In this ongoing look at significant moments in the history of video game design, we have already taken a look at Bungie’s Halo & Halo 2, Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, Nintendo’s Metroid and several others. The goal of this series is to go beyond simple gaming magazines and iPhone Apps reviews, and take a closer look at what defines memorability and quality in game design. In this twenty second part of the series we will examine some more of those classic moments where video game designers undoubtedly got it right and delivered a memorable, enduring and progressive gaming experience.

Soldier of Fortune 2 (PC) – Developed by Raven Software and released on the PC in 2002, Soldier of Fortune 2 (SOF2) quickly became a favorite of hardcore first person shooter fans. Running very well on the Quake III engine, SOF2, on the surface, seems to be a pretty typical game. The main character is a mercenary named John Mullins who is tasked with stopping a germ warfare attack on the United States. He accomplishes this by single handedly taking on armies of men with all manner of machine gun, pistol, rifle, shotgun, grenade and throwing knife that he can get his hands on. Battles in SOF2 can be very intense, as enemies can be numerous, aggressive and accurate with their shots. The storyline is about what you would expect from a first person shooter and there are no serious technical issues present in the game. All in all, it is an above average first person shooter with few memorable aspects. However, one of those aspects is not only memorable, it is progressive, daring and, unfortunately, lacking in many of today’s modern games. That aspect of the game is the realism of combat, and it makes up the focus of this entry in our series.

In playing a modern first person shooter from the current generation, we see fairly typical death animations from fallen characters. Take the latest Halo game, for example. In playing a game of Halo the Master Chief is given some fairly heavy weaponry. The shotgun, Spartan Laser and rocket launcher are some of the more potent weapons available to the Chief, and he uses them often throughout his journey. Players think little of rounding a corner only to run right into an enemy Grunt, because one blast to the chest from a shotgun sends the Grunt on a one way trip to the afterlife. What bothers many players is that the point blank shotgun blast to the bare chest of that tiny alien produces a small amount of blood and an otherwise untarnished torso. Where are the effects of that mighty weapon? Where is the tangible damage? The answer, unfortunately, is nowhere. Game makers of today seem to have an unwritten agreement that they will not show the impact of these powerful weapons, even when the game world is otherwise full of realism. Beyond a couple of shining yet rare examples (Fallout 3, the GTA games), this agreement remains intact. However, eight years ago SOF2 shocked gamers the world over by introducing realism to its game world.

In SOF2, the weapons do damage. Now, we are not talking about producing clouds or specks of blood on an enemy’s chest, or triggering a death animation, we are talking about realistic damage. If you shoot an enemy in the leg with a shotgun in SOF2, that enemies leg will cease to exist, and the one legged enemy will scream in pain as he falls down and tries to shoot you back while writhing in his pain filled rage. The visceral feedback and reward the player feels when their heavy weapon attack results in mutilated enemies may have been a bit too violent for some, but the level of immersion it offers cannot be underestimated. SOF2 was an adult game, made by adults, for adults. It is for this reason that the level of violence is perfectly acceptable. Video game makers often talk of how they struggle to make their game align with the real world, yet they so often take players out of the experience by making the violence such a disconnected and artificial experience.

The developers at RavenSoft had the courage to make the violence in SOF2 more realistic than any game had up to that point – and very few have since. What’s more is that they did not rely on that violence to hold up their game, but rather used it to better immerse the player in a game world, give the character and his struggle some true weight and tension and show a side of war that too many games choose to ignore. For these reasons, SOF2 deserves its place alongside some of the most memorable and progressive games of all time.