Soldier of Fortune

This Microsoft game was released on March 27 2000 and later had a PS2 edition as well. As the name suggests, it’s all about being a soldier – a first-person shooter that doesn’t hold back on the realistic depictions of violence. Each person figure in the game has 26 different zones to it, and shooting any one of those will make it explode dramatically. So, a shot to the head leaves the enemy with just a stump of a neck, and the teenage boy’s favorite – a shot to the crotch – will make the enemy clutch his groin before falling over. The detailed gameplay was enabled by the GHOUL engine, and it was the very first game to use that technology but, as you’d expect, the technological advance was opvershadowed by the outcry over the violent content. It was classed as an “adult motion picture” in British Columbia and placed on a “harmful to young people” list in Germany. And it was pretty graphic. But for the weak of stomach, there was an option to turn the gore off. So everyone’s happy.