Looks like a million dollars
Right then, that’s the basic premise of the game sorted, how does it play? The answer to this one is going to depend pretty much entirely on your system. Yes, Bet On Soldier is seriously hardware intensive. On my work machine (AMD 2800 Sempron, ATI 9800XT, 1 Gb RAM) I found myself turning down most of the graphical details and running at 1024x768 to get a playable framerate. On the new HEXUS.gaming Test Rig, Bet On Soldier ran beautifully at 1280x1024, 4xAF and 16xAA with everything maxed. As framerates are what makes a game playable, knocking down the graphics options to get a decent rate left Bet On Soldier looking quite bland and ‘run of the mill’. Switching to the HEXUS.test-rig machine, Bet On Soldier looks simply fantastic.
Click for larger imageTaking full advantage of the latest pixel and vertex shader technology, Bet On Soldier features specular effects, bump mapping, misting, fogging and all that jazz. All of this combines to give you a realistic rendering of a world suffering from 80 years of warfare. The levels themselves are nicely varied from cluttered trenches strewn with the debris of battle through to hi-tech interiors and snow covered mountain passes. BoS nicely covers most areas of the globe and gives a good accounting of each in the missions based there.
Click for larger imageWhat is particularly nice is that, in a similar vein to Half Life 2, Bet On Soldier paints a gritty, run-down picture of the world you’re fighting in. Take the time to look around you and you’ll see many areas where barricades are an appropriate mish-mash of whatever was to hand when it was built. Everything has that ‘well worn’ look and there’s very little that looks new. This serves to give a very convincing feeling of being in a world that is struggling just to live, let alone fight. What you should be impressed with is how easily the game handles both indoor and outdoor areas with ease. The proprietary KT engine renders both with ease giving sway to vast outdoor areas and complex indoor structures. Think along the lines of Half Life 2, but less angular and you’ll get the idea. Either way, it’s certainly a good looking game.
Click for larger imageOne quibble I do have is the ‘sheen’ that many objects have. You’d expect to see it on metallic barrels and similar reflective surfaces but the soldiers you fight with have the same sheen on not just their armour but also their skin too, giving them an ‘Action Man’ plasticy look. Whether this is a quirk of the engine or the drivers I don’t know and again, whilst not being a major issue, it’s something worth mentioning.
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