BEFORE THERE WAS DELTA FORCE, THERE WAS SOG
The Vietnam War’s most highly classified special operations were performed by the Studies and Observations Group. Consisting primarily of U.S. Army Special Forces “Green Berets,” SOG warriors fought top secret missions deep behind enemy lines.
Infilt...
The Vietnam War’s most highly classified special operations were performed by the Studies and Observations Group. Consisting primarily of U.S. Army Special Forces “Green Berets,” SOG warriors fought top secret missions deep behind enemy lines.
Infiltrate deep into Laos with your Green Beret and Montgnard teammates, hunted by trackers and bloodhounds, outnumbered at times 100-to-1. Rescue downed pilots, ambush convoys, seize enemy prisoners, discover targets for air attacks, and direct air strikes. See why SOG veterans went on to found Delta Force and in the work of secret operations, remain the stuff of legends.
Features:
Take part in the top secret world of “Black Ops” unconventional warfare.
Engage in highly classified operation throughout southeast Asia.
Eight realistic campaigns that take place in multiple phases.
Use combat patrol techniques learned in Vietnam and still valid today.
Team building – train and equip your team and then lead them on covert missions.
As someone who enjoyed the two deadly dozen games and line of sight: Vietnam despite their issues, I can say to avoid this game like the plague. Picked it up of GOG since the retail version doesn't work at all on modern PCs, and I wished I had just written it off. Friendly AI get stuck on a tiny rock or branch constantly is one of the worst offenders, making missions more tedious than they should be. There's also some game breaking bugs, such as airstrikes not destroying objectives time and time again.
Avoid like the plague unless you like having to backtrack to resue useless teammates constantly, or having to restart from scratch because objectives won't complete.
This is one of the bizarrely rare Vietnam games out there and it's an entertaining grab bag of ambitious ideas! They don't all land perfectly but there's usually some kind of redundancy system to fix any hiccups.
Elite Warriors is a combination of tactical mapping out routes with bite-sized missions of various types sprinkled in. First you set your coordinates, set the marching pace, try to avoid patrols, outfit your squad, and then you're dropped into the jungle to take out a VC squad, blow up a construction site, recover a supply drop, assassinate a leader while avoiding civilian collateral...etc.
It can seem overwhelming but the tutorials (although a little DIY) cover all the basics. You can even zoom out and control your squad with the mouse if you want to.
There's a lot of gear and more importantly a lot of atmosphere. You start feeling the prickle of the heat and rain as you mush through the swaying leaves, giving hushed commands. The A.I for the team is such that they will not just stand around under fire (although you can ask them to 'hold fire' until they're literally getting shot at) so you don't feel like they're not holding up their end in combat. Normally you're just making minor adjustments to behavior, equipment, and positioning if you're paying attention.
Fair warning the voice acting is TERRIBLE. The VC are irritating and your squad has limited voice overs, although thankfully the narrator sounds authoritative enough. The gun sound effects are punchy and interestingly there's bullet drop and compensation for distance so this is not fire-and-forget style combat.
Basically this is a patient, micro-management type combat simulator. Not every cylinder fires all the time but play through a couple times and you can find out the most efficient way to accomplish your goals and keep the team alive.
There is a lot of potential here, but battling your friendly AI throughout every mission, having well laid plans undone by conveniently spawning enemies, and the neat but honestly kinda useless overworld map system all make this something that deserves a fresh, modern attempt. Neat to play and see the ideas, but that's it.
