  One thing we are sure of is dude needs a bigger gun. A much, much bigger gun. |
The PC game Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport begins with the premise that war, which has been raging around the globe for 80 years, has become the focus of the human race.
Everybody either fights or works somewhere in the war machinery. The twist is that fighting isn’t just about staying alive any more, it is about making money.
Groups that control governments created “Bet on Soldier,” a TV show where soldiers fight to entertain the masses and generate profits. If you saw the film The Running Man in 1987 then you get the idea.
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport (rated M for Mature for blood and gore, language, simulated gambling and violence) is published by Digital Jesters and developed by French studio Kylotonn Entertainment.
The game is a grim first-person shooter (the gamer sees through the eyes of the player into a 3D world) with gritty military-style textures, a few futuristic devices such as giant exoskeletons that players can climb into and lumber around while fighting and doing lots of shooting.
Players are guided through controlled encounters. You can wander around a bit but your missions are usually straight down the road. There is a good balance between indoor and outdoor missions and the game AI is balanced — not too easy or difficult.
Battles typically revolve around the player and one or two hired mercenaries against a half-dozen enemies. Choice of weapons and armour are critical to success. Vehicles are strong in this game, with giant exoskeletons able to mash several enemy soldiers in a single step. Similarly, beware tanks even if you’re in an exoskeleton.
The game offers a twist to the genre — you have to pay for all your equipment and ammunition — even saving your position in the game costs cash. If you’ve ever thought that health packs and ammunition were all too casually stashed in dark corners in most FPS games — this game will be a welcome change.
But Bet on Soldier also automatically lets your character auto-loot cash from any person you kill — including more points for quick kills — which wrecks the “nothing-is-free” concept of the game.
There is some in-game Canadian content almost right off the bat — the first body armour your character can purchase is called “The Canadian.” It’s pretty much useless because it offers no added protection, just the costume.
The game has two components: a campaign story where you take the role of Nolan Daneworth, whose wife you quickly learn was murdered by some TV show contestants and a multiplayer mode for live online play. The online multiplayer mode is well done and features several game maps and the ability to enter as a specific soldier type — each with specific attributes.
The audio is solid with lots of instructions, inspiring background music and some good character voiceovers. The game’s visuals are rich but can be dialed down for weaker gaming systems along with most video and sound settings.
While Bet On Soldier has some nice visuals and concepts, in the end the gamer is left feeling like the whole thing was rushed out the door unpolished. For example, pop-up text (combined with a terrible choice of font) often overlaps other items on the screen the player needs to see.
Gamers may need to install the version 1.2 patch to get the online multiplayer section to work (try the Gamershell.com website for the file). Gamers can also create their own server for the game or play a local area network (LAN) setup.
Bet on Soldier runs smoothly on a moderate gaming system. It works under Windows 2000 or XP, with a minimum of an Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent, a minimum NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti or equivalent (pixel and vertex shader required), a DirectX Compatible sound card, a minimum 512Mb RAM, 48x CD-ROM drive or 8x DVD-ROM drive and 4GB of free disk space.
