For starters, there are some escort missions that break up the action a little. This would be fine, if it wasn't for the fact that the game is bug ridden. If you were freed from a blood diamond camp, would you just sit in your cell and not move, even when being shot at? Would you walk halfway down a corridor stop dead in your tracks, and block your rescuer from moving in any direction? Nope, thought not. SoF Payback has many annoying glitches like this. What makes them worse is that once the civilian has stopped moving, you can't just reload the last checkpoint, but you have to reset the game, and restart the entire level from scratch.
Levels, while beautifully textured, are extremely linear. There is only one way to beat a level, and it's pointed out at you from the moment you the game starts. There is next to zero replayability due to the lack of freedom the player is given. While the levels are beautiful to look at, the enemies themselves are not. There's only so many identical people to shoot before you get bored, and it gets tricky to determine what's friend or foe when they all have the same face and clothes. The A.I. seems great at first glance, popping out from behind cars to take you out and working in packs to put lead in your face, but after seeing how enemies react exactly the way no matter what you do, you quickly realise that the game is merely jumping from one set piece to the next. This thought is confirmed when you hit the rare occasions of a section without set pieces, and the enemies all of a sudden become stupider than solar powered mining hats.
Fighting through idiot bad guys would be almost tolerable if the boss fights were decent. Unfortunately, they aren't. At All. Not only are the fights themselves very plain and unexciting, but they are also very easy, and have incredibly unsatisfying endings. Speaking of endings, Payback doesn't have one. For some reason, Cauldron HQ thought that this game would be a hot seller, and would warrant a cliffhanger ending. Oops!
Article comments
1 - AXA
the gameplay & graphics is pretty good... well done for this game..