• Home
• Reviews
• Tips
• Forum
• Links
• The Team
• Contact Us
• About Us
•  
• Login
• Webmail

Author: scharfschutze

Type: PS2 Game

Released: 2004

Designer: Guerilla Studios

Publisher: Eidos

Genre: Third-person shooter

Vietnam, 1967. The war that will claim 58,000 Americans, 3 million Vietnamese, and 2 million Laotians and Cambodians has yet to get into full swing. The American forces in Vietnam still believe that victory is only a matter of weeks or months, and they have yet to change the tactics they have employed since the Ia Drang Valley battle of 1965. Relatively small patrols of US Army and Marine Corps soldiers are sent into "hot zones" in South Vietnam, often alongside South Vietnamese soldiers or Montagnard tribesmen, in order to do battle with the Communist Viet Cong and the occasional North Vietnamese Army patrol. Although NVA penetration is on the increase, it has yet to alarm the higher-ups of the American forces, and everywhere they can, the higher-ups seek to force a decisive battle on the Viet Cong and their NVA allies. Victory, they say, is only a matter of time. However, "they" certainly aren't asking the grunts on the ground.

Guerrilla Studios pushes you into this hellish environment with their gritty, few-holds barred third-person shooter Shellshock: Nam '67. You take the role of an unnamed "cherry"(you can select one of three player skins, representing the three major ethnic groups in the US Army: Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic), a new recruit sent to a US firebase in South Vietnam to replace the ever-growing losses of US personnel. Unlike most games of this sort, which have a "boot camp" tutorial level of some sort, Shellshock throws you straight into the action: after a video introducing some of the personalities you will encounter throughout the game, you are landed by helicopter straight into an assault on a Viet Cong stronghold. Of course, you do have a squad leader who tells you some of the basics of combat (i.e. the game controls) as you march up the hill towards the combat zone, but once the fighting starts, it's up to you to figure out the rest as you go.

Right from the start, Shellshock sets itself apart from other third-person shooters with its graphics. Modelling and landscaping is quite reasonable and in the same ballpark as SOCOM or Ghost Recon 2, but Guerrilla Studios quite purposely gave Shellshock a very grainy look; while it looks odd and uncomfortable at first, it grows on you, and it gives the game a much more "authentic" feel. Indeed, with many of the elements of Shellshock, Guerrilla seemed to have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to in some way give Shellshock the feel of an interactive war film.

In keeping with this design philosophy, the game includes a between-mission base camp, in this case, your unit's firebase in South Vietnam. Before a mission, you can explore this base, talk with various soldiers, shop for "unofficial" supplies (like performance-enhancing drugs, rocket pistol ammo, and even pornography), even hire prostitutes from the local "matron". At the firing range, you can choose for your mission any of the US weapons you have unlocked so far, and test-fire them on a short-distance shooting range. This is a great way to decide what weapons you want to take with you, because (with the exception of the rocket pistol), all ammunition expended in the shooting range will be refilled before the mission. You can also get advice on the firearm in your hand from the Weapons Sergeant, who has an opinion on every gun in the game. Be warned: he has a soft spot for the M16, and his advice regarding this weapon is, in my mind, somewhat ill-conceived. When you finally get tired of bumming around, you can head either to the helicopter LZ or the front gate (depending on the mission) to get going.

Once you're in the bush, the game really begins. Shellshock attempts to reproduce almost the entire gamut of scenarios encountered in the Vietnam War, and in most aspects it succeeds. Depending on the mission, your objectives include clearing villages of potential VC supporters, rescuing jungle patrols gone wrong, holding beleaguered positions against NVA night attack, and "special operations" deep behind enemy lines. And all around you, the characteristic nature of the Vietnam War jumps out at you. Encounters between you and the enemy are at close range and often unexpected, the foliage masks almost every encounter, and traps abound on the jungle paths. Your squad mates stick to the paths and roads, while your enemy, intimately familiar with the terrain, hides almost anywhere. To add to the confusion, the enemy, particularly the Viet Cong, bear little visible difference to the civilians of South Vietnam (aside from the guns in their hands), making it difficult not to simply blow away every Vietnamese person you see, civilian or otherwise.

The weapons available in the game provide an excellent summary of the small arms available to either side. As an American soldier, you have access to the M14 rifle, M16 assault rifle, M3A1 submachine-gun, and a few other nasty weapons; in the field, you can acquire the Mauser 98 rifle, the AK-47 assault rifle, the RPD light machine-gun, or even the PPSh-41 submachine-gun, with a few other weapons thrown in for good measure. Each weapon is authentically modelled and has its own unique behaviour. For example, the M16 is an accurate weapon somewhat lacking in power, but the slightly inaccurate AK-47 will take your opponent's arm off with a shot or two. The submachine-guns in the game are devastating at close range, but are absolutely useless at anything beyond short ranges. And the machine-guns can tear through masses of enemy troops, although they overheat rapidly and can cut through their ammunition supplies without warning if you aren't careful.

The battlefield itself very quickly becomes littered with scattered body parts, mangled corpses and the bloody remnants of battle, and Shellshock holds few punches back in giving the player a vision of the brutal realities of the Vietnam War. Granted, there is a little bit of dramatic license played out: the Vietnamese general provided as the "nemesis" of the game is much more brutal than anything in the American camp. However, the Americans aren't exactly heroes either; one of your squad mates routinely murders prisoners, and your squad's Montagnard guide is particularly ruthless in dealing with interrogation.

One of the only failings of Shellshock is the nature of the allied AI. In the real Vietnam War, a US soldier on his own was a dead grunt; in Shellshock, you will find that, with the exception of the last few missions, the only person you can come close to relying on is yourself. In the majority of missions, your squad mates are absolutely moronic, and only serve to draw fire from yourself. It gets REALLY frustrating when you're trying to clear a fortress held by lots of NVA and your teammates remain happily outside while you move through the fort on your own. In the last few missions, however, your teammates are slightly smarter, following you closely and keeping your back covered.