While Raven decided to throw in the odd mildly challenging puzzle to keep things interesting, the heart of the game is thrilling armed action. Action varies depending on the situation and your weapon of choice. In one mission you may be using the excellent sniper rifle (imagine the Unreal Tournament sniper rifle but with a cool incremental zoom rather than a smooth one) to take out enemy militiamen.

In another you might be running through Siberian snow using a machine gun complete with under slung caustic grenade launcher due to the limited visibility caused by heavy (and graphically rather realistic we might add) fog that makes sniping impossible. And a few missions later you'll find yourself in a Tokyo office building relying on a powerful pistol to deliver an effective punch at close quarters or using a microwave beam gun to fry enemies to a crisp.

The wonderfully varied and very well designed missions are a large part of what makes Soldier of Fortune such a quality title. Of course the weapons are another important part of the mix, but you have to be careful when using them. At the bottom of the screen is a sound meter that, unlike the one in Thief which helped you remain undetected by guards, prevents you running in with the trigger held permanently down.