Bet on Soldier preview

Tournament shooters have been around since, well, Unreal Tournament - and they haven't changed much. Kylotonn seeks to take the status quo and shake it up a bit with Bet on Soldier, an objective-based tournament game in which your performance immediately impacts your ability to continue.



The setup seems vaguely familiar. Corporations run the world, and resolve their problems with armed conflict. Armed conflict which also happens to be the world's most-watched game show. You're a rising star, investigating the tragic death of your wife, in which the powers running the show were somehow implicated. Even though the preview build is far from complete, I'm sure we will find, to our stunned (gasp!) surprise that the murder was arranged by the powers behind the gameshow in order to get their top-grossing champion (you) back into the ranks.



So hokey, sure. At least it's not amnesia ... oh wait, it is. Nolan doesn't remember that he used to be a champion. Hopefully Kylotonn will rewrite him to be just a grunt. How nice it would be to unveil a conspiracy without having a mysterious and tragic past, for a change.



Gaming Cliches 101 complete, let's move on to the gameplay. Here's where things get interesting.



You will play in progressively harder, world-spanning leagues - the opposition's tougher, but the rewards are higher. The leagues are all over the world - the 4 locations of Alaska, Europe, Nevada and Cuba provide the varied arenas in which you will fight. Each League will consist of several matches - but unlike standard tournaments, your mission will actually require you to make progress in a linear fashion, achieving objectives, reaching checkpoints, eliminating opposition, securing outposts, receiving orders and making repairs.



Another departure from classic arena mode and into a more serious world is the lack of respawns. Dead is dead - but you can repair, rearm and save at various checkpoints during your mission. Of course, all of this costs money, as did the original equipment you brought into the battle. It's a trade-off between managing your ammo and your armor; do you risk more damage but swoop in for a more rewarding headshot, or waste ammo plinking away at the bad guys, but save on armor repairs. The better you play, the more cash you have, and the better equipment you can get for the next round. There's definitely material for some agonising financial strategery in the game, especially in later game as you start to upgrade your weaponry.



Once you get past the objectives, you get to face that champion you chose earlier. Champions are obviously tougher than the hordes of grunts you'll dispatch earlier, but the payoff's better. This is also the key to the game's multiplayer portion (not available to us at this time), where teams will fight to gain control of betting terminals, designate champions for each side, and bet on the ensuing 1-on-1 deathmatch. The points for issuing a bet will greatly outnumber any points gained through straight team deathmatch, so there will be incentive to do this.



The gameplay itself is straightforward shooter, but there are a few neat additions.



AI support - you can bring along an AI engineer that will fix up your armor. Amazingly, this actually works - the engineer will only fix your armor if you're stationary, so he'll (for the most part) stay out of the line of fire (amazing!). You can also bring one other troop - a good mix will keep you safe. Your choices include snipers, engineers, regular troops or shield troops, and all can be given simple Stay or Follow orders, which actually work (shocking!) very well.



Limited loadout - you're stuck with what you buy at the beginning, so choose wisely. You can carry one of each class of weapons - melee, short range (pistol, SMG, shotgun), medium/long range (assault rifles, sniper), heavy (rocket and grenade launchers, miniguns) - reloading can be done at any reload station. There are no pickups, and you pay for every reload.



Semi-destructive environment - barrels fly, car husks catch on fire and become hazards, and the inevitable crates tumble (they need a bit of physics tweaking yet).



Destructive armor - you can actually see how badly damaged your enemies are. Bits of armor will fall off as you pepper the bad guys with gunfire. This is a cool piece of eye candy that's actually functional.



Varied enemy squads - you'll rarely fight a single foe; baddies group up and hit you with grenades, rockets and sniper shots all at once. There's some interesting AI going on here, with foes retreating behind shields, taking cover behind debris, and using splash damage to flush you out. Your AI friends are decent as well, although toning down their sometimes suicidal bravery might be useful. Fortunately, the Stay command works well in those (admittedly few) cases.



Upgradable weapons - as you progress through the game, you will be able to purchase weapon variants with scopes or grenade launchers. Needless to say this widens your repertoire of death quite a bit, although it does make the first few missions feel like you're fighting with nerf guns.



Overall impression is good. I enjoyed the grungy art direction and the surprisingly clever AI, as well as all the other tweaks to the traditional FPS. Now if Kylotonn works a little on the translations and the flow of the English text (the company is French), as well as overall interface improvements (mainly the menus could use a little aesthetic work), they'll be well on their way to making a contender in the crowded FPS arena.