Vietcong effectively combines the elements of realistic military combat with those of fun fast-paced action, and by doing so pointing out a possible evolution path for shooters which gameplay-innovation-wise have reached a sort of dead end. The game starts immersing you right at the menu where the guitar riffs take you unmistakebly right back to the seventies (even if you have never heard the music before), and later make you hang out in your bunker longer (reading mission logs, your diary and the information about locals) just to listen to the military radio. The best moments of playing Vietcong are undoubtedly spent trying to lead your team of five soldiers (medic, engineer, radio guy, chaingun guy, and a pointman) to a successful assault on large outdoorsy fields. While a lot of the game is linear, such open areas present the player a lot of different options: VC's (Vietcongs') networks of trenches and tunnels can be assaulted from different places, at any time one can call for air support (be careful not to target yourself!), but mainly you can instruct your teammates of up to 5 people to either hold, cover, attack, follow, sneak, or come to you. All team-mates are involved in the storyline, and fortunately AI is smart enough to let you play and not make keeping your team-mates alive a major hassle. Enemy AI does a good job of taking cover and shooting too, so successful battle strategies turn up very realistic (especially with Vietnam difficulty setting). Vietcong's milieu forces to draw parallels with another shooter, WWII-based Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Funnily, Vietcong's weaknesses are MOHAA's trumps and vice-versa. First off, Vietcong's reward system is terrible. There are a lot of events and other immersive elements in the first three missions, but then at some point in the fourth mission you find yourself alone facing dozens and dozens of Vietnamese and after going through each of a particularly rough stretch all you get is to radio back to the base, which mostly goes like this: Base Six, this is Shrew One. Reached this, lots of VC here. What to do now. – Keep on investigating. Be careful. We have intelligence there are tons more VC nearby. – Wilco that, Shrew Out. Radio messages have been kept realistic but there could be a lot more juice there, and the occasional bad voice acting does not help either. MOHAA, on the contrary, excels in level design and pacing. Then again, Vietcong's combat surpasses MOHAA's by far, and among many other things described below, VC's guns recoil realistically, so that consecutive hits cannot be made as easily as in MOHAA. Other Vietcong's touches of realism include map which is not a separate window but comes out in your hands (left picture), the ability to call artillery strike anywhere on the map, the right mouse button raising the weapon to your eye-line to improve the aim, limitation to carry only one type of each weapon at a time, near-by explosions muting your ears for a few seconds, crawling, binoculars, getting wounded producing violent cries of pain etc. The health system is excellent too: it takes just a few shots to kill you; although you can have yourself patched up by the health guy or by medikits, your maximum health decreases every time you do. For every level area 5 quick-saves are permitted, which adds some welcome tension. Vietcong also has some pretty motion capture sequences such as the North-Vietnamese ducking their head and dying in a variety of ways, your own team-members graciously stepping over a fallen log or signaling others to stop. Besides the 12-level single player campaign, Vietcong features 7 multiplayer modes: in addition to the usual, there are last man standing where there is no respawning until the end of the round, real war which is Capture The Flag with multiple flags, and a cooperative mode where players can team up against packs of AI-controlled enemies. The impressive amount of research Pterodon guys put into this game can be checked out on the Vietcong website. To sum up Vietcong: An excellent game in many ways, but with some more it could be irresistible. 16/20 - Based on : 10 HOURS 4/4 PRODUCTION VALUES - A Czech production but looks high-class. 3/4 ACCESSIBILITY - Sometimes little problems with objectives, but nothing major. 1/4 PACING - The fourth level of Vietcong felt like a beautiful concert was taken over by the ugliest sounds you can imagine. 4/4 INNOVATION - Look at lots of little gameplay features listed in the second half of the article. 4/4 IMMERSION - The biggest contributor is the military radio.
In Vietcong you are SSgnt Steven Hawkins, a Green Beret in charge of a squad on various behind the lines missions. You're most important squad member is Nhut, a Vietnamese guide or Kit Carson Scout, who guides the team ... Read Full Review
I went deer hunting with my dad a few times when I was young, and although I really enjoyed our time spent roughing it in the great outdoors, I absolutely could not abide with the idea of sitting stock-still for such lon... Read Full Review
