As in the original Men of War you get the same explosive fun in Vietnam but where's the innovation?
I do believe in "what's not broke why fix it" quote. But it gets to a point where instead of keeping what does work and making it better by adding new features to the game the developers just decide to sit on the sidelines and make clone games without much change at all between releases.
You will love the new setting though. The maps all have thick jungle type vegetation and impassible rivers but this gives your men more places to hide on the maps. There are also nice environmental sounds and graphics like tropical birds and animals moving about. If anything has been changed its the graphics which you'll notice right away.
And the sounds are just as good. But voice acting has never been the series strong point. The vietnamese soldiers sound like they have a Russian in thier blood, the Americans sound like red necks from the backwoods and the Russian mercs sound.. you guessed it Russian and rightly so! I know this is a Russian developer so I dont pay much attention to pore voice acting as long as the game is good.. right?
The music is fair at best. You dont get to hear your fav's of the era like CCR's Fortunate Son or "War." Instead you will hear the same strange song from the main menu over and over again as if that's the only song the dev's could think of to put in a Vietnam game. Strange indeed..
Well the game is good maybe to good. What do I mean? I mean very difficult. On easy or normal difficulites it down-right hard to survive without the tactics of a general like Bradley and a lot a patience. In this game moving around without cover or a bariror defense will simply get you killed and fast. I dont know if the developers changed the hit point system but it sure feels like it. It doesn't take much to bring you down without a chance to use medical supplies even.
There is a total of two campaigns one for the Vietcong, and one for the US. The strange thing is you can only play the Vietcong campaign first? But then I realised this is a Russian made game and at the time of the war (still now but most people dont know this) is Russia was our arc enemy and helped the NVA to combat the US just like we helped the Taliban in Afghanistan fight against the Soviets - that's why they called it "The Cold War"so it makes since they would want to tell their side of the story first. I like having this option as well of playing both sides of a conflict and I think it should be in more games.
The missions in both campaigns which I have not completed yet our fairly strait forward. Resue hostages, take out enemy objectives and you even yet to take part in the Tet Offensive with tank battles. But like I said its a difficult game. Mainly because in both the US and Vietcong campaigns you only have one or two squads of men so maybe eight total soldiers at the most and that's a lot for this game. You must use these men to complete objectives some of which are extremely difficult with what resources you have or the lack there of. But I found using stealth is the best option in the game hence Vietnam. Meaning you dont go in all guns blazing. Use tactics and dont bunch up your men in one spot but move them around the map to get different advantage points. Also, conserve your ammo and medical supplies until you really need it and use the strengths of your soldiers classes such as a Machine Gunner should have the best view of the enemy positions where the engineer can be covered by him as he sneeks to sabatoge a enemy installation.
Overall, Men of War Vietnam much of the same old Jane and thats a good thing if you into this series and its game play which personally I am but if your looking for something new and innovative then this is not it. I dont consider it a copy and paste and repackage type deal but its darn close with only a minimal amount of change between series releases to justify a new game release each time.
I honestly believe this could have been a mod a addon for the original Men of War and ot a entirely new game release. I think they could have easily forgotten about Men of Wars singleplayer only addon - "Red Tide" and released this game in its place and I wouldn't be the least bit disapointed. If you can get passed the difficulty curve, the same song playing over and over that you have never heard before in any Vietnam game and the same game play down to a "T" except a new environment and graphics/effects and weapons then this game will be a good time waster. If your new to the series I suggest playing the original Men of War first as the difficulty in this game will likely do you in to where you'll never want to buy another Men of War game as long as you live.