Operation: Vietnam Review




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Developer: Coyote Publisher: Majesco
Release Date: August 14, 2007 Also On: None

Operation: Vietnam is a bargain game, weighing in at $20 on shelves. With this fact alone we could assume that Operation: Vietnam (which looks incredibly generic on the front of the package) would be a waste of time, even at the low price. Alternatively, we could take a look at it for what it is, a cheap, quick distraction and find a lot more entertainment. I took the latter path, and although I wasn’t ever blown away by Operation: Vietnam, I could pass some time playing it rather than people-watching or counting sheep.

You’ll play as four incredibly cliched American soldiers after their helicopter is shot down in the thick of the Vietnamese jungle. The leader (named Sarge, of all things) comes equipped with a standard assault rifle that has decent range and attack power. The medic can heal your party with double the effects of the standard-use health pack. The heavy weapons guy carries a rocket launcher that takes care of armored vehicles and large groups effectively, but his slow reload time makes him a valuable asset only when the enemy isn’t totally aware of your presence. Finally, the sniper’s rifle is the most useful weapon in the game. You could theoretically use only the sniper and pick off almost all of the brain dead soldiers, with only the ambushing ones and armored vehicles to worry about, for the entire game and cruise right on through. This would be incredibly boring, however, so I left the sniper to the CPU’s control.

Running through the stages as Sarge is made a little boring by his slow moving speed, but I honestly began to enjoy rushing head-first into a crowd of Viet Cong punks and lighting them up with a grenade or a full clip of ammo. Fortunately, there is infinite ammo, so the arcade-shooter aspect of the game can be enjoyed without an annoying restraint. It’s incredibly easy to rush into a crowd of enemies, strafe back and forth, and clear them out. With the sniper and heavy weapons guy covering you, there really isn’t anything to worry about. The medic is easy to switch to and use quickly, so dying isn’t too much of a concern until later in the game. On top of all of this, you can throw smoke grenades that call in an air strike. Goodbye, Charlie.

Unfortunately, using the stylus is not very easy to do here. Neither is aiming, since the running and aiming controls are both awkwardly placed on the directional pad. This means that whenever you want to attack an enemy, you are absolutely forced to run toward him. The tactical aspect that Coyote Games hoped to create is completely smashed to bits by this silly concept. The saving grace is that Operation: Vietnam is easy to label as a time waster simply because it isn’t hard to play or hard to beat, it is just not very interesting or compelling.

The graphics and sound effects work more to create the bargain bin label placed on this game, as they are dull and boring; annoying but sparse (respectively). None of the characters are interesting to look at and with the top-down view appear more like blurry blobs than anything. The environments are easy to get lost in, and as a result, I traveled watching my map more often than the path in front of me. Hearing enemies is simple due to the (heavily recycled and awful-sounding) gunfire and enemy cries. Music is nonexistent in the game, so ambient crickets and forest noises are what “entertain” your ears as you trudge through the jungle.

Operation: Vietnam could be fairly considered both a laughable dud and a time-wasting bargain title. It’s all in how you look at it: do you want a cheap, mindless, arcade-style shooter that closely resembles a mobile phone game but passes time or not?

Graphics: 3
Sound: 3
Gameplay: 5.5
Creativity: 0
Replay Value/Game Length: 5
Final: 3.5
Written by Cliff Review Guide

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