Conflict: Vietnam

"It Don't Mean A Thing"

After two very fun and successful games that started off the Conflict series in Operation Desert Storm I was more than eager to see how well the Conflict series could justify a game of this caliber set in the Vietnam War. Unfortunately Conflict: Vietnam can do no justice to the Vietnam War and begins the downhill descent of the Conflict series.

Somehow the story follows a young medic who is sent to the front and receives little training and help from his buddies. Here you get the tag line "It don't mean a thing", which could not be a better tag line for a game of this low caliber. Once again you are also bombarded not only by Vietcong mortars, but Vietnam movie cliches that take a little bit of something from every Vietnam war movie ever made. Of course you get your Deer Hunter Russian Roulette cut scene in here as well.

Your team is made up of the typical Conflict characters with a change of names and one profession. Ragman is the leader with the M16 who takes the place of Bradley from the Desert Storm games. Junior is your sniper and he replaces Foley, and Hoss is the big dude with the big gun who you will end up using more than anybody else when confronted by wave after wave of Vietcong. Cherry is the medic and he is the protagonist of the game for whatever use he is. The game play is somewhat variable, but it is very challenging and you will be tasked with fighting entire armies of Vietcong through some historical battles as well the big Tet Offensive. I played through this game once and I do remember there being a helicopter level that you get to man the machine gun in. The game play is very difficult as enemies will automatically appear out of nowhere even after you have cleared an area. It is definitely not anything like what you experienced in the Desert Storm games.

With a Vietnam war game you do get the music from that era so there are a few good tracks from the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane. At least the music is down right, but the graphics have little to no improvement. The characters are rather small and blocky and there really is not much to speak for about the scenery of the game.

What made the Conflict series enjoyable was the four player cooperative you could do. That is what made this series so fun for me and my friends so that when this game came along we were going to go through it no matter what. I finished it by myself after a few hard fought hours, but the sessions of Conflict: Vietnam with my friends quickly devolved into system link matches on Halo 2. So it does not have the great replay value that you get with the Conflict: Desert Storm games. There is no reason to want to go back and replay this game.

Final Recommendation 5/10

Some events in our history deserve not to be exploited and the Vietnam War is definitely one of those events that could never be fully justified. Gamers deserve an original experience like the one we got with the Conflict: Desert Storm games and not the rehash version of Full Metal Jacket meets Deer Hunter. There is nothing to like about this game and it loses its value as a multiplayer game with very difficult missions. Conflict: Vietnam is not worth your money nor is any Conflict game made after this one. What started off as an excellent and original series quickly turned sour for the biggest of cooperative multiplayer fans.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/08

Game Release: Conflict: Vietnam (US, 10/05/04)