrible pixelation. The weapons are relatively boring, with somebody trying a little too hard to make them look cool. The gore effects remain some of the better-looking things in the game. Legs go flying, along with heads, arms, and other body parts. Watching a guy grab his groin after popping a cap in there will give you an immature laugh the first few times you do it. Otherwise however, this game gains nothing from its console transition. 2 out of 5

      Sound: There’s nothing wrong with the sound. Neither is there anything right. The guns make appropriate gun sounds, the screams of pain and lamenting of the women are all fine and dandy. Nothing to write about really. It will neither enhance nor detract from your experience. 3 out of 5

      Game Play: First up, there’s a reason why most first person shooters with any kind of complicated control scheme don’t make it to the console scene. Trying to play Soldier of Fortune with a Dreamcast controller is like trying to play Twister with a missing limb. It can be done, but it requires more work (and weirder combinations) than it ever should. Worse, you can’t customize the controls, but must simply choose from one of three configurations. Three! Ugh. If you can get past the fact that a retarded chimp designed your controls, you’ll find a game that’s not really that much worth playing. It pretty well follows a standard FPS formula. Follow the hallways until you find enemies. Shoot said enemies repeat until end of level. The gore zones can liven things up every once in a while. Seeing how many guys you can defeat through the loss of a leg is a far more interesting goal than any this game will throw at you. 1 out of 5

      Level and Environment Designs: The backgrounds are dull and uninteresting, and the levels aren’t much better. They try to throw some spice into it by putting in odd levels like being on a moving train and having to make your way through the outside of it. These attempts come out badly though, especially with the train level where you’ll find yourself falling off the train more often than not (Oh thank you, controller scheme). 2 out of 5

      Multiplayer: No Multiplayer for the console version. It’s hard enough to get one person to play it; do you really want to subject another person to this crap?

      Replayability: I’m so glad to be writing this review, because it means I will never, ever, have to play that game again. No multiple endings, no big secrets to speak of, nothing of any use to make you come back to this clunker. Even if they were here, I don’t know if they would be worth going through this game again. 1 out of 5

      Story/Dramatics: Badass merc saves the world from terrorists with nukes. You know, wouldn’t it be nice if the terrorists gave nukes a rest every once in a while. Maybe steal some copies of "Glitter", that’d be almost as bad. It’s a pretty cut and dry story, but at least it’s there. And it stays there for the whole game, even. You can expect the standard dramatics as well. Love, death, rock and roll… something like that. Nothing of particular interest to anyone who’s ever seen a movie, not even a terrorist movie, just a movie in general. 2.5 out of 5

      Instructions and Learning Curve: The instructions do cover what you need to know to control your game. Including if you happen to have a Dreamcast keyboard. Which, by the way, if you have one, use it. Do yourself a favor and use it. They tell you about a few of the weapons (not all, just some) in the game, and give you an overview of the basic story up till now. Learning to deal with the controls will be the biggest hurdle to take. After that it all becomes natural to any FPS players out there. 3 out of 5

      Installation and Real System Requirements: And as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the game has absolutely atrocious load times. Sitting there staring a black screen with a magazine chamber slowly filling with bullets does not a fun time make. This game certainly doesn’t push any kind of graphical boundaries for the Dreamcast. I don’t know if it pushes anything but my buttons (quite a reversal). 1 out of 5

      The Verdict:

You know it wasn’t that great a game on the PC…And it suffered on its trip to the DC. Take a good long look at all of that and you will understand why my head is so bloody. Banging one’s head on the wall is not conducive to a healthful lifestyle. It will however help with the memories of playing this game.

      The Good: If you shoot their nuts, they grab their nuts. If you shoot their leg, it comes off. That’s about it.

      The Bad: To exhausted to recount. Let’s just say "The Game" and leave it at that.

      The Overall Ugly: A standard FPS comes over to the console side. It does not fare well.

      What it's Worth: A swift boot to the shins of the buyer.