Bet on Soldier Updated Impressions

Take one part Unreal Tournament 2004 and one part Counter-Strike, and the concoction you end up with may look a bit like Bet on Soldier. Combining the futuristic fast-paced shooting action of the former with the buy-everything-you-use mentality of the latter, this promising French-designed shooter looks to add some interesting twists to the traditional run-and-gun gameplay that's so prevalent in the first-person shooter genre.

In Bet on Soldier, you'll play as a mercenary who's out to make his fame and fortune in a cutthroat futuristic world. In the game's single-player story, war has raged over the planet for almost a century. Society has become so used to war, in fact, that it's become entertainment and a game. Mercenaries, like your character, accept compensation to perform high-risk missions for various corporations. During these missions, you'll battle plenty of regular opponents, but you'll also encounter high-profile mercenaries (who are basically the equivalents of you). When this occurs, a one-on-one duel is set up, and the audience gets to place wagers on who its members think will be the victor, since all battles are televised.

You can actually wager on these encounters beforehand. During the setup screen to the mission, you'll be briefed on your primary opponents during the battle. At this time, you can wager specific amounts on each opponent. The trick is that to win a bet, you have to beat an opponent in 60 seconds. Take any longer than that, and you can still beat that opponent. However, you won't win any money for the victory, and, worse, you'll lose your initial wager. It goes without saying that this will add a huge amount of pressure to defeat someone quickly. Moreover, it goes without saying that each highlighted opponent will be tough to take down. The good news is that during the briefing, you'll get the lowdown on each opponent's weak spot. For example, a certain shield-toting foe may only be vulnerable when he reloads, while another enemy may be so heavily armored that his only weak spot happens to be his legs. You'll have to remember what those weaknesses are to try to take advantage of them during the game.

Betting will be important because, as a mercenary, you'll have to purchase literally everything you use, from weapons, upgrades, ammunition, health packs, armor, teammates, and more. Armor and ammunition are particularly important, because you'll have to constantly replenish your supply of both at special charging stations during a mission, and it'll cost you to do so. The game will have a wide range of futuristic but familiar weapons, including assault rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers, each of which must be purchased. There are also upgrades for every weapon you can buy, so you can upgrade the rocket launcher to make it track opponents in flight, and so on. You can also pick up a shield, which you can use to deflect bullets, but it won't be much use to you if someone blows up the car you're standing next to. This is also probably a good moment to mention that the game will feature a full physics engine, and there will be plenty of destructible objects, including the obligatory explosive barrels. And while you won't be able to drive any vehicles, there will be a formidable suit of power armor later on, provided you can afford it.

The story will be presented in a nonlinear fashion, meaning you can decide which missions you want to take. This, of course, affects the way the story unfolds. The game will present a league system, so you'll have to work your way to the top of the league to unlock the more difficult and rewarding missions. Of course, the life of a shooter is often determined not by its single-player game, but by its online play. At this point, we can report that the game will support up to 32 players in a Bet on Soldier-style mode where you'll be able to bet that you can defeat other players. A ranking system will be incorporated into the Bet on Soldier multiplayer mode so that highly ranked players won't be rewarded too much for beating up on lower-ranked competition. This will encourage comparably ranked opponents to face each other. Meanwhile, lower-ranked opponents can try to go for the big payday by bringing higher-ranked opponents down. In addition to the Bet on Soldier multiplayer mode, there will be other traditional multiplayer modes, such as deathmatch and team deathmatch.

We last saw Bet on Soldier in September of 2004 in London, and it's evolved quite a bit since then. In particular, it's been upgraded with new physics, lighting, and rendering engines, the last of which eliminated some of the grainy look that was evident in earlier previews of the game. Since Kylotonn is using its own proprietary graphics engine, Bet on Soldier has a unique look and feel to it compared to the vast majority of other shooters built on licensed engines. The game is filled with all sorts of nifty little effects, like the way you can "strip" the armor off an opponent using weapons fire. The Kt engine, as the graphic's engine is called, takes full advantage of DirectX 9, as well as advanced pixel and vertex shaders. But you won't need a high-end machine to run it, as the designers are aiming for a minimum specification of a 1.5GHz CPU, 256MB of RAM, and a GeForce 3-level card or higher.

From what we've seen of the game so far, Bet on Soldier does have a unique and interesting feel to it, and it will certainly offer something new in terms of multiplayer gameplay. It's progressing along quite well in development, and it's currently aimed for a summer release. We should have more information about the game before then, though, so be sure to check back with us for further developments.