Men of War: Vietnam

Men of War: Vietnam is the latest installment in 1C Company's complex yet delicious RTS series, and it may come as a surprise to some that a new Men of War game has seen the light of day already. After all, barely six months have passed since the fantastic Assault Squad enriched the franchise. However, while that game was designed with the multiplayer aficionado in mind, Vietnam tries to cater entirely to the needs of the lone wolves, offering a more fleshed-out story, no less than two full campaigns and generally slower-paced gameplay. As such, the quick succession of games is not without logic, although this new installment does have a bit of trouble maintaining the same high standard of quality as its slightly older brother.

The player can choose between two campaigns, which put him in the shoes of either the communist or the American-led forces respectively. The gameplay of these two campaigns is roughly the same, although the communist missions (at least initially) seem to rely a bit more on stealth, while in the American campaign you start out with more soldiers at your disposal in order to facilitate objectives involving the conquering of strategic positions. Each mission of either campaign offers a varied set of objectives, however, ranging from capturing patrol boats and blowing up weapon caches, to eliminating snipers and sweeping clean bunkers. As a result, the game largely succeeds in keeping the game interesting enough to continue playing for long stretches at a time; it's hard to tell what the game will throw at you next. Either campaign consists of five missions, and knowing that some missions can easily take two hours to complete, that makes for a good amount of single player content.

Are you a bad enough dude to sweep clean this village?

Like previous installments in the Men of War series, Vietnam has a vast selection of options. Each soldier has his own loadout and additional inventory content can be looted from corpses or weapon caches. During combat, you can make your soldiers switch grenade types, fire modes, weapons and stances. The series' signature direct control mode is back as well, allowing you to take control over individual soldiers. This can be particularly useful on the occasion of a deadlock on the battlefield, as direct control makes for more fluid one man everything-or-nothing manoeuvres.

The complexity of the control scheme is also what steepens the game's learning curve. Combat situations in Men of War: Vietnam require quick thinking and acting, so it's easy to perish as you get lost in the control scheme in the heat of battle. Even though such difficulties are simply inherent to a game of this type, things can get annoying when soldiers occasionally fail to execute the orders you administered them, or when the complex nature of both the command system and the control scheme causes ambiguities. For example, it can be annoyingly complicated to have your squad board a patrol boat, as the soldiers will not automatically occupy the free slots for mounted weapons on the vehicle; these have to be entered seperately. As such, part of the game's longevity is in fact caused by oddities such as this. Addionally, the game's (fair) challenge often dictates that you attempt tackling a certain situation again and again, until everything goes perfect. But when it does, the satisfaction is considerable.

Direct control mode often makes for very brave or very stupid endeavours.

While the challenging, versatile gameplay will suck you in eventually, it's hard to ignore the game's lackluster looks. Granted, Assault Squad didn't exactly score an A+ in the graphics department, but with the right settings, the game at least looked acceptable. Vietnam, however, has an even rougher look. The objects, shadows and characters lack detail and refinedness, even by the more forgiving standards of the RTS genre, and the grainy look of the in-game cutscenes reminds of YouTube videos more than anything else. Even on the highest settings, Men of War: Vietnam is just not a very pretty game to look at, so graphics junkies won't be amused.

Fortunately, the sound is more impressive, at least for as far as the music goes. Anything from the sixties-like menu music to the more ambient, action-movie like tracks that accompany you during the missions themselves has a surprisingly professional feel to it. The music mostly reflects the in-game developments quite aptly, though a minor drawback is the dynamic battle music, which, because of its monotony, gets old fast and doesn't loop correctly due to the track being cut off a moment too soon. A bigger aural gripe, however, is the voice acting, especially in the communist campaign. The performance of the voice actors during the USA missions is mostly just uninspired and clumsy, but the Hollywood accents of the Russian and North-Vietnamese soldiers are near-comedic, and the lack of quality in this department very definitely mars the immersion. Even though the path towards cheesiness is often paved on English with a Russian accent (STALKER, anyone?), the voice actors of the Russian soldiers in this game are poor even by those low standards. They simply could and should have done a better job.

Get to da patrol boat!

That all being said, it is hard to believe that the people interested in this series and games from Eastern Europe in general would be interested in graphics and voice acting primarily. It is more likely that they are looking for some hardcore RTS action, and Men of War: Vietnam very definitely offers this. One must keep in mind, though, that, unlike Assault Squad, Vietnam is designed almost exclusively for those who prefer single player: the only available multiplayer mode is co-op. But although I consider myself an SP gamer pur sang, I still prefer Assault Squad. It seems that, in the end, the fast, large-scale battles of Assault Squad do the complex and peculiar Men of War gameplay more justice than the slower, more objective-based missions that make up the majority of Vietnam's two campaigns. The gameplay of Assault Squad forces you to think even faster, and the mostly higher quantities of on-screen units make for more epic, dramatic and rock-hard battles. In Vietnam, you have less fire power at your disposal, so the combat has a more guerrilla-like character. This can be fun for a while, but it was frequent that I couldn't help but long back to the more chaotic approach of this game's multiplayer-oriented predecessor.

Don't expect these chaps to bail you out too often.

So is Men of War: Vietnam recommended? Certainly, but it's not for everyone. Fans of the series will definitely want to check it out, as will the more dedicated RTS players. The catch is that the single player focus does demand a bit more patience. It's harder to get immersed by the game and to get into that flow, the flow that was so easy to be lured into by the more in-your-face approach of Assault Squad. Still, with two meaty campaigns, a huge variety of objectives and a deep set of options, Men of War: Vietnam makes for a lengthy and enjoyable single player RTS game.

Jesse Dolman, NoobFeed.