The tall grass does a good job of
concealing both you and your team, for the time being. There are a lot of
enemies ahead, and they won’t exactly be welcoming you with open arms should you
be spotted. Time for a little aerial support.
Paint the target and then wait …
wait … listen for it … there it is … BOOM! In a fiery blast, the enemy soldiers
are no longer a threat.
Bold Games and nFusion Interactive
at the team behind Elite Warriors: Vietnam, a tactical real-time shooter title
based on the real-world exploits of Special Operations officer Maj. John
Plaster.
The game is all about “Black Ops”
missions, which include such elements as rescuing downed pilots, taking
prisoners, paint targets for aerial strikes and even ambushing convoys.
The game, though, is all about
running missions for the rating at the end. And therein lies the replayability
of the title. Do it better and faster than you have previously done it. Some of
the elements do change, but the mission parameters stay the same. Each mission
begins with a briefing …
The intel is old, but you will
conduct an incursion into Laos to destroy a road construction area. Oh, there
may be elements of the 66th NVA Regiment in the area as well.
The missions will place you in
command of a squad of four, which you can play individually or group command
with a wheel that pops up (hold the Q button) and gives you an array of basic
but essential commands.
You cannot just run into the battle,
but must adhere to the mission specs – such as, no killing civilians. Your
squad, unless you instruct them otherwise, can get a little trigger happy at
times, and there were also times when they were told to target the same enemy
that the leader (you can select any of the four squad members to play as by
using the F1-4 keys), but held their position and didn’t follow. Perhaps the
instructions were not specific enough.
The game has a tutorial to
familiarize players with the game, a single mission setting and campaign as well
as multiplayer. Trying to refresh the multiplayer server list caused a crash or
two until the firewall was disabled. But the first time this happened, the
computer settings went haywire, causing the screen to black out every few
seconds until a complete system reset had been affected. The host machine was
also at or well above the recommended specs for the game and yet there were
times when the graphics and gameflow stopped, and resumed a few seconds later.
The map created a few problems by
failing to show locations and troop movement (there were times when the map
failed to show where players had moved to until well after the movement), and
the environments have invisible walls, which restrict movement. You can crawl up
to what appears to be a bamboo fence with a high clearance, but you cannot crawl
under the struts, which are more than high enough to accommodate it. The game
has walls that do, to some effect, direct your movements.
The game’s AI is also suspect.
Civilians will stand in one spot and do an “afraid” animation despite the
approach of foreign soldiers and the gunfire. Your automatic weapon will
generate a burst of sound (the weapon recoil is very nice) at an enemy in one
area, but those up the road will not react, and this was on the medium setting.
This is unfortunate because, for the most part, the environments are good and
the challenge could be there. It just feels like a game taken two-thirds of the
way to a solid and intelligent shooter and then left hanging.
The game’s sound is very good, but
not exactly interactive. See a radio in the hut of the NVA, and the voice
reporting the news is speaking fluent English. As odd as that may seem, shoot
the radio, put holes in it and it keeps playing. Now that is one tough radio!
Elite Warriors: Vietnam has some
aspects that are well done – like the radial menu for the squad commands – but
fails in terms of realistically providing AI that reacts to the evolving game
conditions. This could have been a good game, but lack of a cohesive story (it
just felt like mission upon mission upon mission with nothing to pull it all
together) and some problems with the gameplay and AI pull it down.
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Gameplay: 6.0
The game suffers from framerate problems that slow or stall the game. And then
there was the problem with the multiplayer setup, the crash that it caused the
host machine. This happened about the third time into the menu setting. Not
good.
Graphics: 6.8
The environments and animations are good, but the invisible walls and repeated
NPC movement detracts from this title.
Sound: 7.0
For the most part the environmental sound effects are well done, but the game
seems to have them in place regardless of what else is happening. Turning off a
radio with bullets does little to stop the sound, and gunfire – which seems to
carry forever – does not attract much attention from soldiers up the road.
Difficulty: Medium
The game does have several challenge levels, but the AI is less than stellar in
many scenarios, and have a tendency to run right at you rather than play
hide-and-shoot with their weapons.
Concept: 6.0
While the mission range seems decent,
most of what you will be asked to do seems to be much of the same motions about
the fifth mission in.
Multiplayer: 6.5
The game supports multiplayer through a LAN or over the Internet, and in
addition to the deathmatch mode, there is also a cooperative mode of play.
Overall: 6.3
The game has some technical issues that hold it back and make for an average
experience. Some of the elements are well realized, the environments look good
and the sound is well done, but the AI and repeated “terrified” civilians, fails
to elevate this title to the ranks of solid tactical combat shooter.
