Men of War: Vietnam

Since there are so very few Vietnam games let alone an RTS, this is a fun Vietnam game. I will not say it is a great Men of War game though, in that it is the fraction of the size of of Men of War. There are no full scale or even half scale battles in the game. You only command a squad of soldiers at any given time and you are mostly sneaking around. I had fun and was entrained but was very sad when there was no full scale battle, especially when they bring in the helicopters.

I appreciate this game first and foremost for tackling a conflict so unpopular, sitting at the intersection of sour defeat and Tricky Dick's sour mug. This game works because it keeps to the tactical scale allowed by an asymmetrical strugle in a jungle oft too dense to manuver a unicycle through efficiently. Forget your wall of foundry fresh war machines flattening nations, it's small arms, death from a shadow already passed before it is percieved, and even some primal fisticuffs close struggle for a place in history not relegated to a footnote. To paraphrase Coppolla, this game is about the Vietnam War, it IS the Vietnam war. Marginally trained draftees might not hear the call to fall back over their own ballistic bowels. Green recruits high on panama red might wander into a clearing and draw a typhoon of mortar fire. You might amuse Lady Luck somehow and see your smugly textbook succession of tactics and manuvers play out in way that leaves a witness to boast of your triumphant defeat. Tighten your belt, depantsings are the daily special at the Viet Cong Cafe. In a game about the biggest flaming clown car pile up in the history of warfare, giving orders damn well ought to return thin margins of satisfaction. Ever been in a jungle? It's often real loud, all that life, and gunfire on top doesn't boost verbal, somatic or even psychic communication to measurable efficacy. When you accept some of the eccentric behavior of the AI as a feature of a war that was nothing but incoherent bug reports it becomes a force multiplier for the battalions of hard realism. Extra bonus points for letting us experience the war from the winners podium instead of always having to obfuscate the outcome with the blood drunk narrative of incoherence and denial. Just remember to mentally overwrite hilariously bad voice acting with R. Lee Ermey shouting a war machine into slack jawed draftees from Nebraska.

This game focuses more on a small group of soldiers making their way through the vietnam landscape completing different objectives. This may include ambushing some helicopters before they take off, commandeering a boat to patrol a river, and even taking part in a massive assault with APC's. I enjoyed it because I like outfitting my small group of soldiers with serious firepower, taking the time to adjust their inventory for the situation is a lot easier when its only 6 dudes. Thats where the difficulty comes in, making sure your 6 guys stay alive using guerilla tactics, setting their ROI to hold fire and getting them in position using direct control to set a perfect angle for ambush. If you like commandos you will most likely enjoy this.

In both scenarios, I cannot proceed due to bugs. One is the freezing screen in the loading screen and the other is not finishing the mission even though I did all the tasks. But I gave it two stars as I like the game though.