It all adds up
Right then, it’s summing up time, the bit that most people skip to rather than read all my previous ramblings… So let’s have a quick look at what we’ve got then. Bet On Soldier is seriously system intensive and, to be brutally honest, those minimum specs on the back of the box are a joke. I’ll concede that the game may well run on a 2 GHz CPU with a GeForce 3 card and 512 Mb RAM, but the question is, is it playable on that system? The answer has to be no, you won’t get a satisfying game if your system has specs anywhere around those ‘minimums’. So you’ll need some grunt in your box to run Bet On Soldier reasonably. My AMD 2800 Sempron, 9800XT, 1Gig RAM machine ran the game acceptably once I knocked the resolution and graphical details down a bit and it didn’t look too bad.
Click for larger imageOn the gameplay front, BoS plays very much like other FPSs out at the minute, but gives the gameplay a nice twist with the cash for weapons and armour system. This adds a nice tactical edge to the game which isn’t intrusive but keeps you thinking about how to make the most of the resources you have. Interaction with the environment is limited to shooting barrels and destroying boxes etc which is a bit disappointing given the much touted Ageia PhysX engine being in there somewhere. The single player campaign covers a wide variety of terrains and locations, which keeps the interest up and building your cash pot to access new weapons or enhance the ones you have provides a drive to keep playing.
Click for larger imageCertainly, Bet On Soldier’s storyline is nothing to get excited about and covers the now clichéd ‘revenge a murdered wife’ story, told in a film Noir-ish style first seen in Max Payne and since ripped off by plenty of others. In fact, using a revenge storyline almost negates the whole idea of killing for cash, and as I’ve had my fill of avenging a loved one’s death, I found myself not really caring about Nolan’s missus in the slightest. As such, I lost the urge to play the game through as I didn’t care about what happened next in the story. I still don’t care now but had Kylotonn stuck with you being a merciless, greedy, money grabbing killer, I would have found that anti-hero more appealing.
Click for larger imageBut fortunately, what Bet On Soldier loses out on in story it makes up for in gameplay and the single player campaign is worth it to progress and upgrade your character. Even on the rookie difficulty setting, the Elite soldiers you have to fight are tough cookies and very canny and the missions themselves are pretty big meaning there’s plenty of playing time in here. Sadly, I can’t see the multiplayer taking off in a big way, purely because of it’s complexity making it tough to get a good game going. At least Battlefield 2 has a ranking system to give you a long term goal to work towards but without that there’s nothing to make players work as a team.
So all in all, Bet On Soldier is worth a look provided you’re looking for a single player shooter with plenty of variety and you’ve got a machine powerful enough to run it.
Pros
Looks great
Modular damage system
Huge range of weapons and armour
Varied environments
Doesn’t over emphasise the physics
Cash and betting system adds a nice twist
Responsive AI
Cons
Huge load times with no indication of what’s going on
Poor lip-synching and text distracts from game
Needs a meaty PC to run at reasonable framerates
Complex multiplayer will be a turn-off for many
Clichéd ‘revenge’ storyline
Bet On Soldier is worth a gamble.
Reviewed on the HEXUS.gaming Test Rig.
