Bet on Soldier

Digital Jesters makes a solid wager with this FPS, but it may find itself outgunned in the crowded FPS market.

"Money is the root of all evil," or so says the clich?d monologue in Bet on Soldier. In spite of the uninspiring The Running Man storyline, the game adds a unique, bottom-line driven twist to the saturated FPS genre that, at least for a brief moment, conceals the monotony of headshots.

Price Check on Hallucinogen-laced Sniper Rifles
Monetary efficiency is just as important as your FPS prowess in this near-future shooter, where you kill soldiers and champions for cash. While blasting armor-clad infantry with a Rocket Launcher gets the job done quick and messy, those $600 ammo clips drain your coffers in an instant. Compare that to the economical--and overpowered--sniper rifle, which dispatches script-spawned soldiers at a cool $200 a clip. Buying and swapping armor in theory sounds like it'd offer diverse play styles, but unfortunately the flawed weapon balancing means certain arsenals reign supreme. Enemies take cover, but suffer from bouts of absent mindedness, leaving themselves wide open for the kill.

Spartan Environments and Texture Gluttony
Despite indulging in high resolution textures, the bland art direction makes the game feel like your average apocalyptic shooter. The visuals, which call for those $3000 gaming rigs, has poor performance on mid-range machines even with all of the details turned down. On 12+ pixel pipeline dream machines the graphics looks crisp, but the Spartan settings pale in comparison to notable shooters such as Half-Life 2 and Far Cry. The forced delivery of the voice acting serves mainly as comedic relief between head-blasting action, and the forgettable music kicks on sporadically. Bet on Soldier attempts to up the ante on the genre, but instead deals a conservative hand that only FPS fans will want to check.

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