The better stuff

’’Don’t f*ck with New York, suckah!’’

Vietcong 2 has some pluses, though. Oddly, the extreme difficulty gave me a real sense of satisfaction with every completed mission. I had a lot of moments where I thought “Man, I’m never going to be able to do this.” Most shooters are more of a grind where success is assured from the beginning, so I really appreciated a game that could make me feel this way again. When I wasn’t screaming at my monitor, I actually enjoyed some of the challenge here.

Pterodon has done a good job with the setting, once more slapping together a background that nicely recreates the Vietnam War era—or at least the Vietnam War era we remember from movies like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket. Seediness and chaos are everywhere. The game begins in a whorehouse and the leading character is an anti-hero who says things like “Drop the gun, you f*cking slopehead!”

Visuals are fairly good, with character and location detail that, while not contemporary in terms of all the bells and whistles, are distinctive. Some of the realism is negated by hitches with the graphical engine, which, as already noted, seems prone to slowdowns in open areas, and repetitive audio. Your squaddies scream the same, typically non-PC battle cries over and over again. “Don’t f*ck with New York, asshole!” is a colorful line, but I really didn’t need to hear it every single battle. And I could probably tell that I had a black guy in my group without him adding “Suckah!” to every second line.

Pterodon has even made more of an effort than most developers in terms of actual gameplay content. In addition to the US campaign, there’s an ancillary one where you play from the VC side. It’s little more than a tacked-on episode to show the war from the other guy’s point-of-view, but still appreciated when other war shooters never even try to show other perspectives. We’re still waiting for the chance to play a German in a WWII shooter, for instance.


Also, Pterodon continues its flirtation with the apparently forbidden cooperative mode of play. While all other shooter developers this side of Croteam (Serious Sam) have seemingly forgotten all about the option, Pterodon has included it in both of its Vietcong games. The one drawback is that co-op remains outside of the standard campaigns, so you can’t buddy-up to go through the solo American or VC missions. Still, it’s much appreciated that the option was included, along with the fairly standard team- and class-based multiplayer game provided with just about all war shooters these days.