MHG was made for players who are always up for a fixed-position duck hunt...
Flash forward a few dozen years, and PC games can satisfy the inner child with hours and hours of target practice. What’s more, modern games allow for complete mobility, the better to leave the saloon and travel out into the virtual world on a search for more targets. Marine Heavy Gunner crash-lands the player into a jungle setting and challenges him to jump from gallery to gallery. The results are a mixed bag, but I think I can summarize the entire experience thusly: the fixed-point and on-rails sequences in MHG were a slack-jawed blast, while the portions spent schlepping to the next waypoint were tooth-grindingly awful.
Overall, MHG is a reasonably competent budget-brand FPS. Character animation is lacking, the combat model is simplistic, and the voice-overs are ghastly. The player’s squadmates are a terrible shot and contribute to each encounter by firing their gun at the rate of only about four rounds per minute. (As an aside, one of my mates was marginally effective with his grenade launcher, so I found a second Blooper and handed it off to another member of the team. Those guys saved my life a few times by taking out two or three aggressors at an opportune moment with their languorous volleys. However, it’s only fortunate that we good guys were all immune to friendly fire, as the AI-controlled grunts were just as likely to lob a round into a tree four feet in front of the group.) Despite those negatives, I had a very good time shredding ground targets in a chopper and destroying anything that moved during a brief riverboat ride. On foot, tromping through wave after wave of generic VC combatants dulled the senses until relief appeared in one of the game’s thankfully plentiful fixed-point shooting gallery interludes, in which the MHG can prop his Hog on a log to earn his pay with some serious carnage. Nothing fancier happens during these sequences than a steady slew of attackers popping out from behind walls, rocks, and foliage, but the effect is satisfying all the same.
Marine Heavy Gunner is modeled after the cinematic characterization and mission-based field exploration of Vietcong. Although MHG’s technical elements fall far short of its creators’ aspirations, they were on the right track with some of their gameplay ideas, and their presentation of several deep, choking acres of jungle scenery is admirable. I recommend this title for anyone who remembers the joys of those old-fashioned carnival shooting galleries, but not for players with a low tolerance for unpolished budget titles.