by: Robert Zacny

Men of War: Vietnam takes on a conflict that has received few good videogame treatments. It's a tricky war to translate into a videogame, in part because the Vietnam War itself is overshadowed by its cultural legacy. Stone, Kubrick, and Coppola created a surreal, hallucinatory, and iconic vision of the war that has proved more enduring than historical fact, and one even more difficult to square with the demands of a videogame.

Men of War: Vietnam may have a better chance of finding a new angle on the conflict, one that owes less to the pop-cultural touchstones that define the war. It promises to move beyond familiar stories by including a campaign from the point of view of Soviet advisors to North Vietnam.

The Communist campaign was not available in the demo, but a 1C presenter hinted at what it will include. While the Americans usually enjoy overwhelming advantages in firepower and support that the Communists must somehow negate, on occasion the North Vietnamese can deploy leftover Stalinist monstrosities, like the Stalin III tank, that can simply overpower any American armor in a conventional battle.

The mission I played depicted a joint US Army / ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) patrol along a hill trail, and the inclusion of South Vietnamese soldiers struck me as another nice touch. ARVN, if it is remembered at all, is usually treated as an object of derision. If the Communist perspective is rarely given, the South Vietnamese are usually relegated to scenery, and I appreciated their inclusion here. The squad also showed some great variety among the character models. The ARVN troopers were clad in tiger-patterned jungle camouflage, while the American soldiers wore a patchwork of uniform pieces according to personal taste and smoking habits.

Up ahead, a group of black-clad Vietnamese were digging alongside the trail, baskets at their side. As the patrol approached, they dug into their baskets, yanked out Kalashnikovs, and opened fire at close range. A swift close-range firefight ensued, and a number of my soldiers died in the initial ambush before my superior firepower won out.

A Viet Cong position was farther up the hill, and since I was low on manpower I decided to send my surviving infantry on a flanking run through the jungle rather than risk a frontal assault. That plan fell apart when I noticed my infantrymen dropping like flies as hidden booby-traps released.