Multiple accounts
It’s just about time to wrap this one up and ponder over whether Bet On Soldier is worth your money, but before I do that, the multiplayer aspect is worth a mention as many reviews have skipped over it due to us journos getting the code before anyone else. Being the uber-gaming hack that I am, I took the time to make sure I played BoS wherever I saw it during my travels around the gaming shows a couple of months ago. Invariably, Bet On Soldier was being showcased over a LAN, giving me the chance to have a go at the multiplayer and see how that differed from the single player game.
Click for larger imageThe multiplayer supports up to 32 players with just one mode of play. This is a ‘capture the control points’ type mode, similar to Battlefield 2, but this time around its ticket points you have to capture by hacking them. You get a choice of six player classes, each their own pros and cons, such as the Engineer who can hack the ticket points faster than anyone else but has bugger all armour and weak weapons. Or there’s the Destroyer, who is tooled up to the max, can dish out devastating punishment but moves slower than a Sunday driver on a B road.
Click for larger imageTo win a match, your team has to accumulate more cash than the opposing team, which sounds fairly simple until you find that the only way to contribute to the team score is to face off in a BoS match against an opposing player. So the multiplayer works just the same way as the single player game, except this time you’re facing a human in the BoS arena.
Click for larger imageYou dish out a bet against a likely looking opponent through a quick menu and then you both have one minute to head towards the centre of the map for the match to start. Meanwhile, your team mates can carry on battling it out for ticket points, as you need these to be able to bet in the first place. Once you and your chosen opponent are in the arena, everyone else is excluded and you go at it until one of you is dead. Depending on how closely matched you were, you might win a small sum, or if you picked a stronger player to face off against, you might find yourself with a huge wad of cash as a reward.
Click for larger imageThis style of play lends itself to quite a bit of tactical thinking as you need to work as a team to first off capture ticket points and then to accumulate cash to upgrade your weapons before entering the BoS arena. In practise, given the environment I was playing the game in, it was very hard to get a cohesive game going as people were dropping in and out constantly. The more complicated, two tier nature of the multiplayer game may well not suit the patience of many, which is a shame as games, whilst frantic and fun, are far more rewarding when you work as team and build up the cash. Just as Battlefield 2 suffers when players don’t play it as it was intended, I can see Bet On Soldier’s multiplayer mode suffering the same fate. This may well be one for LAN’s to get the very best out of it.