Gore: Ultimate Soldier

The Good
Its not the absolute worst FPS game I have ever played. The play feel of it isn't in itself too bad.

The Bad
The plot is at best cliched.
The graphics are perhaps on par for a 1998 release game, hard to believe this was released in 2002.
The enemies are a complete mish-mash, and the AI seems pretty poor. The addition of melee combat could have been interesting, if they didn't just run into your gunfire.
It has a stamina counter, which for all evidence seems like they just added it to have something to list as a feature, as it has no real use.

The Bottom Line
If you get the chance to play this game without buying it then go ahead, but unless you are an absolutely rabid collector, this is one to avoid wasting your money on.

The Good
Fast, violent, bloody, high octane action; cool but balanced weapons; very solid and balanced gameplay; cheesy but hilarious voice acting, especially screams of death and pain; game runs EXTREMELY smoothly; nice loud, violent gunshot sounds; I can't say enough about how solid the gameplay is

The Bad
You keep seeing the same enemies over and over again; one dimensional AI (but not the worst I've seen, and still challenging)

The Bottom Line
I love this game the same way I love Serious Sam and Doom - it's all about the action. This is really a game for hardcore, old school FPS fans who want nothing better than to cause total destruction and mayhem. Fans of tactical or war-based FPS games might think GORE is way too simple. No tiptoeing around, conserving ammo, strategizing or other nonsense in this game. Gore is a straight ahead and violent action game where your only goal is to mow down anything that moves. This may sound repetitive and boring, but it's not, because the gameplay and weapons are very well balanced - your weapons are never too powerful or too weak for any situation, and the AI, altough not the best I've seen by any stretch, provide a good challenge. The game is very violent and bloody - when you shoot someone, blood comes geysering out from everywhere, and if you shoot someone right up close with the four barrelled shotgun, he explodes! People have criticized the graphics for some reason, and sure, the graphics aren't Unreal II, Doom 3 or Panzer Dragoon Orta caliber, but they're certainly not bad, and they serve the game well because they never bog the processor down. Granted, I have a pretty powerful computer (P4, 3.2 GHz), but I was still very impressed at how amazingly smooth the game runs, without one single hitch, stutter or hiccup. Lastly, the game doesn't take itself seriously at all, and is a blast to play. I just love the horrible but hilarious voice acting during the game - screams of pain and death are totally exaggerated and peppered with classic quotes like, "Take that, you b**tch!!", or "I'm gonna rip you a new one!!" or "Ow!!!" You have to play it to appreciate how much of a riot this game is! The humor and great gameplay make GORE a winner.

The Good
It has a stamina option. That'd be neat, if it was original...

The Bad
I'm very sad I have even seen this game. I feel it is responsible for wasting two hours of my life in which I desperatly waited for it to get better.

It starts with a pretty weird plot-- in the future, a gang has gotten so powerful that the world is engulfed in an international war, and the police are losing. But the police built a machine called the 'meat machine' which instantly trains soldiers to be experts, and this turned the tide (I dunno about you, but I wouldn't step into any kind of a 'Meat Machine' if I was paid a million bucks). But now the gangsters have broken into the base and stolen some important piece of junk.

Yes, that's as bad as it sounds. But it gets worse. Clipping problems just litter this game, it's so unstable. The graphics themselves are not quite on par with modern stuff, to put it lightly. The weapons are very poorly modelled and balanced.

And then you see the enemies. These gangesters are so poorly made that they would have looked out of place even in Daikatana. On top of that, they are just plain stupid! The voice acting for them is awful, but fitting with how idiotic they look. You really need to play this game to understand how bad they are. How in the world these people could break into anything but a kleenex box is beyond me. They can't even make their way around a 6-inch crate on the ground!

The game just gets worse and worse as it goes on, throwing such nightmarish quality first-person-shooter content as you as 'hackers' (oh, how high tech) who laugh (and run) like they're fitted with helium breathers to bosses that get stuck in fences.

I might also add that the gore looks more like cherry juice, when there even is any. The game is quite lacking when it comes to that aspect.

The Bottom Line
I have never played a worse commercial FPS than this game. Spend your money on something decent-- heck, you'd even be better off burning it. Avoid at all costs!