26-Apr-2004 Face it, two-on-two combat isn't bad, but nothing quite beats seeing thirty-odd armed soldiers screaming over a hill, guns blazing, rock 'n' roll music blaring, all charging at you with the simple intention of gutting you like a kipper and moving on. That's REAL combat and that's Battlefield Vietnam.
Luckily, you won't be spending days studying tactical manuals and strategic texts, formulating complex battle plans and memorising a dozen different keyboard commands for 'advance'. Even though you can have up to thirty-two players on each side, all you have to worry about is pointing your gun, tank, helicopter or plane at the enemy and pressing fire. The rest of your team will either be made up of internetting human warriors doing their own thing or above-average bots.
Armour-Geddon One of the best things about the Battlefield series has always been the mix of weapons and vehicles. Here you get to mess around with all sorts of Sixties-era human-mashing hardware, from two-man tanks to big old choppers that can swoop in over the horizon with the Apocalypse Now soundtrack blaring out of their speakers and jeeps dangling crazily from chains beneath.
The atmosphere is absolutely brilliant. Every Hollywood film ever made about the Vietnam war is crammed in here somehow. From the music on the loading screens to the "Go home GI" messages broadcast over loudspeakers in an effort to unhinge your allies' fragile American minds.
Move It, Soldier Anyone who played Battlefield 1942 will be familiar with the huge, open maps and unfocussed gameplay. Vietnam has fixed this with tighter, more balanced maps and a definite sense of where the battle is currently taking place.Whether you're defending a rope bridge from tanks or escaping from of a napalm-bombed jungle, Battlefield Vietnam is constantly grabbing you by the knackers and screaming thrills into your ears like a demented drill sergeant.
You will need a full-on broadband connection to appreciate it, and running 64 players, on or offline, does require a hefty computer to avoid it becoming a turn-based jerk-o-rama. But when it comes to in-your-face, down and dirty, always moving, relentless action combat - few do it better than the boys in the Battlefield.
It's the vehicles that make Battlefield Vietnam the experience to savour. There are more planes, trains and automobiles than even John Candy and Steve Martin could handle. Apart from the trains. In fact it's more like planes, tanks and rocket-firing mobiles. Which would have been a much better film, we reckon.
Scooters won’t offer any protection, but you can dart in and out of the enemy, with your passenger firing at will
Tanks aren’t too good in the jungle, but can still pack a powerful punch to anyone stupid enough to get too near
Boats are vital to ’Nam. Here you and your team can ride up the lazy river... and then be shot by snipers
Vietnam wouldn’t be Vietnam without choppers with teeth. They’re hard to fly, so the remember bail-out key
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