Battlefield Vietnam

"Too much hype, not enough improvement."

Following the success of Battlefield 1942 and its expansions and mods, the announcement of Battlefield Vietnam created a storm of hype and its momentum built up as the release date approached. While Battlefield 1942's popular Vietnam War mod Eve of Destruction satisfied eager minds, many questioned EA's ability to make something better.

EA did. But with a load of things that were actually worse.

Set in the Vietnam War, Battlefield Vietnam follows the current trend of Vietnam-based games. Combining modern weaponry and equipment with Battlefield 1942's successful concept, Battlefield Vietnam attempted to bring about the next step in battlefield-size, team-based, epic clashes and boasted features like helicopters, customisable player skins, mobile spawn points and even Vietnam-era music.

For the most part, the Battlefield 1942 has remained unchanged, with a few refinements and tweaks to the interface and gameplay. One of the major improvements to gameplay is the new flag-capturing system. When assaulting a spawn point, a bar appears, representing the amount of time remaining until the flag is captured. Furthermore, the presence of more allied players speeds up the capturing process, while enemy players can halt or even reverse the capture. This new aspect stresses teamwork for ultimate success, a vast improvement over Battlefield 1942.

One of the major problems in Battlefield 1942 was base-camping, the act of covering or invading an uncapturable enemy base and killing enemy players the moment they spawn. Battlefield Vietnam rectifies this by making all bases capturable, although primary bases take longer to capture. Another nifty addition is the use of mobile spawn points. These points can be created in certain areas and allow players to quickly reach an enemy position through an alternate and often unsuspecting route. To balance this out, these mobile spawn points can easily be destroyed when found, adding a new element in gameplay.

The players have a new interface for selecting weapons and classes. Players can play as Green Berets, NVA, VC or ARVN soldiers and select alternative skins through the player interface. Classes are now broken down into Infantry, Engineer, Anti-Armor and Sniper, each with two different equipment sets. For example, a US Infantry soldier can pick between a CAR15 with grenades or an M16, or an NVA soldier can pick between an SKS/RPG-7V combo or a SA-7 anti-air rocket launcher. Other weapons include the AK47, M79 grenade launcher, XM149, SKS, SVD Dragunov, Mosin-Nagant, Claymore mines and Bouncing Betty's. Players are also able to lay traps and throw smoke grenades. These weapon combinations add more flexibility when it comes to selecting the right gear for the job.

To consolidate the new equipment, a whole new assortment of vehicles is featured. The most obvious addition is the helicopter, which include the famous Huey, Chinook and Cobra. The flight system is remarkably simple and easy to use, although it may throw off Desert Combat and Eve of Destruction veterans. Choppers are also able to pickup vehicles and drop them into the heat of battle, as well as provide suppressive fire in the form of dual-player operated rockets and miniguns. Players also have access to new vehicles, including a variety of tanks and artillery, as well as new jet planes, including the F-4 Phantom and MIG-17. Planes are not only faster, but they also feature radar and an assortment of weapons, such as heat-seeking missiles, miniguns and napalm. Players riding in vehicles can now fire their weapons, unlike Battlefield 1942, where passengers were helpless and were unable to fire unless they got out of the vehicle. A MUTT loaded with a rocket launcher and an M60-gunner can be a highly mobile and dangerous unit.

An interesting feature of Battlefield Vietnam is a surprising emphasis on Vietnam-era music. While driving or piloting a vehicle, players can select music tracks through a menu and blast the speakers across the battlefield with nostalgia. Players can also play their own MP3 music, allowing for a strange mix of tastes.

The maps are amazing. The textures are fine and detailed, featuring exotic jungle terrain and beautiful water effects, to bombed out urban settings. Levels range from Hue and Quang Tri to Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Combined with mobile and capturable spawn points, Battlefield Vietnam contains action all around. To add to the atmosphere, radios play classic music at bases and make broadcasts, including Vietnamese propaganda. Memorable moments include walking down the battered streets of Hue with the speakers broadcasting ''G.I., G.I., your government has abandoned you. Your pilots cannot recognise you and bomb you. You will be given a medal, but only after you are dead. Defect, G.I., it is a good idea to leave a sinking ship...''

Player models, weapons and vehicles are also incredibly detailed and textured. Animations are also very high-quality, although the reloading animation seems to be intentionally slow and painful. One gripe about that level of detail is that it makes the act of reloading a weapon look way too delicate, compared to the rough and speedy action needed in a real firefight.

The most important aspect of Battlefield Vietnam, like Battlefield 1942, is its multiplayer. The system is practically identical to Battlefield 1942, but has new features such as a 3D map, which highlights known units and points and their distances in first-person, new radio commands and expanded command list. The Vietnamese teams also feature authentic Vietnamese radio and voice commands, including taunts such as ''Come over here and die, you filthy dog''.

Despite the abundance of new features, Battlefield Vietnam still leaves the feeling that it was rushed. Although single player was never a primary focus of the Battlefield series, Battlefield Vietnam completely lacks a campaign, only featuring an Instant Battle mode. The AI is mediocre, but sports some improvement, including more aggressive behaviour and responses to commands. More importantly, Battlefield Vietnam has huge compability issues with many video cards, resulting in missing textures or even graphic corruption.

The omission of several radio commands force players to type out requests such as ''Get in'' or ''Attack the nearest target''. The simplified command list is too simple, while the extended command list is too complicated. While Battlefield 1942 players simply press F3, F1 to say ''Enemy Armor spotted!'', Battlefield Vietnam players must go through more button presses to get to the darn point. It's the classic example of too much detail: players have to pick ''Request'', then choose between ''Air'', ''Naval'' or ''Land'', then select the most appropriate unit. Doing this under pressure from a firefight is demanding too much for a simple command.

The maps, despite better environments, are also too small. Despite being the same size as Battlefield 1942 maps, are very restricted in their area of action, and jet pilots have little room to manuovere. The homing missiles are questionable in their target acquisition, often firing at the nearest target instead of the target being aimed at. The music played from vehicles is so loud that an enemy can hear it from across the map and promptly ambush them. Soldiers certainly never played Wagner's ''Flight of the Valkyries'' when pinned down by enemy fire.

The game balance is horrible. Battlefield 1942 sacrificed historical accuracy for team balance. Battlefield Vietnam maintains a certain element of accuracy, but throws balance out the window. The American Anti-Armor class, for example, makes the Infantry class useless. Why? While Infantry are stuck with the CAR15 and M16, the Anti-Armor class has the M60 machine gun. Battlefield Vietnam's engine allows players to practically Rambo their way across the level, firing at extremely high rates without overheating, with barely any recoil when standing up, with only a small penalty in accuracy and with a 100-round magazine. Not only that, they also have either an M79 grenade launcher with plenty of ammunition, or five LAWs that can neutralise any vehicle. To make things worse, no NVA or VC class can match such a combination of weapons.

Even worse, Battlefield Vietnam is incredibly demanding from computer resources. High-end computers are required, and even then there is the possibility of graphics incompatibility. Broadband players suffer tremendous lag, while dial-up is practically a no-no.

For a game with so much hype, Battlefield Vietnam is utterly disappointing. The new features are nice, but there is not enough improvement over Battlefield 1942, and it feels like the same old game. This would be acceptable if Battlefield Vietnam was a mod, but it's a full game, and this amount of shortcomings is intolerable. EA has a lot of patching to do before Battlefield Vietnam can be both enjoyable and playable.

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Replay: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/04