Battlefield Vietnam

"I Love the Smell of Napalm in the morning..."

Battlefield Vietnam is the successor to Battlefield 1942, one of the PC's most successful multiplayer games. To say that Vietnam was anticipated is an understatement. The question racing through your mind is: well, does it live up to the hype?

Graphics 9/10: The Jungle is extraordinarily detailed, both lush and exciting. The trees, the sunsets, the rolling hills and the ocean all look terrific. You can also clearly see the developer put tons of work into the models. Each tank, every soldier, and every plane has a gritty, but stunningly detailed feel to it. The effects are also equally good. The typical battlefield explosions and firefights are all here and taken to a new level. There are some minor problems graphically--such as repetitive scenery and awkward animation, but this is as I said, minor, and should not affect gameplay significantly.

Gameplay 8/10: Vietnam uses the the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. It recycles the same formula from '42, which is good. Each player is fixed to a team having the ultimate objective of taking spawn points from the other team on the map. To fulfill the objective, each team commandeers tanks, planes, boats and intense firepower. It's a very good and addictive formula, but there are problems here. One is that most of the battles lack the 'epic' scope from '42. Some of the maps are tiny and crammed, and eventually you may just want to quit to play some of the larger maps to enjoy yourself. There are also balance issues, that will definitely be resolved (judging by Dice's track record) but are still there nevertheless.

Sound- 7/10: It's great when it's great and dreadful when it's bad. The classic explosions are there; the vehicle hums are top notch, yet there are problems. Some of the sounds of the rifles are dull and uninspired. The M4 sounds like a party shaker at New Years-- yeah, it's that bad. They are some more problems with sound hardware in general. There are several glaring issues where annoying noises repeat themselves until the game in restarted. It's extremely frustrating. Then again, the score from the 60's and 70's era radio is fantastic and goes along really well with the game. Like I said, very mixed.

Replay Value 9/10: This is a really exciting multiplayer game-- a lot to come back to here. I can promise you that no two games will play out exactly the same. The game will stay in your Cd Tray for a while.

Tilt- 8/10: This game promised much to its fans, and while it did succeed in many areas, it failed in just as many. While the gameplay is fast and engaging, it's also very cramped and lacks the freshness of its father, 42. The sound and graphics are great, but it gets really tiring to see that same BORING Jungle tileset and deadpan sounds. There are also a lot of stability issues. The game runs poorly on many high-end systems, and is a huge resource hog. Thousands of people with awesome computers were completely frustrated by this game's inefficient and slow engine. 'Nam is much like that piece of rock candy you see at a carnival. It looks great-- it has an awesome package-- but when it comes down to it, it's one generic flavor without much substance.

OVERALL: 8.0/10 A WORTHY SUCCESSOR TO AN EXCELLENT FRANCHISE.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/05