The voice acting is at least solid, but it quickly got old. Friendly soldiers will utter the same lines over and over again (“Charlie Spotted!”, “Ammo Low!”, “OKAY!”, etc), in the same general voice no less, and the enemy Vietcong aren’t all that much more varied. Attacking VC will either mutter gibberish in their foreign tongue, or shout comments like “YANKEE! YANKEE!” or “We kill you, GI!” until you deliver a swift bullet to their skull. I just drowned most of the commentary out after some time, and I really wish there was a bit more situation-specific dialogue (like the enemies crying out something different after a buddy gets cut down, or they’re surprised by something). At the least, hearing them shout “GWENADE!!” every time I winged a frag over was somewhat amusing. On a side note, the friendly base you stop at between missions has, of course, a D.J. blaring music and wacky commentary over the intercom, which was pretty cool to listen to while I chatted up the local soldiers and checked out the newest guns at the firing range. As for the sound effects, I found that the weapons seemed a little muted in firing noises – certainly when I fire an M60, I expect to hear a particular caliber of noisy “BLAM BLAM BLAM” sounds behind it, and the guns in ShellShock only partially make the grade. While certain machineguns are decent enough to hear, other weapons like the venerable Ak-47 had some really horrible sound effects behind them that didn’t really seem all that pleasing at all. At least the explosions were satisfying.

ShellShock: Nam ’67 isn’t really a terrible game by accounts – the action still has a bit of a tactical curve, and it can still be pretty fun if you play it more like a general shooter than trying to make a realistic title out of it – but ultimately, it fails in my eyes as an innovative title that people will find themselves wanting to pick up in the face of Doom 3 and the impending Half-Life 2. As far as Vietnam shooters go, I guess there isn’t all that much better available (we’ll see once I check out Conflict: Vietnam), but I really can’t see any exceptional reason to blow your hard-earned cash on this game. It just doesn’t have that special flash to get you in and keep you craving for more even after you’ve beaten it, and a lack of multiplayer support drives the nail in the coffin. It sounded great on paper and Eidos certainly put enough effort behind the hype machine to get me excited about this game, but all I ended up with was a series of disappointments. Better luck next time, Guerilla.