Through the power of electricity and a decent PC I've seen a glimpse of the future, and folks, it isn't pretty. Years and years from now Earth will be a war-ravaged wasteland where today's average jobs don't exist. Instead, everyone is in some way a part of the war machine, whether they're creating the destructive weapons that are being used to blast limbs off hapless mercenaries, decapitating foes on the battlefield, or pulling the world's strings from the safety of a secret location. Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? Well I'm not finished yet. In addition to tearing one another to shreds, humans are actually placing bets on the outcomes of these bloody skirmishes, so if a battle-hardened warrior scores a gooey head shot his bank account's going to soar. Yup, Earth's quite a #$%# hole, but there's little we can do to avoid our fates. We can either sit around waiting to be someone's next frag, or we can strap on our gear, load our machine guns, and Bet On Soldier.

Currently in development for the PC and set to be published by Digital Jesters, Kylotonn's Bet On Soldier is a first person shooter where money is your best friend. Set within a post apocalyptic Earth, its battles are brutal and fast-paced bloodbaths in which the phrase, "survival of the fittest" has taken on a whole new meaning. Divided into single and multiplayer campaigns, the game forces you to earn and effectively use cash in order to remain amongst the living, money that is paid only after you advance in the Bet On Soldier tournaments, vicious arena battles that are broadcast around the world, but simply outlasting your opponent isn't necessarily the key to victory. While killing him or her will place you on the path to success, you'll really shine if you bludgeon your foes in style, so shooting them in the chest will guarantee you some much needed funds, but putting a bullet between their eyes will net you a whole lot of scratch, and believe me, money makes this game's world go round, the reason being that everything in this game, all of your equipment, weapons, and assorted features, must be purchased. You'll never run over something to pick it up. If you need ammo, armor, health, or even something intangible such as a save point you're going to have to cough up serious amounts of dough.

There are two ways to get paid in this game. The first is through "simply" murdering your rivals, particularly in the most dastardly ways imaginable. The second is through the actual betting on the fights. Throughout the game's 32 player online skirmishes (with up to 16 players on each team), you and your fellow squad mates are given the option to nominate one of your own and pit them against someone from the opposing team. When the two combatants cross paths, both teams are taken out of the action and are unable to interfere in the showdown. During the battle, each side places bets in the hopes of winning big, but it's not like everyone stops what they're doing to watch the fight. Although the nominated players fight one another in an enclosed space, the outside war rages on.

Most first person shooters that feature a robust online component usually have a weak single player game, as is the case with Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and Battlefield 2, but Bet On Soldier's offline mode is different. In the game you play as Nolan Davenport, an amnesiac who can barely recall his involvement in the 80 years war. When his fiance is brutally murdered by the Bet On Solider champions, The Boryenkas Brothers, Nolan enters the tournament seeking revenge, and what he discovers is a world dominated by criminals and corruption. The two federations that make up the Earth, the USWE and the RMC, have their strings pulled by a shadowy collection of individuals known as The Consortium, an evil empire that's busy swatting away The Resistance, a small band of freedom fighters who are attempting to restore order to the world. It's a mess for sure, but one Davenport willingly involves himself in, his primary goal to survive long enough to meet the Boryenkas in a final clash of the titans.

Seeing as how the Boryenkas are the Bet On Soldier champions they're not just going to fight Nolan right away. The ladder that he'll need to climb to reach them is a whopping 40 tiers high and twenty missions await him in such locales as Cuba, Alaska, Nevada, and Europe. However, he certainly won't be unarmed. Bet On Soldier has well over 40 different types of weapons including hand guns, automatic rifles, a rocket launcher, a 5-barreled shotgun, an acid gun, a hand-scythe, a flamethrower, a pump gun, and a myriad of different grenades including acid, frag, gas, hallucinogenic, and incendiary types.

In Bet on Soldier, your armor is just as important as your machine gun. In fact, it's so necessary that if you happen to lose it all you can consider yourself dead. There are three different types of the stuff (leather, light, heavy, and exo-skeleton) as well as small, light, snow, and heavy shields. None of it's cheap, and you're going to need a lot of it, so it's a good idea to save money like you've never saved in your entire life, because once you step onto the battlefields, as soon as enemies begin firing at you the stuff will fly off like dust. It's actually one of Bet On Soldier's more impressive visual effects, as it's just really cool pelting someone with machine gun fire and seeing small metal chips flying off their bodies. Even though I wasn't killing people from doing this, just seeing this satisfying effect was in a way a very small victory.

If you find yourself in the middle of a war zone buck naked you need to get the hell out of dodge. Unarmored soldiers are as good as dead, so run away and search for a terminal where you can buy new threads. Otherwise, your dead @$$ will enable someone to purchase the acid gun that they've always wanted.

Like in most FPSs, Bet On Soldier's multiplayer mode allows you to choose which type of combatant you'd like to be. There are six different character classes, each with a unique feature and weapon set. They include the Trooper (a balanced character with average speed and weapons), the Sniper (extremely fast but weaker than most players), the Soldier (who can effectively defend an area due to his or her powerful weapons, but they're very slow), the Destroyer (is a pain to kill because of their exo-skeleton armor and extremely powerful weapons, but they're also fairly slow), the Engineer (these dudes can actually repair damaged armor though it doesn't take much to blow them away), and finally, the Grenadier (who loves lobbing grenades of different types). The most successful teams will probably feature a nice balance of these varied classes, so be sure to choose wisely.

Not all of the game's online modes have been revealed, though you should expect the usual stuff (deathmatch, team deathmatch) as well as some special games that successfully integrate the betting system into the gameplay. For example, in one mode teams will battle to control actual betting terminals, and I don't think I need to tell you (though I certainly will), that the team that controls all of the terminals, controls which way cash flows.

Compared to PC stand outs such as Half-Life 2, Doom 3, and Battlefield 2, Bet On Soldier doesn't quite meet the high graphical standards set by some of the aforementioned games, though that's actually a good thing because that means it'll run on several different types of graphics cards, the minimum being NVIDIA's Geforce 3 series. Besides, it's far from unattractive. All of the character models look extremely good, especially the various bosses you'll come across in the single player mode, all of which feature a distinct personality and special attacks. The levels are also impressive looking and very distinct. For example, you'll never confuse the icy tundra in Alaska with the bone dry Nevada wastelands.

Lastly, the game makes excellent use of the Novodex Physics Engine, so while you're attempting to dismember other people the gunfire will manipulate objects in the game environment. Supposedly, there's a special weapon in the game specifically designed to put the Ageia physics chipset to good use, but Kylotonn hasn't announced what that particular device is or what it does.

First person shooters are a dime a dozen but Bet On Soldier manages to stand out because it's unconventional. I'm really looking forward to checking out the final product and putting this cash-reliant system through its paces, primarily because I'm used to wasting ammo and health packs, so I think this game will actually turn out to be a refreshing change of pace. However, I can't help but wish it was an MMO FPS where I could customize my soldier using a ridiculously deep create-a-character system and then fight my way to the top of the food chain, earning respect and instilling fear in the hearts of my opponents. It's wishful thinking, and I'm sure that one day a developer will satisfy that particular itch. In the meantime, we have Bet On Soldier, which is probably a glimpse of what some future PC FPSs will be like. All I know is any game that features strong off and online components absolutely needs to be played, and I'm prepared to welcome Kylotonn's game with open arms when it's released in the U.S. on September 12, 2005.