7.8

Vietcong 2

Vietcong 2 is set against the turbulent backdrop of the 1968 Tet Offensive and throws gamers into the ancient city of Hue during the Vietnam War. Once again, developers Pterodon, manage to capture the feel and look of the 1960's with not only an engaging storyline but also some sturdy gameplay. Unfortunately Vietcong 2 may not be as popular as its predecessor because of the dated graphics engine that is unfortunately not comparable to games such as Quake 4 or Serious Sam 2. It's a tough world out there and Pterodon may have dropped the ball on this one.

The storyline of Vietcong 2 once again revolves around the Vietnam war and the game starts during the Tet festivities of Vietnam (New Year) where you find yourself being called back to duty and unfortunately leaving your "love me long time" girl behind. The beauty of Pterodon is that their games are generally designed for the adult market so you can be sure that the storyline of Vietcong 2 contains enough adult content to make even the most humble of gamers blush a deep red. And just when you think it's going to be a leisurely walk to the barracks, the player is immediately thrown into action and Daniel Boon's life is once again thrown into turmoil with some of the scariest urban and jungle warfare out there.

The gameplay of Vietcong 2 is a combination of first person shooter meets squad based mechanic that actually fits the genre of this title perfectly. Vietcong also features over 50 authentic weapons of the era to help immerse the player into the deadly Vietnam War. Vietcong 2 also offers a few different gameplay modes such as campaign and even some great multiplayer modes that offers up to 64 players at once for some of the best death match of this side of Doom. As with all first person shooters, Vietcong 2 is your traditional shoot to kill game but unlike other similar games on the market at the moment, this title relies more on thinking rather than killing because remember, you're playing in the jungle here and those VC's are damn sneaky. The artificial intelligence of the game is rather quite adept, although sometimes your squad members do some unusual things when the action heats up.

Graphically Vietcong 2 is an extremely dated game that would of looked brilliant about two years ago. Although the characters have realistic texture details, they move with a robotic feel and unfortunately the backgrounds of the game are little to be desired that looks rather bland and polygonal. Even on our test machine, a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz, the game still suffered from the same frame rate issues of the original game which unfortunately goes down to bad programming. With that said, the game does contain some nice lighting and shadow effects but unfortunately it can't compare to the competition.

However, the musical score of Vietcong 2 is great and almost transforms you into the world of the 1960's. The voice acting is a little too contrived and forced but ironically actually suits the genre when the actors start camping it up. The sound effects of the game have been directly taken from a Hollywood war blockbuster and you really need a good speaker setup to get the true sound benefit from this title.

In conclusion, Vietcong 2 isn't a bad game but unfortunately it arrived in the wrong year and if it came out about 2 years ago, it would have been a highly prized game. Perhaps next time Pterodon will fix the bugs and give this game a much needed revamp, both graphically and with the gameplay. Probably worth a rent before a buy, unless you're a die hard Vietnam war nut!