Battlefield 1942 broke the mould of multiplayer first person shooter war games. Yes, there are others that had tried the formula before but it was this EA classic that struck upon the magic ingredient. World War Two has for sometime been the subject of games and has provided us with some of the best examples the industry has to offer but they have all largely been limited to the soldier based blasters, such as the Medal of Honour series. Battlefield 1942 had soldiers too, in fact it had many, but is also had lots of bigger more interesting toys like tanks, aircraft, battleships, jeeps and even in the later expansion packs early jet fighters. In the past online multiplayer battles had been little more than deathmatches but Dice, the game's developer, realised that if you furnish people with the tools of war they will create that war in all of its vehicle powered glory and devastation. Of course having sated our thirst for the war torn delights of the 40's we were all ready to move on a little. And so it is with great anticipation that I received EA's latest release, Battlefield Vietnam, replacing the countryside and towns of Europe with the dense Vietnam jungle.

The many trailers that preceded this title gave a real indication that this was going to be a big game in every sense of the word and that Dice were pulling out all the stops to create a true masterpiece. The artwork that also flooded forth gave tantalising glimpses of a war game that might just topple 1942 from the top spot. The facts and figures issued forth gave further insight into the full extent of what would be possible in this new age of combat and the new tricks that the two sides of the conflict had up their sleeves. Then finally that longed for release day arrived and we all basked in the light of the game just sitting there in the retail stores shelves before the frenzied snatch and grab to get the title home and on the go as soon as humanly possible. Hundreds if not thousands of gamers were facing off against each other within the first few hours of the game hitting the stores and war began once more. Well it did for some; for the rest of us the game crashed horribly and we were left looking at our desktop wallpapers, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Before I start the rant let's take a look at the good stuff. Battlefield Vietnam is without a doubt the most ambitious game of its nature ever attempted and that's taking into account the leap made with 1942. Having said that, at the same time it's nothing very new. This might seem contradictory, but to the casual observer Vietnam is just 1942 with a facelift and lot more green. From a technical point of view there are many alterations to the code and the game engine that makes this a new game in its own right but as far as you and I are concerned the changes are largely just cosmetic. The most substantial change comes from the new things that you can do in this new age of war and the ways in which you can do them.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Battlefield gameplay, get your head out of the sand and take a look around - it's a wonderful new world! The basic premise is much the same as all the other multiplayer games out there; beat your opponents by killing them. 1942 differs because it gives you plenty of ways in which you can do this and for the more inventive players there are some amusing ways to rain destruction upon your enemies. The maps upon which you battle contain strategic positions and it is these that you fight over, claiming control of each position for your side. The team with the most positions is the team that is winning and they will slowly overwhelm the other side unless they can capture them back. In this way a real war is fought for real objectives as part of a team, rather than the normal solo run around and fragging of anything and everything that moves.

Vietnam follows this gameplay faithfully with little variation or innovation but as the saying goes "if it ain't broke don't fix it." The two sides are evenly balanced to the point of near absurdity and this makes for a very unique experience once you get into a game where everyone knows their way around, as it becomes a real team game and the side that fails to work together is the side that will quickly die. This time there are just four soldier classes to pick from, with the medic class going by the wayside, but each of the remaining classes gets two weapon options so there is more variation. The weapons themselves vary from the normal assault weapons in the M16 and the ever-popular AK47 to more modern pieces like the LAWS rocket launcher, M60 belt feeds and a host of others. Engineers now have an even bigger role in the game with some very nice new tools in their belts. The first of these is the blowtorch, which has the opposite affect to the original wrench, so now you can dismantle enemy vehicles whilst they are in them. The North Vietnamese Army or NVA get the lethal punji stick traps and tunnels entrances. There are also the rather nice eye candy options for you to tailor the look of your soldier skin from the options available.

The main stars of the show always were and still are the vehicles in the game and Vietnam makes no changes to the script with some very well thought out inclusions. First up, the air battles bring the dawn of the jet age into Battlefield. The US and the NVA both get a couple of jets apiece and they are well balanced against each other; it's their armaments that deserve a big mention though. Air to air is now more lethal than ever with heat seeking missiles; get a line on your opponent then fire and watch as your missile arcs through the sky changing direction with your opponent. Their tracking ability is very limited but if someone gets behind you then expect to be brought down in a ball of flames unless you pull off some very quick thinking evasive manoeuvres. Of course this isn't the end of the air show, as we have the helicopters to bring into the picture and they are one of the most versatile units in the game. The US get the familiar and famous Heuy as their all purpose work horse and the Cobra attack helicopter as something to add a little bite to the fight, whilst the NVA get early Russian attack helicopters and transports that show the visible design styles that went onto to become the Hind attack helicopter.

Land warfare is something that was and is something of an awkward affair, as much of the game is fought in dense jungle surroundings or with numerous waterways, rivers and the like. However, there are still tanks to be used to your heart's content. The US tank is pretty light but has the benefit in that it can be picked up by helicopter and redeployed across the map into combat elsewhere, whilst the NVA's armoured fist is actually amphibious and so handles the terrain with equal ease. Expect to find many jeeps and troop transports for the remainder of the game's land exploits, but with a definite focus to either the air or waterways their usefulness is limited.

Naval combat is on a much smaller scale than 1942, being limited to rivers and waterways but it is by no means any less hard fought and brutal. The boats are fast, carry plenty of people and offer plenty of places to fire from. Some of these can also be carried by helicopter or landed on, offering yet further tactical choices to the player above and beyond what would otherwise be normally considered.

To say it's a jungle out there would be very accurate too, the levels being greener than ever with more foliage than Ground Force could plant in a year. Large and well thought out, the maps are a joy to fight over and, like 1942, Vietnam's replayability comes from the excellence of design in the terrain you fight to control. Expect more variation than in the previous Battlefield as well; this time around almost every location is used from the beach to the depths of the jungle, from dried up river beds to ancient ruins of a temple and even a few urban locations just to finish it all off. In fact the mix of levels is not unlike the mix from 1942, only in Vietnam there is far more to see and do in any given map. Even the urban locations offer far more than their counterparts in 1942, with many more buildings that you're able to run around in and a far more sweeping layout of buildings, bringing together the more modern infrastructure of downtown Saigonesque city with the ancient buildings that give evidence of a rich history.

Graphically this title is as beautiful as it is brutal in its gameplay, though not approaching the more glamorous locations as say the forthcoming Far Cry or the sheer detailed majesty of titles like Doom III and Half-Life 2. The textures are perfect for the period and the vehicles boast that authentic look of being technically right and also looking the part for their surroundings and setting. The jungle plants and other such models are used to great effect in their placing to convey the sense of a dense jungle and the threat of what might lurk in the long grass. In almost every aspect Vietnam will have you wondering how the Battlefield engine could become so very green and so believable.

The sound is without a single doubt the greatest asset that Battlefield Vietnam can boast, with a great line up of original recordings of tracks that typified the period and the mood of the soldiers and people back home. The cost to obtain some of these recordings can only be wondered at but frankly I would be just thankful that someone opened their wallet that far. It enriches the entire game experience, especially since all vehicles in the game have a radio that you can access and then select a track of your choosing whist happily blowing chucks out of the enemy. There is something about cruising over the treetops in a Huey full of GI's listening to "War, huh, what is good for…" blasting over the speakers that just can't be explained. The rest of the sound is as you would expect from a Battlefield game, so all the sounds of warfare, such as explosions and gunfire, are well up to scratch.

The controls are exactly the same as Battlefield 1942 so veterans of that game will have no problem getting stuck right into Vietnam. If you're a newbie to the series then don't worry; the beauty of playing Battlefield is that you can get to grips with the controls in next to no time at all. The gameplay is fast, furious and fun. It never really lets up for a second and even games with small numbers can be as entertaining as the bigger games with up to 64 people in them.

All is not exactly perfect though; in fact there is sadly much to complain, whine and maybe even protest about. Once again a PC title from EA is released to the expectant masses and is met quickly with cries of complaint for poor coding, as gamers everywhere experience massive lag, slowdown, stuttering and even crashes on PCs that are vastly over the requirements on the box. As a general rule of thumb I usually take the specifications on the back of the box and double them to get a more realistic picture of what is really required to play the game but even this time with my PC well above spec, this title still crippled it.

On entering a level that normally takes a good few minutes to load I have to wait around three or four minutes before the annoying and headache inducing stuttering and low frame rates come under control and to give you and idea of the overkill of my system I am running a 256Mb ATi Radeon 9800 XT and have 1Gb of RAM fuelled by a 1.6Ghz processor. After reading even EA's own forums it becomes apparent that I am far from the only person that is experiencing problems of one sort or another; there are loads of us. The general consensus, and one that I tend to agree with, is that far too little if any beta testing was done because it's that sort of testing that would have highlighted many if not all of these problems. Its not fatal to the game, as patches that I expect to see sometime very soon will sort much of this out (and if memory serves Battlefield 1942 v1.0 was every bit as bad as this and after a month almost all of its major issues had been dealt with) but even so, the games playing public should not be treated as unpaid beta testers.

Despite Battlefield Vietnam being a triumph in every aspect of its ambitious design, faithful attention to detail and huge range of tactical and gameplay options to suit gamers of every kind, I can only really give it an average mark because of the huge technical failings of the game. It is worthy of a mark a couple of points higher and the potential is there to be tapped if the patches can sort the bugs out, so maybe I will have to revisit Battlefield Vietnam in a couple of months to reassess the war from the frontlines. Until then, if you have a powerful PC that can brute force its way through the glitches then get this right now, get online and get into the action. If you don't then keep this game in mind for a future purchase when it has a couple of patches under its belt. This is a top game with a top soundtrack and top playability but somewhat stranded in the middle of a minefield of bugs - let's hope it makes it safely home sometime soon!

Reviewed by AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).