Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

Overview

Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix is the sequel to the 2000 Raven Software developed first-person shooter, Soldier of Fortune. The SoF series is particularly well known for its gory contents as numerous body parts on a human model can be blown off with bloody results thanks to the GHOUL 2.0 engine. They're also known for their modern military settings which take place in real world locations. SoF II continues those key points and adds in a few new gameplay additions as well. For example, one mission has you sneaking around a drug lord's mansion grounds and you must avoid detection by any of his guards. However, the vast majority of gameplay is still your standard FPS fare with real world weapons as you gun down dozens of terrorists in your way.

Plot

The player once again takes control of John Mullins, the same mercenary hero from the first game. This time he must track down a global terrorist organization bent on mass destruction using chemical warfare. This takes Mullins all over the world with such locations like a Columbian jungle and dockside in Hong Kong. All the while, he must also fight to find out who the mole is within The Shop, the organization he works for and who pays him for the many missions he takes on. Joining him is his old buddy, Sam Gladstone, and his new partner, Madeline Taylor, helping him from time to time throughout the story.

According to Raven Software, a few of the missions were actually based on real-life John Mullins' assignments.

Weapons and Combat Items

Soldier Of Fortune II: Double Helix contained 22 weapons, 25 if you include dual welding, all of which are real world weapons. Also in your arsenal is Thermal goggles as well as Night vision. Most of the guns have there own firing mode: auto, burst, and single shot, they can also be equipped with different extras such as a grenade launcher. Weapons are as follows :

Melee	Description
	Steel Commando Knife The steel knife is the default weapon.  Six knives can be carried at maximum and up to five can be thrown using alt fire.  It is the only dedicated melee weapon in the game.

Handguns and SMGs	Description
	M1911A1  The 1911 is the first pistol of the game. It has a magazine of 7 rounds and uses .45 ACP bullets. This ammunition is quite powerful and is efficient, however the gun can also be used to whip enemies and knock them back. This weapon can't have any accessories and can be dual wielded.
	M3A1 This submachine gun fires slowly, but since it uses .45 ACP rounds like the M1911 it packs a punch!  Its 30 round magazine makes it very suited to urban combat. This weapon doesn't have any accessories and is mainly found early in the game.
	SOCOM The SOCOM is a great pistol and like its brother the M1911 it uses .45 ACP rounds and can be used to whip enemies.  Its main advantage is the fact it has a 12 round magazine and can be equipped with a wide range of accessories: we can add a silencer and a laser sight or a flashlight. This weapon can be dual wielded, it's hard to find another SOCOM in the game but we can use it with the other dual wielded guns.
	Micro UZI The Micro UZI is a good machine pistol, it's not very powerful but it fires very fast. It has a 30 round magazine and uses 9 mm ammo and can be dual wielded with another UZI or with a pistol. It has full-auto and 3 round burst modes.

 

Assault Rifles	Description
	M4A1 M203 The M4 is the American assault rifle of the game. It's mainly used by special forces and, of course, some friendly soldiers. This weapon is already equipped with a grenade launcher that adds moderate power to the weapon. This weapon uses 5.56 mm ammo and 40 mm ammo for the grenade launcher. It has a 30 round magazine and packs a punch. The primary downside to the M4 is the tendency for it to climb a lot.
	AK74 The AK 74 is mainly used by terrorists in the game, it shares many points with the M4 except it has no grenade launcher and it can be equipped with a bayonet. The main advantage is the fact that the weapon is more stable than the M4
	XM 29 SABR OICW The OICW is a prototype weapon given by "The Shop". It uses the same KE ammunition as the other assault rifles but has a 20 mm airburst grenade launcher. It has a 30 round burst mode and a scope capable of detecting armed people (people wielding a weapon) and has integrated nightvision. The grenade launcher is only accessible through the scope and is impossible to reload until it is empty. This versatile weapon can replace many of the guns in the game.

 

Shotguns	Description
	Mossberg M590 This is the pump action shotgun of the game. This weapon is powerful, but slow. It fires 12 gauge shotgun shells and has a tube magazine of 8 shells. The great thing about this weapon is the fact we can buttstroke (strike someone with the buttstock) our enemies with this allows, in some situations, to save ammo and reduce the times we are forced to reload.
	USAS 12 The USAS is a formidable assault shotgun, it fires the same ammo as the Mossberg and uses a box magazine of 10 rounds.  This allows the weapon to be reloaded as fast as an assault rifle. It has an auto and a semi-auto mode for better control. A shotgun of choice but, unlike the Mossberg, it has no additional buttstroke functionality.

 

Sniper Rifle	Description
	HK MSG 90 This is the sniper rifle of the game. It's very effective and uses 7.62 mm ammunition. A strange fact about this weapon is that in the game it has a 20 round magazine graphically, but in reality we only have a 5 round magazine. The weapon has a powerful zoom that is more powerful than the OICW. It is the only weapon that doesn't have crosshairs.

 

Grenade Launchers	Description
	Hawk MM 1 The MM 1 is a semi-automatic 40 mm grenade launcher. It doesn't share its ammo with the M203 mounted on the M4 and unlike the real weapon it has a 10 round revolver barrel magazine. This weapon is impressive and can deal damage against a lot of enemies. The reloading is made round by round, but it occurs very quickly.
	RPG 7 This is the only rocket launcher of the game. This weapon is great against bosses and groups of enemies and this is the most powerful weapon of the game. However, it's quite useless due to the rare presence of ammo and things to use it against.

Machine Guns	Description
	M60 The M60 is the only portable machine gun of the game. This weapon uses 7.62 mm ammo but strangely doesn't share its ammunition with the MSG 90. When in its portable version it has a 99 round belt fed magazine and packs quite a punch. This weapon is powerful, but inaccurate. In its mounted form (mounted in vehicles or in nests) the weapon has a definite ammo stock often around 1000 - 2000 rounds and it can jam.
	RPD The RPD is often found in East Europa and African countries. It only exists as a turret and like the M60 it has around 1000 - 2000 cartridges.

 

Grenades	Description
	M67 The M67 is a grenade that is very uncommon to find throughout the game, we can only start with it by selecting it as part of our equipment in the mission briefing.
	L2A2 This high explosive grenade is often found on enemy commando corpses.
	MDN 11 This weapon is mainly found in the mid-game, it's a grenade carried by some soldiers.
	F1 This fragmentation grenade is found in East Europa and is carried by some enemies.
	AN M14 The AN M14 is the only incendiary grenade of the game and is rare to find. This is great to set up fire and burn enemies with, its red color makes it easily recognizable from the other grenades.
	Flashbang
	White Phosphorous smoke

Goggles

• Binoculars
• Night Vision
• Thermal Vision

Multiplayer

Soldier of Fortune II contains five different multiplayer modes: death match, team death match, infiltration, capture the flag and elimination. The game was later updated to version 1.03 where they included two more multiplayer modes: VIP (very important person) and demolition.
 
The game also had a unique system for its time:  Randomly generated multiplayer maps.  The system was great on paper, maps that were always different, but the system was clunky and often failed to compile a map that was even close to functional.  If, by chance, you came across a map that was actually worth checking out, you could record it via a code and anyone who typed that specific code would get the same map that you had gotten, without ever having to download the map; it was all coded into the system.
 

Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix Gold Edition

The Gold Edition of the game was released 25th of February 2003. Some of the changes include:

• Demolition game type added to multiplayer
  
• 11 new multiplayer maps
• 3 new weapons: SIG 552 Rifle, MP5SD weapon and Silver Talon Pistol
• PunkBuster Anti-Cheat for online multiplayer