A deadly mistake

Getting killed by uncoordinated goofballs

So, make a mistake—which is very, very easy here due to the off-kilter controls and the uncoordinated goofballs following you around all the time—and you die almost immediately. Head shots are instant kills. Two to five shots to the body take you down, too. Snipers have the ability to kill with one shot, over both long distances and even close up. Creep up on one and you’d better not give him a chance to get off a shot, because the sound of that retort will be the last thing you’ll ever hear.

As in the first Vietcong, damage cumulatively lowers your maximum overall health. It’s almost impossible to keep your max health above 50% by the end of missions. This really cranks up the tension and the difficulty, of course, since a single shot kills when you’re this wounded. Add in the limited number of quick saves allowed in each mission and you’ve got one extremely hard shooter that gets measurably tougher as you proceed through levels.

So, yeah, I got killed. A lot. On an average level, I needed to load at least two dozen saves. Most of the deaths didn’t come as a result of mistakes that I’d made, either. I’d typically get stuck on an object, get blocked at the wrong moment by a squadmate, get shot in the head by a sniper from across a courtyard, or peek around the wrong corner at the wrong time.

Another major annoyance was the bizarre way my soldier would pull his weapon up in front of his face whenever I got too close to a building or a buddy. I’d accidentally turn slightly towards a wall during a firefight and suddenly my own M-16 would block two-thirds of the screen. I appreciate the attempt to add realism by moving weapons to accommodate in-game characters and objects, but it makes no sense for a soldier to be obscuring his view during combat. I can’t believe this got past internal testing.


My biggest issue, though, was with the lack of audio cues that the VC were lurking nearby. While enemies talk, giving you a rough idea that they’re in the neighborhood, they clam up whenever you draw near. As a result, it’s easy to think that an area has been cleared, only to get riddled with bullets by some guy huddled in an alcove. Which is completely realistic. I’m sure the real VC didn’t broadcast positions by shouting orders or prattling on in typically shooter fashion about noisy rats. But in a game, where our senses are limited by the monitor and peripheral vision completely removed, the odd audio clue is much appreciated. It actually restores some of the perceptions lost, so you can’t really call it a cheat.