Soldner is set in the near future at a time when all of the world’s powers
have deemed their militaries to be too problematic. These nations have instead
turned to mercenaries known as Soldners to implement the decidedly
non-diplomatic aspects of their foreign policies. With that I have just given
you the complete story behind the game, which is drawn from a couple of
sentences in the game’s manual. There is neither a single story element nor even
a mission briefing to be found anywhere in the game itself. Disappointing yes,
but we play games for the gameplay and not the story right? Unfortunately the
game is even more broken and incomplete than the storyline.
Your first clue that something is terribly wrong will be the game’s
incredibly long load time. The load progress bar will pause for such a long time
at a few spots that you’ll be certain that the game has locked up. The worst
point comes at about the 80% mark on the load bar when the delay can be measured
in minutes. The first time I started the game I was just about to restart the
computer at this point when military style music came blaring out of the
speakers, albeit filled with pauses and skips. After yet another delay the game
finished loading and I was finally at the start screen. I wonder how many gamers
will just give up on the game during on of its long loading pauses, assume that
the game flat out does not load, and begin hunting for their receipt for the
game?
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| You'd better get used to taking long walks. |
At the main screen you can customize your soldier’s appearance paper doll
style by mixing and matching heads, headgear, uniforms, accessories, and camo
patterns. This is actually a pretty cool feature as it allows you to create a
somewhat customized look for your soldier, er, soldner. Some of the choices are
odd though, such as a hockey mask and a red flannel shirt. I suppose that they
were included as an attempt at humor, but it definitely detracts from the game’s
special operations atmosphere when you go online and face a bunch of bozos in
hockey masks and red flannel shirts. There’s also the out of place inclusion of
World War II German uniform components. I suppose in the near future the Nazis
have turn to mercenary work to fund their Fourth Reich project…
Soldner supports both single player and online play, and I have to say that
it has the distinction of being one of the worst games that I’ve ever played in
the single player mode. The best way that I can think of to convey to you the
mind-numbingly horrendousness of the gameplay is to walk you through one of the
actual missions that I played in the game as it typifies the cornucopia of
problems found in the game.
First of all, there is no storyline, logical mission sequence, or rhyme and
reason to the single player game. You are plopped down into the middle of an
encampment without so much as a hint of where you are and what you are supposed
to be doing. Eventually you figure out that you need to interact with a
satellite uplink terminal to view the available mission list. The missions are
offered by the world powers of 2010, including China, Russia, and “North
America”, and completing a mission will unlock a new piece of equipment that can
be used in future missions. There is no other way to distinguish the missions
and it doesn’t matter at all which mission you select and who you’ll be working
for. In fact, there are only three or four possible mission objectives in the
game and they are recycled endlessly.
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