Vietcong 2 E3 2005 Preshow Report

Vietcong was one of the few good Vietnam War games to come out among the wave of Vietnam games in recent years, so it makes sense that it's getting a sequel in the aptly titled Vietcong 2. The original game and expansions reportedly sold more than a million copies, so developer Pterodon is certainly onto something. We have the details on the sequel, which is being shown at E3.

Vietcong 2 will let you play from the perspective of both sides, which is a first for the series. You'll get to play as a US Army captain tasked with escorting a reporter covering the Tet (New Year) festivities in the city of Hue in 1968. If you're familiar with history, then you already know that the Communists launched the massive Tet Offensive that year and that Hue was at the center of some of the fiercest fighting. You'll go from the New Year celebrations inside the US compound to eventually taking part in the battle to recapture the imperial palace at the heart of the city. 2K Games says that the story in the game is based on historical accounts and memories of Special Forces and infantrymen who took part in the battle.

Meanwhile, you will also be able to play as a Vietcong conscript fighting the South Vietnamese army (and apparently thus avoiding the touchy issue of shooting American soldiers). Throughout the course of the story, you'll go from being a simple peasant conscript to a sergeant in the Hue uprising, and you can storm the imperial palace.

Game features include drivable vehicles in multiplayer mode, gritty urban combat, a seamless single-player story, new and updated character classes for multiplayer, and realistic team battles with up to 64 players or cooperative missions with up to eight players against the computer. Vietcong 2 is scheduled to ship for the PC later this year.