Customer Reviews

Vietcong

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Well, what more is there to say, this has to be one of the most enjoyable and exciting FPS games based in a war setting. Being the type of person who enjoys FPS games based around real conflict I have immensley enjoyed games like Medal of Honour and such, I used to think Allied Assault was the best wartime shooter but I think Vietcong has snatched that throne now. The boys at Pterodon have really done a great job with this one it is obvious that they have done their homework as to the environment and feel of the war, and the times. The oppresiveness, fear and disorientation of the jungle has been captured perfectly, with expansive and detailed environments.

The singleplayer is excellent, the first thing which really jumped out and grabbed me about VC was the realism of the combat, I have exeperienced some of the most intense firefights ever in an FPS with this little gem. There is none of the run and gun Quake style fighting here, it is ass in the grass realistic fighting. Moving from cover to cover, hearing the VC shouting commands at each other and moving onto your flank while you and your squad desperately try to fight your way out of the killing ground you have suddenly found yourselves in.

The gameplay itself has a swag of very nice features;

- The system of command over your teammates is both functional and quick to use, plus easily mastered quickly which helps you get right into the game.

- A comprehensive weapon line up including;

VC
AK-47, SKS Siminov, SVD Dragunov and Mosin Nagant 91/30 sniper rifles, Degtarev MG, PPSH-41 and 43 SMG's, Bazikahal double barrel shotgun.

US
M-16, M1 Carbine, M1 Garand and Winchester 70 sniper rifles, M60 MG, Thompson and M3A1 SMG's, Remington 80 shotgun, M79 grenade launcher (singleplayer only).

- The use of iron sights for aiming, it is so refreshing to have a game where you actually have to aim with your sights.

- The system of interchanging your weapon with that of a dead VC as well as searching him for ammo and intel is quite a unique feature which really adds to the realism of the game.

The missions themselves are entertaining and varied, although the voice acting of your teammates is a bit cheesy I still like the way that the terms and language used by the troops in Vietnam was recreated in the game. Living in Australia I got the uncensored version (I feel sorry for all the US players who are victims of unfair censorship). Now I have the joy of being surrounded by a group of realistically foul mouthed soldiers, plus having some nice blood and gore effects which aren't over the top like many other games. My only complaint with the single player would be that there aren't enough damn missions!

Now for the life and soul of the contemporary first person shooter these days... multiplayer. All I can say is wow, this game sure is addictive! This game's environments and features like iron sights really combine to make quite a unique multiplayer experience. The gameplay is like no other FPS online, hiding, caution and teamwork trully pay high divends in VC, trying do run and gun will do nothing but get you wasted very quickly. It also has a class based system with Soldiers, Machinegunners, Snipers, Sapper/Engineers (and yes they can lay booby traps hehehe), Medics and Radiomen who call in air and mortar strikes.

Multiplay also contains a lot modes, there is;

Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag - Need I explain these?

Assault Team Game - This is different for each map, ranges from completing an objective like 'Kill the US Pilot' while he is armed with only a pistol and the US side have to defend him, to simple search and destroy the enemy. In this mode you can't respawn.

Real War - There are a certain number of control points on the map and your team has to capture them all to win.

Last Man Standing - Exactly like deathmatch with no respawning, the last man standing at the end of a round respawns next round with extra health and an M60, everyone else only gets a pistol.

Coop - This is one of the unique features of Vietcong, all players are on the US side and they have to go through and clear a map full of AI generated VC, it's great fun to get together with friends (or clan mates) using a voice communication proggy and fight an intense battle.

The only real shortcomings of the multiplayer are the relatively small number of maps, and some curious lag anomalies.

There's been a lot of bad reviews over bugs, PC Gamer gave 'Line of Sight: Vietnam' a higher score than Vietcong. Do not take this as gospel and go buy LoS: Vietnam instead of VC, VC is a much better game, and personally I don't know what the hell the PC Gamer guys were smoking when they pulled this one. The fact is that Vietcong was extremely buggy upon release and had immense framerate problems due to poorly implemented Securom disk protection on the CD's and it still does have technical issues. But a lot of these bugs were addressed within weeks by the 1.01 patch, if you live outside the US and buy the game it is already patched to 1.01. Now there is patch 1.02 on the horizon which looks to deliver new skins, maps, weapons and fix a lot of the bugs.

All in all I think Vietcong delivers a solid offering of both single and multiplayer action. It is a fresh, unique and promising game, although not forgiving to the lower end systems, I have a machine double the recommended specs and it just runs the game comfortably. I'd advise all fans of FPS games to look into it, especially those tiring of the mundane run and gun formula...

I've been playing the multiplayer demo of this game for several days, and it is fantastic. The lush jungle environment is beautiful (even on a 2 year old computer - 800mhz and GeForce 2 card is adequate). The game offers strange emotional punch as you are able to play both sides of the questionable war. Politics aside, the complex jungle landscape makes patiently hiding pay off as you are given powerful sniper rifles and camoflague.

I am not an avid FPS gamer, but this one is simple to learn and actually gets the heart racing. It is difficult to tell friend from foe at a distance in the jungle, and "friendly fire" is common in this game as well as in reality.

On trying the game from various game demos that i test from fileshack.com, I could tell that it wasn't just any other "this is realistic" game. VC offers a real jungle world where players can hide in the scenery and pick off the enemy from a distance.

On trying out the sniper, I felt like I was an actual GI employing "jungle warfare". In other games you just point and click, but in vc you have to think like you're in the jungle to survive. If you just run out you'll surely be sniped from a distance by enshrouded enemy snipers. If you crawl or quickly dash from bush to bush, the chances are greatly lowered.

The game offers a wide variety of actual guns used in nam including the tommy gun, m16, AK-47. So far the demo offers 3 modes of play: capture the flag, assassination, and all out death match. Get this game if you're looking for something that will be fun. After 40 hours of playing this, I'm still not bored.

This game is good, really good. I've had this game for a about a week it I'm hooked. I love the levels. The level I'm on now is my character being a tunnel rat (searching Vietcong tunnels). It scares the hell outta me. I shot the walls countless times now.
For the real review, the graphics are excellent, the sounds are very realistic, and the gameplay is is really good. It is like you signed up and got shipped over to Vietnam. The drill sergeant yells at you and insults you. All around it is a realistic non Doom, Quake, Unreal game fun tactics game.

Counter Strike, Rogue Spear, Ghost Recon, Raven Shield (demo); this beats them all. The environment is awesome, first game where the environment is a pervaisive factor in gameplay. Crawl in water, through ferns, hide in bushes. Multiplayer action is awesome on broadband; 50 players in a battle. Very realistic in "vietnam mode", no fake sights like Ghost Recon (which I played routinely since it was released). This game forces you into cooperative squad tactics. Feels more "natural" than the others (peeking over rocks, around trees). Sound effects great. Jungle, jungle, jungle; very cool. Can run at 2048x1536 w/radeon pro and get 40fps with all features!! try that in any other game! Good rendering engine.

Iam not a very good reviewer of games but as a person who is very familier with the special forces in vietnam i must say this game is not as good as it could have been..
This game lacks many things that should have and would have been very easy to add into the game..
ok where do i start. WEAPONS.
The game does not get the weapons right.. ok sure it got the m16a1, ak 47, and m60. but what about the most popular used SF weapon around in NAM, the CAR-15 (aka xm177 and colt commando). anybody who knows SF in Nam would know that 80 percent of a team would be carrying them..
also forgot to include more popular weopns like, m72 law, m14, what about the m40a1??????? that was more popular than the garand..
what about the door guns??????? browning 50 cal????? SF teams would never have that..
1. way to heavy!
2. wouldnt need that much fire support on there LZ (because SF LZs where rarely every 'hot'.
They couldnt even get the door guns right..THEY HAD M60 DOOR GUNS PEOPLE!!i wonder if they even did much research???

But there are a few positive things about the game. such as the uniforms, landsacape (in some missions) and gameplay is ok..

cmon guys you could have done better.. u know it..

GO CHECK OUT THE NEW VIETNAM GAME MEN OF VALOR: VIETNAM IT LOOKS ALOT BETTER.

I Tried this game about a year ago and have been hooked ever since. As far as improvements there have been several patches for it as of now (3/20/04). Yes, your AI can be stupid but apart from a few situations its all good because this game was written for YOU to do most of the work, not the AI.The Jungles r pretty realistic for computer generated foilage.Everything from stealth missions to tunnel clearing to ridiculous fire fights. The Multiplayer is SICK! Definately the best I have Played ( I have Counter-Strike, Medal of Honor, Etc. ) The Fist Alpha Expansion came out recently and improves even more. Even without the Expansion you can still play on the new patch v1.60 and Fist Alpha players can play with you. Look at the Vietcong-Game website for More Info and Demo of both the orig and Fist Alpha. My Favorite game for my Xp computer.

This game is really good. It is not the best first person shooter out there but it's single player missions are amazing and (though i dont know because i have a crappy internet connection) i hear it's multiplayer is pretty great too.

If you have played Medal of Honor and loved it, you probably know how important great sound is to a great FPS. The sound in Vietcong is amazing, stunning, disturbingly good.

If you like stylish shooters and great single player campaigns, buy this game, especially because it doesnt cost that much now.

If you like realistic, tactical based shooters, you would like this to.

OUT OF TEN...

SOUND: 10 (orgasmic)

GRAPHICS: 8 (great sometimes, sloppy others)

GAMEPLAY: 8 (not particularly smooth, but very fun and intense)

A. I: 9 (they actually flank you and hide like crazy)

GUNS AND RELOADING: 10 (beautiful reloading and tons of guns)

I rate this game as one of the best FPS games I have ever played neck-to-neck with Deus-Ex, System Shock 2 and Thief. Every action scene you have seen in the movies about Vietnam, you will experience here.

The graphics and sounds are great, and the game's AI is one of the best yet. Enemies will continue relocating, they literally jump away from enemy fire and they will run away if the see a grenade thrown at them. You can also call in mortar and airstrikes, which are way cool.

The effects are great too, Your ears will be howling if a grenade explodes near you, rain is realistic, leaves fall off when you brush by them.

But first you will have to download a 40MB patch to cure those "unkillable enemy" problems. After that, the game is great. One of the early contenders for game of the year.

I went into this feeling skeptical. However, curiosity overcame all doubts, and I downloaded the demo and began playing. THIS GAME JUST BLEW ME AWAY! I've played my fair share of FPS games, and own quite a few; but this has to be one of the best looking, and funnest (<-This should be a word if it isn't) games I've ever seen. I really felt like I was there, fighting the VietCong in the lush yet deadly Vietnamese jungle. From what I've played of this game, I can tell that the makers really did their homework and put a lot of time and effort into this game. Granted that their are some annoying little quirks the game has, all-in-all this game definitely scores high on my personal lists of favorites. This is arguably as addicting for the PC as HALO is for the X-Box. I'm definitely going to have to go buy this game.