Unfortunately, I can not share the enthusiasm of my fellow reviewers.
The game has a lot of good sides. The graphics are beautiful. Asides from the character interaction with the plants (brushing up to plants or pushing them out of the way), this game features some of the best plant, jungle, and mountain settings I've ever seen in a game. Mission design is also OK, although not great.
THIS GAME HAS ONE BIG PROBLEM THOUGH: Gameplay! I do not consider myself the world's best FPS player, but I also ain't the worst. Normally, I play FPS games on the hardest possible setting. This one, I played on "hard", which is the second hardest setting. And still, I was so frustrated by this game that I decided not to finish it half way through (which is a first for me).
I mean, don't get me wrong: I like that there finally is an FPS game where it is not unrealistically easy for the player to kill the enemy and where the enemy doesn't have an unrealistically hard time to kill the player. But in this game, things are outrageous! It is almost impossible to kill with one shot, while the enemy seems to be able to do that all the time!
To give you an idea of what I am talking about: I am in a scene where I need to enter a tunnel. I have a machine gun, and I already know that there are several vietcong just beyond the tunnel entrance. So I beging to lay down fire, and empty the whole magazine on the 4 of them. And guess what: At least 2 of them survive entirely unharmed every time! And not just that! But they turn against me, run towards me (while I am still firing), pull up their guns to aim (I am still firing), and kill me with a single shot!
After a number of attempts, I finally make it into the tunnel, clear out everything that is in there, and pick up a semi-stationary machine gun. Since I have played through the scene several times already, I know that more VCs will be waiting for me at the tunnel entrance. So I position myself close to the entrance and ready my stationary MG. I hear them talking and come closer, so I begin to fire. The 3 of them run into my fire. I hit them with all head and body shots. A whole amo belt worth of heavy fire. Yet not a single one of them goes down! Instead, one of them raises his gun and kills me with a single shot! And I am even in a prone position and mostly taking cover around the bend of a tunnel!
Give me a break! Vietnam certainly was tough, but I refuse to believe that a VC walks away entirely unharmed after taking 50 or more bullets to the head!
Oh, and what makes things worse is the save-game system, which only allows a small number of saves (around 4, typically) in each level. So you will play through the same stupid situations over and over again.
Also, the team mates are just plain dumb. They are OK when it comes to fighting the VC, but they move around like complete retards. In a game that features a lot of tunnel-fighting, it just isn't OK that your team mates block you from moving back or forth. This happened to me a number of times. All you can do is go back to the previous save-game. Argh!
Thanks, but no thanks! This could have been one awesome game. Technically, it certainly is. But play-balance-wise, someone took a lot of shortcuts. A bit more testing and fine-tuning would have turned this into a 4 or 5 star game. I play a lot of FPS games, and gameplay-wise, this one comes in dead-last!
Unfortunately, I can not share the enthusiasm of my fellow reviewers. The game has a lot of good sides. The graphics are beautiful. Asides from the character interaction with the plants (brushing up to plants or pushing them out of the way), this game features some of the best plant, jungle, and mountain settings I've ever seen in a game. Mission design is also OK, although not great. THIS GAME HAS ONE BIG PROBLEM THOUGH: Gameplay! I do not consider myself the world's best FPS player, but I also ain't the worst. Normally, I play FPS games on the hardest possible setting. This one, I played on "hard", which is the second hardest setting. And still, I was so frustrated by this game that I decided not to finish it half way through (which is a first for me). I mean, don't get me wrong: I like that there finally is an FPS game where it is not unrealistically easy for the player to kill the enemy and where the enemy doesn't have an unrealistically hard time to kill the player. But in this game, things are outrageous! It is almost impossible to kill with one shot, while the enemy seems to be able to do that all the time! To give you an idea of what I am talking about: I am in a scene where I need to enter a tunnel. I have a machine gun, and I already know that there are several vietcong just beyond the tunnel entrance. So I beging to lay down fire, and empty the whole magazine on the 4 of them. And guess what: At least 2 of them survive entirely unharmed every time! And not just that! But they turn against me, run towards me (while I am still firing), pull up their guns to aim (I am still firing), and kill me with a single shot! After a number of attempts, I finally make it into the tunnel, clear out everything that is in there, and pick up a semi-stationary machine gun. Since I have played through the scene several times already, I know that more VCs will be waiting for me at the tunnel entrance. So I position myself close to the entrance and ready my stationary MG. I hear them talking and come closer, so I begin to fire. The 3 of them run into my fire. I hit them with all head and body shots. A whole amo belt worth of heavy fire. Yet not a single one of them goes down! Instead, one of them raises his gun and kills me with a single shot! And I am even in a prone position and mostly taking cover around the bend of a tunnel! Give me a break! Vietnam certainly was tough, but I refuse to believe that a VC walks away entirely unharmed after taking 50 or more bullets to the head! Oh, and what makes things worse is the save-game system, which only allows a small number of saves (around 4, typically) in each level. So you will play through the same stupid situations over and over again. Also, the team mates are just plain dumb. They are OK when it comes to fighting the VC, but they move around like complete retards. In a game that features a lot of tunnel-fighting, it just isn't OK that your team mates block you from moving back or forth. This happened to me a number of times. All you can do is go back to the previous save-game. Argh! Thanks, but no thanks! This could have been one awesome game. Technically, it certainly is. But play-balance-wise, someone took a lot of shortcuts. A bit more testing and fine-tuning would have turned this into a 4 or 5 star game. I play a lot of FPS games, and gameplay-wise, this one comes in dead-last!