Battlefield Vietnam (PC)

By PETER ELEY

(Herald rating: * * * )

If you love the smell of napalm in the morning, you'll enjoy playing Battlefield Vietnam, the successor to EA's huge multiplayer smash hit, Battlefield 1942.

It would have been brave a few years back to make a game based around the war that set son against father in the US.

But time has healed these wounds and now we have two based around this war released at the same time, this one from EA and Vietcong Purple Haze from the Gathering, reviewed last week.

While Vietcong is a serious war game with historical overtones, Battlefield Vietnam is a full-on action game that leaves history to the historians and makes no attempt at moral judgment.

It is much like Battlefield 1942 as it is aimed at the huge and growing online gaming community.

Playing against humans overcomes artificial intelligence problems with computer bots, and the reality is that neither Battlefield title cuts it as a single-player game and they weren't designed to.

Single-player mode is best described as ordinary, and its only real use is as a training level before daring to venture online and play with the big boys. The graphics are undoubtedly better, and a new rendering engine fills in scenery with much better detail.

This enhances the playing experience, and there are numerous small improvements to the gameplay, too. There are more vehicles, including the iconic US Huey helicopters from this conflict, better weapons and more options generally. You can play as a green beret or a Vietcong, follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail or napalm bomb jungles.

While there are many similarities between the two Battlefield games, the playing maps reflect the different continents of the conflicts, and the Vietnam version has a real feel of steamy jungle/swampy rice paddy sort of thing.

Battlefield Vietnam certainly proved a hit at its New Zealand launch in Auckland this week. Most of those playing across a local area network were in no doubt that it was better than the 1942 version.

EA is kickstarting it with a $10,000 team competition, details of which are available online.

(EA, M15+)

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