War! Hurgh! What is it good for? Well, for making very enjoyable PC games for starters!

Battlefield: Vietnam moves the conflict away from the 1942 World War Two period (where the original made a name for itself with PC gamers with its large, immersive battles and the ability to use vehicles and authentic weapons), and towards the more recent Vietnam conflict.

Most of the experiences in-game seem to have been modelled in one way or another, from the movies. Not only does this portray a more recognisable Vietnam, but also creates a better atmosphere for the whole game, bypassing the anti-war sentiment, and getting straight to the full-on action sequences. You'll find yourself playing in well-known arenas such as the Ho Chi-Minh trail, or the Ia Drang valley (where Mel Gibson and his fellow squaddies in "We Were Soldiers" fought it out).

   

The first thing you notice as soon as you load up BFV is its authenticity. The game just oozes Sixties Vietnam, with psychedelic menu screens, and period music (which I'll come back to). Even the loading screens, which you do end up staring at quite a bit, have been "sixtified", with not only the game's great music playing, but there are also short information pieces about the Vietnam conflict. These are all interesting (it's not like they're lecturing you), and they do help to pass the time inbetween levels, as the loading times are a little long.

Unlike online games on any console, a PC, having more power, can have so many more people online in one room, which is definitely essential to play Vietnam, as with a war, you don't just want 16 players, you want 64! What makes Vietnam stand above any other PC online FPS is its synergy of teamwork and vehicles. This gives the game so many more angles and options, be it jumping into a Huey with 5 other teammates to be dropped off quickly to the furthest enemy outpost, or grabbing an F-4 Phantom, and dropping warm napalm love onto the nearest NVA troop.

   

Obviously, with this much napalm and Huey action going on, not only will you need a fast Internet connection, but a fairly fast PC too, to handle everything. The review rig is just over a year old, and although didn't show that many signs of slowdown, did struggle with textures, so I had to put the detail down. I never spotted a game with more than 50 players in it, the lag being quite bad with only 34 players involved (even worse when launching the game from Gamespy).

But, all said and done, the game is certainly worth the occasional lag and running problems, as there is so much going on at any one time or place. The large, wide-ranging maps, which vary, from open island combat, to street-to-street engagements, to full-on jungle warfare, although causing the problems, make the large-scale brawls possible.

   

Everything looks convincing, from the grass fields and shrubbery (which is extensive on most levels), to the many varied vehicles and base structures. But it's the little things that make the difference; like the animations for the weapons - when you run, loose clips and extra magazines swing about, and when you reload, you don't just take a clip out and put another in, you check the weapon's springs and everything! I was in awe the first time I reloaded my M60 - so much so that the bloke I was meant to be shooting got me instead!

Now, back to the music. As well as being used in the loading and menu screens, Vietnam's music can also be played when in vehicles (only by the driver), and not only everyone inside the vehicle can hear it, but everyone outside can too, having a loudspeaker effect, distorting the closer and further away from the vehicle you get. Ok, so it may attract attention when coming up on an enemy base, but imagine the look on their face when you pull up to them in a jeep with " Weeeell, everybody's heard about the bird…" pumping away, or "War! Hurgh!" blaring out of your patrol boat, or, the best yet, "Ride of the Valkyries" blasting from your Hueys as you rain warm death from above.

   

Those experiences are precisely why I fell in love with this game, being totally engrossed in the experience, complete with Hollywood gloss, and Sixties style. But Vietnam is certainly a long way away from being perfect. The game has quite a few bugs (such as the shadows from the vehicles get copied and pasted all across the floor), and the characters' weapons aren't all that evenly matched - for those of you who are unfamiliar to the Battlefield series' character selection, you can choose either a rifleman, engineer, heavy weapons, or sniper. These characters have 2 weapons to choose from each, and fixed other items. One problem is with the US heavy weapons bloke, who gets an M60 (appropriately named the "newbie cannon"), and a choice of either grenade launcher or rocket launcher. No other class can have either. This leads to a whole team of US troops running about, spraying bullets everywhere, and generally rocketing the bejeezus out of everything that moves, as well as some stuff that doesn't. This is also extended to the VC-US problem - everyone wants to be the US, with their cool tanks, Hueys and M16's, and no-one wants to be the "evil" VC, which leads to some very one-sided games.

But, these problems can all, thankfully be fixed, thanks to the miracle of patches, a reason why I can see past its present problems, and realise the great potential a game like this possesses.