Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Disastrous"

I'll start off by just saying it: SoF Payback is a really bad game.

Graphics 6.5/10
The visuals are muddy and inconsistent, but far from the worst seen on a console. However, this game is in the running for ugly game of the year award. Smoke clearly appears 2D, and flame animations are just pitifully attempted. The characters don't looks too bad; in fact they look pretty good, as do the weapons and some rare areas of the game, but overall - this game is ugly.

Sound 4/10
The weapons sounds tinny and weak. I found absolutely no joy in firing any weapon. They just didn't sound powerful. Character voices are also cheesy and annoying; they positively drip with bad acting. In fact, I got such a headache from one woman's voice, I actually had to stop listening to the characters for awhile. That's never happened to me before. The in-game music is also uninspired and repetitive. It's a generic tune meant to get the pulse pumping, but it really just becomes an incessent annoyance in the background, covering the sound of enemies. I'm not saying that because it's just not my taste in music - I firmly believe that SoF takes the first several seconds of their music and then loops it over and over again, playing it without pause for entire levels. It was dissappointing, because I believe the atmosphere would have been a whole lot more engaging if the music had just stopped playing - such as a sandy windblown street I ran down in the opening level. The music actually helps to make the gameplay and gameworld feel extremely shallow.

Gameplay 3.5/10
The game is incredibly linear, with a no seriously clear directions and a lot of random dead-ends to distract you. The game world feels large until you actually begin playing in it; which is when you discover that the illusion of multiple paths is actually just a bunch of empty alleys and dead-ends. The game is incredibly easy (on the normal setting) if you take it seriously and slightly more difficult if you just fool around. Enemies explode unrealistically into showers of blood and gore, limbs flying off to expose bone and muscle, and arteries pumping in a hyper-violent killfest. However, as entertaining as that is occasionaly, it's a system hampered by the limbs that get stuck in the wall, twitching and waving, and the bodies that often disappear before your eyes - many times before the body has even hit the ground. Destroying someone is really only fun if they stick around to be destroyed.
Gameplay is run-and-gun, basically just running straight into enemies and shooting as you do so. You can throw a grenade, but you won't always be guaranteed that it'll go where you toss it; sometimes they just bounce 50 feet at a wierd angle from where you directed them. But don't worry. You can always take your time; enemies don't attempt to flank or in fact do anything resembling tactics. Sometimes, an enemy will be firing at you from down the street. If you survive more then a couple seconds, they'll stop shooting and then run down the street in an attempt to... yes, knife you. At this point, you leisurely shoot them with the too-accurate weapons. At least sometimes they use cover; though unless they're attacking you was a scripted event, enemies don't really take advantage of any new cover. It's like they don't even know it's there.
There are some bosses, but they're just people who hurt you more and take more damage to kill. They just run around shooting at you. They're unimaginative and disappointing.
The storyline is confusing and painful to listen to due to the terrible voice-acting, so you won't really feel any actual connection to the gameplay. I stopped understanding the plot after the first level.
The gameplay also suffers from a high degree of lag.

Overall, I think this game deserves a 3.5/10.

Pros: Enemies are amusing to tear apart
Cons: Various glitches, lag, linear gameplay, bad acting, headachey music, and just a general lack of polish kind of smothers the 'destroying enemies is kind of fun' part.