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Battlefield Vietnam had big shoes to fill, since its predecessor, the extraordinary online multiplayer experience game called Battlefield 1942, introduced a very interesting new way of how people looked at FPS experience on the battlefield. Many of my friends back then have switched from whatever they were on and joined the BF community. Their affinity for that great game wore slowly down by the time and appearance of the new great titles such as Call of Duty.
But now, with the appearance of the Battlefield Vietnam, the much expected title and the title from which much is expected, have we found a decent heir to the throne? The feelings are mixed and the community is divided, but I believe the things may seem much sharper in a month or two, as soon the first announced patch has been released and the game starts receiving its intended shape.
First of all, for those who don't know what Battlefield series is all about, the answer is as simply as much as it is astonishing; on the Battlefield, the soldiers have the ability to virtually control any vehicle available and fight their battles on ground in huge tanks, on water in boats and under it in subs, as well as in the air, flying all sorts of aircraft. Of course, if you are not interested to do it, you can always take refuge to the old fashioned way and charge the enemy on foot, using various sets of weapons in that process.
Battlefield Vietnam continues in the same manner, transferring the place of conflict to Vietnam, some twenty years after the end of the WW2, changing many features and adding new ones, deepening and extending the game. The involved parties, now Americans and the Vietnamese, will wage war upon each other with new, authentic weapons, using a good number of new vehicles on various terrains, reaching from the deep jungles, seaside to the city combat. The campaign part that was incorporated in BF 1942 has been dropped out in BF:V, leaving only the possibility of instant action for the singleplayer where you can engage in fighting in fifteen big war operations. This can be easily disregarded because the main strength of this game is its orientation on the MP experience, so you may want to observe the instant action as merely as for what it was meant to be; a training for the real online action.
Now, let us move in and sweep the game clean. First of all, you will soon notice that the BV servers available at this point all suffer from a rather large ping issue (bigger is not always better), and the reason for that is easily found in an imperfect net code, something I sincerely hope that will improve itself with upcoming patches - remember that BF 1942 1.0 was also very difficult to wade through until the extensive support and patching has put the game up on its feet. Once online, you may also experience some significant lag from time to time, but mainly the things will run smooth. The graphics for BF:V have been significantly improved, yet they appear to be rather demanding, rendering game almost unplayable if you try it out on max setting, so I would advise against. No great loss, since there is little difference between high and medium setting for the graphics. Generally, the looks of soldiers, the vehicles and surroundings gives little reason to complain, quite the opposite in fact.
Capturing the enemy spawn point
BF:V has a distinct BF tempo to itself that separates it from similar FPS games, and at the first place when we come to speak about it, we can think of only one term; space. The maps are generally much larger than standard FPS games, so that the use of vehicles becomes a necessity rather than a neat gag. The battle is being fought over spawn points where killed soldiers and destroyed vehicles are being respawned continuously, whereby you can chose at which spawn point that is under the control of your side you will reappear on the map. The spawn points get neutralized when an enemy soldier comes into the reach of the flag and then it slowly turns to the conquerors faction, while the greater numbers of soldiers mean that the spawn point will cross into their possession much quicker. Needless to say that these games require a lot of players to be connected, anything under twenty soldiers is simply not it, since you do not want to bore yourself to death while you walk across this big map in a search for your enemies.
How lives by the sniper shell die by the sniper...
But walking is not necessary, since you can drive a great number of various vehicles, from jeeps with mounted machine guns and rocket launchers, tanks with different stats concerning armor, weaponry and speed, river gunboats, assault choppers and big transport helicopters up to the various jets from both sides. Most of the vehicles can take two or more soldiers at the time, where one player can drive and other can man the guns; the rest can simply sit and wait for the arrival to the drop zone. Another neat thing that has thrilled me to see is the sight of a transport chopper airlifting a heavy tank and carrying it all over to the other edge of the map This deepens the all around tactical approach and boosts the game's addiction level.
Nice lookin' death trap...
As for the vehicle control, they are well done with one great exception; the helicopters. After successfully playing two helicopter simulations lately, Apache Longbow Attack and Fair Strike, I have had the impression that I have entered some odd space ship rather than a helicopter when I started it and made my first lift-off. Some forty crashes later (I was offline, practicing) the best I managed to pull of is a rough, near crash landing, and I don't even think about going into air combat with a helicopter. There are however people that seem to pilot them with ease, and I salute them, but to my experience, the helicopter needs a patch. And fast. Until then, I ride shotgun and drop off with a parachute, thank you very much. Jets are much better and easier to control, but my all time favorites are tanks and fast jeeps; jump in to the jeep behind the wheel, honk few times and when someone joins you on the machine gun, you are menace indeed.
Three easy kills; I just love outflanking
There are a lot of complaints about unbalanced way of this games approach, and I reluctantly agree with it. An American soldier with a M60 and few LAW rocket launchers is a walking tank that can wreak havoc in no time, what I have performed in few occasions, busting into enemy spawn point, mowing down the enemy soldiers and destroying any panzers that have set up their position there in no time. This could have been handled smoother, indeed.
Panzer power, baby
So, at the end, what to say about Battlefield: Vietnam? It's a good game indeed, no question there, but it seems that it has left the forgery too soon, so we hope for patches and further support as we have seen it for the BF 1942. Most of the old BF veterans complained to me about how the gameplay itself seems poorer than its predecessor, along with other issues like a flawed net code, some graphic glitches (the game friendly offers you to install the latest drivers from the very game CD) that should be corrected with the expected patch. At the end, the community is somewhat disappointed with this sequel, it remains to see whether the massive support like mod development tool kit and the included map editor persuade people to base their future mods on the new engine, in which case this game may still thrive and prosper.
OVERALL RATING: 9.1 out of 10
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