The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
It still retains many of the good points as the original & some new stuff:
- The skill of aiming and cover required to hit anything and avoid being hit is still there
- The opportunity to play as the VC
- More weapons, all of which are accurately researched and contemporary to the time period (even if there are debates about which were actually used in Vietnam)
- Realistic limits on sprinting to account for fatigue
- Use of heavy weapons and vehicles
- Change of scene to urban street fighting, setting new challenges and tactics
- Limits on amounts of ammo/first aid holdable by engineer/medic classes in MP (more realistic)
- Continues storyline of VC (talk to as many characters as possible in the scene setting early missions)
However, it's not all good news, several issues are readily apparent;
- Tech flaws & bugs: I've escaped most, but keep loosing MP connectivity due to a CD key flaw (admittedly this appears to be more Game Spy's fault)
- Clunky team command system: The new C&C method for squadmates in the SP campaign takes getting used to & you will often have your head blown off whilst standing out of cover to try and plant a cursor on the spot you want to tell your squad to move to in the early stages
- No Quick Fights: Single missions don't lend themselves to one off play and are obviously repetitve, but the QF option with the variabilities in settings expanded the options and challenges for off line SP play, but it's not in VC2
- Unrealistic engineer: In the original Vietcong you couldn't use the engineer to restock if you picked up a VC weapon as understandably he wouldn't carry Soviet calibre rounds - but now he'll restock anything which on some missions means you can mow down the enemy with RPG or SVD rounds
- Invincible squad: One of the tricky parts of original VC SP was working with your team not just to effectively kill the enemy, but to stay alive - let a squad member stray too far & he dies, it's mission failed. But now, although they can still get dropped they don't die, but writhe around until the medic arrives (who also always heals). The only way to get a mission failing squad death is if you frag them yourself. You can effectively send your squad in to complete a lot of some missions as a result.
- Worst Point of all, TOO SHORT!: This game has the length of an expansion pack, not a full game. I finished the game in less than a week 7 that's not a full non-stop week as I work 5 days. The VC campaign is a short afterthought and the US campaign isn't much better when you realise the first two missions are just non combat scene setters