10-Sep-2004 "Drug references: check. Swearing: check. Prostitutes: check. Dead bodies: check. Gameplay - oh." This could quite easily describe the checklist reeled off by Eidos before giving the go-ahead for Shellshock: Nam '67, an attempt at a realistic and gritty war game that's as controversial as the war it's based on. Well, that's how it's been marketed, anyway.
You start off as a rookie grunt, and gradually work your way through to promotion into Special Forces and beyond. Controlling your soldier from a third-person perspective, the idea is to accompany your squad through several missions, all the while avoiding VC booby traps and witnessing wartime atrocities. Sadly, the reality is far less interesting.
White Men Can't Jump For a start, the missions themselves range from run of the mill to deathly boring, and frequently mess you around with objectives that are inadequately explained. The control system never feels quite right, probably due to its shared development on the consoles. Bizarrely, you can't even jump, which leads to several 'hilarious' occasions where your highly trained soldier has to run halfway across the level to get around a shin-high trench.
The AI is also wholly inconsistent. While the enemy is usually fairly competent at seeking cover, they'll often inexplicably spoil it all by running around blindly, or totally fail to notice your presence when you're standing right in front of them. Your squad-mates are frequently nothing less than a pain in the arse too, either because they're always getting lost, or keep running into your line of fire.
In between missions, you often get to stroll around your base camp where you can try out new weapons, chat to soldiers to progress the story, and purchase contraband. The contraband stuff includes pictures of women with - yes - partially exposed breasts, not to mention a selection of drugs and a pass to visit the local prostitutes. It's all far tamer than it sounds though - the pictures are juvenile, the drugs are no more controversial than Snake's sniper-rifle steadying pills in Metal Gear Solid, and the encounters with prostitutes are sexually inexplicit.
The presentation is a mixed bag - the pre-rendered cinematics are generally of a high standard, yet the in-engine cut-scenes are dull and unskippable. The graphics engine itself isn't exactly triple-A, and is blighted by an annoying fog that fails to hide the pop-up. There was even one part of the game where the approach of an enemy could be spotted by watching his elbow protruding through a brick wall. Thankfully, the quality of the sound fares better, featuring several licensed tracks from the era accompanied by some atmospheric sound effects throughout the game.
Nevertheless, Shellshock is a mess. It's no more controversial than a hundred other games you'll have seen before, all of which play better than this. Look beyond the undeserved 18-certificate, and you'll find little more than a below-par action-shooter that's about as much fun to play as pulling a VC bayonet out of your gonads. It smells of something hot and strong, and it ain't napalm...
PC Zone Staff
// Overview
Verdict
Daily Mail-baiting rubbish
Uppers
Decent music Nice cinematics
Downers
Hateful checkpoint save system No multiplayer Feels unfinished Not as hardcore as it thinks it is
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Decent music
