There seems to be no end to Raven Software's impressive streak of quality action games. From Heretic to Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and everything in between, Raven's long line of intense, visceral, and sometimes controversial games have established the Wisconsin-based developer as one of the most respected creators of shooters for the PC in this industry. Raven's next game, Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, looks to be no different. Announced almost exactly one year ago, Soldier of Fortune II promises to deliver even more of the carnage and over-the-top violence that made its predecessor so famous by fully taking advantage of id Software's Quake III: Team Arena 3D engine and Raven's own GHOUL and ROAM technologies. At the time of the game's announcement, however, there was no promise made of any multiplayer component at all. In fact, Activision and Raven didn't confirm that Soldier of Fortune II would have any multiplayer capabilities until late last year, and even though we've played the game's single-player missions several times, we never had the opportunity to shoot it out against other human players until very recently. Activision sent us a build of Soldier of Fortune II's multiplayer game a few days ago, and the entire office has been engaged in heated gun battles ever since.

　　Combat in the game's multiplayer mode is markedly slower than in its single-player missions. It seems clear that Raven is aiming for a more realistic feel with Soldier of Fortune II's multiplayer component, whereas the single-player missions are of the run-and-gun variety. The game moves at a noticeably slower pace than it does in its single-player counterpart. The game's notorious "gore zones" also seem to be toned down in multiplayer--dismemberment is almost nonexistent. A good head shot with a sniper rifle or a point-blank attack from a high-power AK-74 will behead your enemy, but otherwise, the character models remain pretty much intact. Additionally, the game forces you to fire in bursts and penalizes you for shooting on the run.

　　An incendiary grenade is used to flush out a pair of campers. For the most part, the gameplay modes in Soldier of Fortune II are what you'd expect them to be. There are five gameplay modes, which include the standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture-the-flag options, as well as more unique infiltration and elimination modes. The first of these latter two examples is a lot like CTF, but it places one team on constant offense and another on the defensive. As part of the attacking team, you're tasked with penetrating the defenders' base, retrieving an item (in this case, a briefcase), and extracting it back to your spawn point. The defending team can win by eliminating all the attackers or by preventing the briefcase from getting stolen within the allotted time limit. The elimination mode is similar to team deathmatch, but if you get killed, you stay dead until the round is over. The first team to eliminate every member of the opposing team wins the match. You can choose to play these five modes in one of nine levels, which vary from the lobby of a Hong Kong hotel to a muggy Colombian jungle. Even the Raven offices are included as a playable map.

　　Once you decide on a gameplay mode and a map, you'll have to outfit your character. Soldier of Fortune II will actually let you choose from more than 100 different character models, which range from a city worker to a Special Forces commando. There are slight variations of each of these characters as well. One soldier, for example, might be wearing a load-bearing vest, while a similar model might be outfitted with a portable radio. These differences seem to be strictly cosmetic, though, because all the models we've played with have the same movement speed and hit points. In staying with the game's realistic approach, Soldier of Fortune II will let you carry only a limited number of weapons in these multiplayer modes. You'll be able to choose from a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, and a pistol, although you can carry only one of each, and you're allowed to switch only in between matches. Primary weapons in the build we have include the Colt M4, the AK-74, the USAS12 auto shotgun, the MSG90A1 sniper rifle, the M60 squad automatic weapon, and the MM1 grenade launcher. Secondary weapons include a MicroUzi, an M3A1 submachinegun, and an M590 shotgun, and you can select between an H&K SOCOM and Colt 1911A1 for the pistol category. Additionally, you can outfit yourself with two incendiary, flash, smoke, or frag grenades, as well as one of three nonlethal items: armor, night-vision goggles, and thermal goggles.

　　This unsuspecting soldier is about to be ambushed from three feet away. We found that the most addictive gunfights took place in the game's jungle environments. That's because these levels contain fields of long grass that are drawn by placing alpha-blended textures on flat, moving polygons. It's a simple method that more and more games are adopting, but it's artfully done in Soldier of Fortune II. This effect isn't just for cosmetic purposes, though. Many of the game's 100 character models are skinned with camouflage that blends perfectly with this grass, especially while crouched. In fact, you'll be hard-pressed to spot a hidden enemy until you're a few feet away. This makes it very easy to set up an ambush on unsuspecting players and very crucial to sweep areas for traps before rushing an enemy flag.

　　A well-camouflaged player will be very hard to spot in some of the jungle levels. To keep matches fresh, Soldier of Fortune II will also include a random map generator that functions like the many map-creation tools that almost every current real-time strategy game has. You simply choose from jungle, hill, snow, or desert terrain types, choose from one of three times of day, select a map size, and voilà, the game spits out a completely unique map. There's also a fourth variable that the generator bases its maps on: a text field that will let you type in any kind of alphanumeric string. You can plug anything you want into this field--your name, your street address, your pin number, whatever--and the generator will use that string to further randomize the map-creation process. What's more, if the generator creates a map that you like, you can plug the same alphanumeric string into that field at a later time and get the same exact map. Most of the random maps you'll see are impressive in their design, and we often found ourselves playing the randomly created maps more than the professionally designed levels. Not that any of the professional maps aren't expertly designed, but the act of being dropped into a completely new area at the start of every match places everyone on a level playing field, and besides, it realistically re-creates the feeling of being inserted into hostile and foreign territory.

　　Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix is scheduled for release next month. According to Activision, the developers at Raven Software are currently implementing several AI changes to the enemies in the single-player game and going through the requisite bug sweeps. From what we can tell from our early build, Soldier of Fortune II is clearly shaping up to be yet another one of Raven's many notable and distinct first-person shooters.