By: Chris Stavros

The future is often a dark and nasty place, where anything can happen and usually does; it often makes a fine setting for games of the first person shooter variety. In the case of Bet On Soldier: Blood Sport, this future features a decades old war that governments have turned into an entertainment program that allows people to watch and bet on the outcome. You, the protagonist, are looking for revenge on the highly paid Champions of the show who wiped out all you hold dear, and with a high tech arsenal (and fast button finger) you will have your chance.

Bet on Soldier is a first person shooter based on the above premise. You will fight through a series of levels and wager on the outcome as you battle with a series of champions, which must be defeated before time runs out. If you do beat them, you can use your profits to upgrade equipment and increase your character's fighting abilities. A key difference between this and normal shooters is you pick the enemy you want to fight on a particular level - the tougher ones are worth more reward but are much harder to defeat. To get to the champion, you have to wade through the cannon fodder on each level until you face the big fight.

The game is based around the cash payments, and money is the key to survival and advancement. As you kill targets in the game you gain cash, and certain types of kills earn more profit. You must buy everything you need: ammo, weapons and armor. During a level, you can repair armor and replenish ammo, but this costs cash, and there are no freebies that I have seen in this game. There may be in the finished game, but the preview CD is only three levels so I can't say for sure. Keeping with the cash theme, even saving the game will cost you - an interesting twist for the usual save the game in case something bad happens tactic. On any given level you are never alone as you fight with a squad of soldiers. Don't rely too much on these fellows as they are slow and rarely do much. They can help though, as squad members can repair battle armor, although it takes them a bit of time to do so. You are of course a sitting duck during any time you don't move or you are not wearing armor, so make sure to have some cover and stay alert.

The enemies on each level are somewhat tough if unspectacular in combat. You can almost always escape if things are looking bad and look for some help. But as I mentioned earlier, you won't find too much help from your squad mates. Like the AI soldiers, your squad mates fight decently, but against a thinking human opponent they are dead meat.

The game level screens and terrain are quite good in this game. There is ample game board to move around in and cover to find and exploit. Being only a preview, the CD only had three levels, but each was very well done, and this game looks as good as any shooter I have ever seen. The characters seem to move smoothly, but this may be a problem on low end machines since the graphics are quite involved. The atmosphere of the future is captured well through smart effects and good design work.

The only complaint I had with the preview is in the sound effects, which seemed rather insipid compared to the visuals. I'm hoping this is an area that will be improved on when they release the finished version of the game. Other then this nitpick, this appears to be a solid first person shooter that will attract some attention. I'm looking forward to seeing the completed game.