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Battlefield
Vietnam is, to say the least, astounding. If you play it and
the next day in school your teacher mentions the word Vietnam,
you almost immediately start beating rhythms on your table
and singing "You really Got Me" or some other sweet
‘60's era song from the game. The game requires an almost
brand-new graphics card and 2.0 GB to play, but I swear to
you all, it is well worth it. Like Battlefield: 1942, you
watch the great intro movie, set all of your controls and
configurations, pick a level and a team, and hit start. But
after that almost everything changes.
On
the loading screens, an image and brief caption of the Vietnam
War comes up, and one of the 16 songs plays, compared to the
4 or 5 images and one loading tune from 1942. When the map
is finished loading and you are ready to go, you pick one
out of 4 classes: Assault, Mechanic, Anti-tank, or Sniper,
and one of two weapon-groups for each. At first it looks like
there are not as many weapons as there were in 1942, but since
each class has 2 and on some maps the weapons differ, there
are in fact quite a few more. After this is done, you are
able to select a character skin and head. Pick a spawn point,
hit “Done,” and you’re ready to fight!
Gameplay:
9.5 out of 10
“Goooooooooood Morning American Soldiers, and it is a
lovely day outside today...” This is what you hear if
you begin as a U.S. soldier in the main base. The guy on the
radio continues to speak as you head for the nearest helicopter
or jet. Once you hop in that first Huey, turn on “Surfin’
Bird,” and hit the skies, you KNOW that this is a great
game. Other choppers begin to take to the air around you,
and an F4 Phantom blasts out of the hangar. Now you can either
head off towards the battle, or lower your chain and pick
up a vehicle to drop into the hot zone as reinforcements for
your fellow soldiers.
Then, you can either bail out to parachute into the fray,
or stay on the guns to provide cover from anti-air forces.
And all of that is just the first 2 or 3 minutes of one map.
If you aren’t a great pilot, then you can try your hand
at one of the melee maps like the Ho Chi Minh Trail or the
city of Quang Tri. Tank shells, grenades, bullets, and commands
fly everywhere on these massacre maps, which is just exhilarating
to no end.
Another upgrade from the first Battlefield game is that now
when you capture spawn points, the more men you have taking
it, the faster it goes, and there is a bar showing you how
long it takes to capture the point. The gameplay is even better
than Battlefield 1942 in my opinion.
Graphics:
9.5 out of 10
Every blade of grass, every scratch on your gun, and every
ripple of water is extremely detailed. You can feel safe and
sound running down that vacant dirt road, and suddenly out
of the bushes pop 5 or 6 Viet Cong blasting away with their
AK-47s, RPDs, Type 53s and RPGs, and you won’t ever see
them. Hover low over a muddy river while picking up a P.B.R.
boat, and water will spray up underneath your Chinook, and
while making a quick landing to drop off up to 5 men near
a spawn point will send the dust flying. (Just make sure your
copter doesn’t get shot while on the ground).
All of the vehicles and weapons are beautiful when the graphics
are maxed out. One of my personal favorite show of graphics
is watching napalm rip through a village filled with NVA personnel.
Brutal, yet satisfying...
Sound:
10 out of 10
Everything from the radio telling a squad to return a Vietnamese
settlement their water buffalo to the awesome soundtrack blasting
across the battlefield to the bullets bouncing off of your
amphibious tank are revolutionary. The whup-whup-whup that
comes from the helicopter blades tells you that you are either
about to be rocketed or you are about to be picked up and
saved. The NVA and the U.S. commands are actually heeded,
unlike in BF 1942 where people do not pay attention to you.
If you need a ride to the front lines, call for an airlift
and in a short time there is a copter on the ground next to
you. Grenade launchers, M16s, Bouncing Bettys, and Punji sticks
all have their own unique sounds when used, to name a few.
There are no flaws with sound, and they only enhance the game
further.
Fun
Factor: 10 out of 10
How can you say no to cruising around in an armed jeep playing
“War” while the guy manning the machine gun is headbanging
and you are running over the other team and the passenger
is spraying blindly at the road beside him with an M60 for
no reason at all? How can you say to flying a MiG 21 straight
into a parked U.S. Cobra attack helicopter like a lawndart?
How can you say no to picking up an APC with a Huey transport
copter, then flinging it as far as you can inland at some
Vietnamese base? How can you say no to watching a bunch of
NVA soldiers camping for a MiG 17, only to be consumed in
a massive cloud of fire and smoke a second later? With that
said, I hope I’ve made my point clear: Battlefield Vietnam
is the best War Simulation game
to date. BUY. THIS. GAME.
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