Back when I attended E3 in 2003, one of the coolest games that I got to sit and take a look at was Soldner, and I’ve been trying to keep an eye on this game throughout the months and through previews, betas, etc. Well, the whole idea and concept were great … you know, vehicles, tons of outfits and weapons, and fully destructible environments featuring crumbling buildings and the like. Well, while I have fun with the finished version, it unfortunately turned out to be a little less than expected due to some glitches and some shortcoming of promises that couldn’t be overlooked.

Soldner takes place in the year 2010, when it’s cheaper and more effective to shuck military action in favor of smaller, specialized mercenary groups when faced with conflict. The player gets to take the role of one of the soldiers in a group, and has access to an arsenal that would make General Patton himself shake and cower like a 2-year old that includes real-world weapons like the Desert Eagle, Stinger Weapon System, and the RG6 Grenade launcher (just to name three out of over 70 possible ones to play with). In addition, Soldner also contains over 50 land and air vehicles to mobilize and bring destruction down on opponents like the A-10 Warthog, the M1A1 Abrams, and the BTR-70.

Controls to Soldner will be nothing new to the FPS or third-person fan either (since you can do both), and of course you have full ability to map out the keys as you see fit to do. A standard soldier will of course be able to run and strafe, and will have access to cart weapons on their person through a neat little system that makes you use personal or team funds to purchase everything you need from handguns to rifles to vehicles to equipment. In the single-player missions, you can also request arms from the country that is asking for your assistance, which may help in beating up the bad guys while keeping check on your pocketbook.

One of the neat features to Soldner is the ability to have one player signed on as the commander of the squad. While the title is kinda cool, the best feature of being the commander is getting to use real-time satellite feeds to offer up laser guidance and information to your group to help plan the best route of attack. This also helps out players who may be newer to the game or who don’t have the best strategic minds (like myself) since the commander can assist in launching attacks or defending positions.

While squad-based combat games are nothing new to gamers who enjoy these types of titles, nor is the usage of vehicles (BF1942 and Call of Duty), one neat feature about Soldner is that these vehicles and weapons can cause damage to the environment as well as other vehicles or people, which adds in a touch of realism to the game. For example, I was sneaking through a heavily forested area with an anti-tank missile and came across an amphibious-style troop carrier. After popping off a rocket, the vehicle caught on fire, then at the second missile (which blew it up), I was rewarded with not only a nice explosion, but also had to run since about 5 trees that were surrounding the now-dead vehicle teetered and fell down … some of which obviously came down towards me. Cool experience I must say.

Unfortunately, these things really impressed me in the preview build and the overall premise to the game did as well … but as it turns out all was not up to speed in Soldner land. There were some major frustrations that I ran into even after applying the patch files that really caused me to get annoyed. For starters, I had to start over about five times in single-player mode due to various game glitches. These weren’t things like running into a tree from a foot away or anything, but some really rushed kinds of things like standing in front of base camp to get a mission, then winding up out in the middle of nowhere before I could get anything with base camp now being located under the ground, which of course means I get to stand in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but try and start over. It gets good from here …

I click on the Escape key to get the menu up so I can yet again do a restart on the mission, and the game won’t let me. Nope … apparently I have to finish the mission I’m on first or I don’t get to go to the next one. Well, I logged out, logged back in (and with a slow load time this was a pain) and restarted the mission. Well, round two went about like the first round … get into a vehicle, drive to the mission location, get out, and snipe the bad guys guarding the target that I needed to blow up. Well, all went according to plan until I got where I needed to go, only to find that the fuel tank that I needed to blow up was apparently invisible now, so I decided to completely uninstall and re-install the game. Needless to say it didn’t help.

Another issue that I ran into was a really lackluster AI opponent, apparently none of which have had any formal combat training. Most of their movements to try and dodge bullets or get out of my sights consisted of dancing back and forth in one place while I just lead the target. In addition, there were times where I could get right next to one without him moving or trying to do anything, and other times where one would be in combat stance right next to me and then would just stand there while I calmly got out a combat knife and scalped him. Also, AI opponents can drive, but as far as driving goes … forget about it. I got pursued by one of them in a jeep which consisted of them trying to run over me, but since I got out of the way he simply just pinballed back and forth between a few trees until the jeep exploded and he died. Well, I guess on a bright note it saves on ammo costs.

Probably the biggest issue that I ran into with the finished build of Soldner is the overall sluggish feel to the game and the horrid controls for the vehicles. Everything that you do just feels slow, and God forbid you get stuck about 2 kilometers from your objective with no vehicles since you will be walking (it’s supposed to be running, but again I reference the slow feeling) for what seems like an hour. Also, the vehicles are extremely loose in controlling, and will slide around in circles at the slightest turn. They will also seem to smoke and catch fire when hitting anything harder than 25 miles per hour, and since you have to spend your money on this stuff it gets really annoying quickly. In addition, try to keep a steady camera angle behind them that you want while moving. Sorry folks … it just ain’t gonna happen.

The game is also multiplayer and LAN capable, which definitely helps out since the AI issues and even a lot of the vanishing objectives seemed to be a lot better. The problem with online primarily revolves around some graphical problems and collision detection, which isn’t the greatest thing in the world but it beats a full re-install I guess. While online, I had issues come up like running into a fence post and having the slats a few yards down break instead, I got a jeep stuck upside down after running over an invisible tree, and there were problems with my character becoming headless after getting out of a sniper sight. Why? The world may never know.

Overall, Soldner really impressed the heck out of me when I first saw it run at E3, and I enjoyed the beta version as well, but the finished product unfortunately was way too glitchy and had way too many issues to live up to my prediction that I made that it would be the one to take the throne from CoD and BF1942 (which I now unfortunately have to take back and quietly slink away with my tail tucked). Honestly, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy sitting and playing the game (in multiplayer only though), but I would also say to be careful of the $50.00 purchase price since this one may wind up being way too frustrating for the price tag. Try the demo first before you buy or you may be an unhappy camper … er, spawn camper, or … well, you get the idea.
 

Gameplay: 5.1
Standard FPS or third-person controls, all of which can be mapped out. Unfortunately, there are a bunch of glitches in the single-player game that cause it to be more annoying than what it’s worth, since you apparently can’t restart a mission until you’ve finished the one you’re on. In addition, the AI is terrible and either they don’t do much of anything or blow themselves up in vehicles, and the game overall just feels really S-L-O-W.

Graphics: 6.9
The levels are really big, and there were some impressive graphics features like tree lines in the horizon and things like that. There are a lot of graphics problems too though, mainly in collision detection issues like hitting objects with nothing happening. Also, shooting at the sides of buildings and such usually doesn’t do more than punch a hole in it versus knocking it down or exposing much more than that.

Sound: 6.1
The background music usually consists of a fast-drum-cadence-like beat which isn’t bad, but it also doesn’t do much more than just add some background noise into the game. The voiceovers were also just kind of OK, and really didn’t do much at all.

Difficulty: Easy
Obviously, the online mode was a little more challenging since you’re going up against live opponents, but off-line the hardest thing to overcome is the technical issues that may cause you to restart.

Concept: 5.3
This is that “game that could have been,” and it was honestly one of the more impressive ones that I had seen over the past year or so. Unfortunately, the finished product didn’t live up to what I thought it was going to be nor what I thought that it would ultimately do.

Multiplayer: 5.7
Well, if you’re going to get the game this is the reason to do it. While it’s not as bad as the single-player mode, the sloppy vehicle controls, bad camera control, and silly things like disappearing heads or collision detection will probably be more annoying than fun obviously.

Overall: 5.2

Well, I don’t like to eat my words … but I’m also big enough to admit when I have to. I really thought that this was going to be “the game” and talked it up to be, but the finished product really let me down due to tons of problems - bad AI, sloppy controls, and slow gameplay - so I unfortunately can’t even recommend it to even the most die-hard combat fan. If you plan to get it, try the demo first.