Vietcong sees the done-to-death FPS game taken to a relatively underused location. As the title suggests you are in 'Nam. A conflict which besides much controversy at the time and some rather fine movies of the mid to late 80s is not one of the more popular wars (if there can be such a thing).

Purple Haze sees the original game joined by its expansion pack Fist Alpha. The game sees you take the part of Steve Hawkins who has the game begins is being transported to Nui Pek a Special Forces base near the Cambodian border. The game opens with you aboard the transport chopper and plays out a cut scene using the game engine. It looks lovely and with the inclusion of real music from the period is very atmospheric and does give a sense of "being there".

Once you land you are given control of Steve using the standard FPS control system. You have a free run of the base; you can talk to various people around the place and nip down to the camp's weapons range for a practice with a few of the guns. However it's not until you meet with head of the base and introduce yourself that the game really starts. Once that is done there is another cut scene that shows you going to your first proper mission. Getting into the game is slow as none of these cut scenes can be skipped and it's probably about 10 minutes before you actually get to fire at a hostile target.

   

Your first mission sees at a friendly village where you suddenly become the target of a sniper. This is where you realise the game does not play like a lot of FPS…. as the bullets start flying your first thought is to run towards the direction of the shots, return fire and deal with the shooter(s) quickly. Bad call - doing this sees you dead in seconds. Vietcong plays more towards the simulation end of the FPS genre. You need to duck for cover, crawl behind logs and only run into the open when one of your team is giving you covering fire.

With your head ducked down and the bullets flying you wait for your moment to strike, and it's here you get your first glimpse of how lovely this game is. This being 'Nam you have lovely lush green fields, dense jungles, villages and also tunnels. Everything looks great, even down to the grass and bushes. When you are given the break you need and start after the sniper you really do feel like you are moving through real jungles and foliage. Fallen trees or other natural hazards may hamper your progress.

The simulation side crops up again as you near your target. With many other war based FPS games the enemy can seem unlimited in number, hoards and hoards of them can be mowed down in seconds. In Vietcong however less is more. The enemy know their surroundings and use the dense jungle to their advantage. Slow and steady is the order of the day and you never know which fallen tree or overgrown bush will hide that sniper. You can employ tactics using the covering fire from the rest of your squad, you can move slowly and carefully hoping to not be seen, or you can just fire randomly in hope of flushing them out. The manual claims that in the actual war 1 million rounds of ammo were fired for every enemy soldier killed! If the game is anything to go by I can well believe it.

   

Another aspect of Vietcong's sim-like nature is shown by the fact that you are limited by the amount of weapons you can carry, and also carrying heavier weapons effects movement and aiming. Also you may find that a stray bullet not only takes off an amount of health but also slows you down with an annoying limp.

AI is now one of the most important parts of an FPS game, and here it does not let you down. Most of the time you have at least 3 other members in your patrol who act intelligently. When the bullets start flying so do they. They duck behind trees or throw themselves to the floor whilst returning fire. The enemy AI is equally as good. Battles are usually close affairs with you tending to meet small squads of enemy at a time, although you are usually outnumbered. Due to the way the game plays and the AI you do find this leads to tense gun battles and a completely different style to many games of this nature.

I have said the game looks lovely and the sense of being there is helped so much by this - it also sounds great - guns sound like guns and all of them sound different - you also get that "jungle sound" and often find yourself checking out strange sounds that you hear. Another BRILLIANT feature is the music - certainly a major feature of many 'Nam movies it also adds a lot here.

   

The game is not perfect though - due to its slow and steady nature you may find a few long periods of doing nothing but walking through the jungle - also there are a few graphical glitches that take away from the loveliness of the whole thing. On top of that its another game where to get the most from you are going to need to have a PC that's more in line with the recommended hardware - a 2GHz processor is probably needed along with a decent new(ish) graphics card.

The Fist Alpha part of the game can be played as stand alone to the first part, so if you do get stuck you can always try this out too. It progresses your tour of duty well and has more missions, the first of which is very interesting and fun to play. It also gives you a few more weapons to mess around with, and for those into multiplayer games it has a few more maps.