Elite Warriors: Vietnam

The tall grass does a good job of concealing both you and your team, for the time being. There are a lot of enemies ahead, and they won’t exactly be welcoming you with open arms should you be spotted. Time for a little aerial support.

Paint the target and then wait … wait … listen for it … there it is … BOOM!  In a fiery blast, the enemy soldiers are no longer a threat.

Bold Games and nFusion Interactive at the team behind Elite Warriors: Vietnam, a tactical real-time shooter title based on the real-world exploits of Special Operations officer Maj. John Plaster.

The game is all about “Black Ops” missions, which include such elements as rescuing downed pilots, taking prisoners, paint targets for aerial strikes and even ambushing convoys.

The game, though, is all about running missions for the rating at the end. And therein lies the replayability of the title. Do it better and faster than you have previously done it. Some of the elements do change, but the mission parameters stay the same. Each mission begins with a briefing …

The intel is old, but you will conduct an incursion into Laos to destroy a road construction area. Oh, there may be elements of the 66^th NVA Regiment in the area as well.

The missions will place you in command of a squad of four, which you can play individually or group command with a wheel that pops up (hold the Q button) and gives you an array of basic but essential commands.

You cannot just run into the battle, but must adhere to the mission specs – such as, no killing civilians. Your squad, unless you instruct them otherwise, can get a little trigger happy at times, and there were also times when they were told to target the same enemy that the leader (you can select any of the four squad members to play as by using the F1-4 keys), but held their position and didn’t follow. Perhaps the instructions were not specific enough.

The game has a tutorial to familiarize players with the game, a single mission setting and campaign as well as multiplayer. Trying to refresh the multiplayer server list caused a crash or two until the firewall was disabled. But the first time this happened, the computer settings went haywire, causing the screen to black out every few seconds until a complete system reset had been affected. The host machine was also at or well above the recommended specs for the game and yet there were times when the graphics and gameflow stopped, and resumed a few seconds later.

The map created a few problems by failing to show locations and troop movement (there were times when the map failed to show where players had moved to until well after the movement), and the environments have invisible walls, which restrict movement. You can crawl up to what appears to be a bamboo fence with a high clearance, but you cannot crawl under the struts, which are more than high enough to accommodate it. The game has walls that do, to some effect, direct your movements. 

The game’s AI is also suspect. Civilians will stand in one spot and do an “afraid” animation despite the approach of foreign soldiers and the gunfire. Your automatic weapon will generate a burst of sound (the weapon recoil is very nice) at an enemy in one area, but those up the road will not react, and this was on the medium setting. This is unfortunate because, for the most part, the environments are good and the challenge could be there. It just feels like a game taken two-thirds of the way to a solid and intelligent shooter and then left hanging.

The game’s sound is very good, but not exactly interactive. See a radio in the hut of the NVA, and the voice reporting the news is speaking fluent English. As odd as that may seem, shoot the radio, put holes in it and it keeps playing. Now that is one tough radio! 

Elite Warriors: Vietnam has some aspects that are well done – like the radial menu for the squad commands – but fails in terms of realistically providing AI that reacts to the evolving game conditions. This could have been a good game, but lack of a cohesive story (it just felt like mission upon mission upon mission with nothing to pull it all together) and some problems with the gameplay and AI pull it down. 

Gameplay: 6.0
The game suffers from framerate problems that slow or stall the game. And then there was the problem with the multiplayer setup, the crash that it caused the host machine. This happened about the third time into the menu setting. Not good.

Graphics: 6.8
The environments and animations are good, but the invisible walls and repeated NPC movement detracts from this title.

Sound: 7.0
For the most part the environmental sound effects are well done, but the game seems to have them in place regardless of what else is happening. Turning off a radio with bullets does little to stop the sound, and gunfire – which seems to carry forever – does not attract much attention from soldiers up the road.

Difficulty: Medium
The game does have several challenge levels, but the AI is less than stellar in many scenarios, and have a tendency to run right at you rather than play hide-and-shoot with their weapons.

Concept: 6.0
While the mission range seems decent, most of what you will be asked to do seems to be much of the same motions about the fifth mission in.

Multiplayer: 6.5
The game supports multiplayer through a LAN or over the Internet, and in addition to the deathmatch mode, there is also a cooperative mode of play. 

Overall: 6.3
The game has some technical issues that hold it back and make for an average experience. Some of the elements are well realized, the environments look good and the sound is well done, but the AI and repeated “terrified” civilians, fails to elevate this title to the ranks of solid tactical combat shooter.