ShellShock: Nam ��67

Apparently, the official memo saying, ��Games about the Vietnam War are A-OK!�� has officially passed, yet that memo most likely had no statements about making any good Vietnam War�Cera games. Despite the presence of a good game like Viet Cong, there are, as expected, numerous mediocre games, and oh boy, is ShellShock: Nam ��67 one of them.

If there��s one thing ShellShock has, it��s atmosphere. The jungle levels look pretty convincing, there��s lots of soldier chatter in and between missions, and there��s the requisite ��60s-era soundtrack. This atmosphere nearly makes you forget that you��re playing a pretty standard third-person shooter.

Very Raw Recruits

Despite the atmosphere liberally poured all over ShellShock, there��s a distinct lack of polish when it comes to the game and even the aforementioned atmosphere. Enemies look clever at first. ��Hey, they��re hiding behind a rock and throwing grenades��that��s good A.I.!�� one might proclaim. Yet you��ll notice that these same enemies always approach you from the same pathways in handy clusters��which makes them feel less like vicious guerrilla fighters and more like blood-spurting bullet sponges. You��re sent on stealth missions that neither require nor use any stealth; you��re told to silently slice sentries, but due to a total lack of feedback (there��s nothing remotely resembling a visibility or stealth meter), it��s often easier to just shoot everyone as though you��re in a shooting level. You��re often told to follow your commanding officer, except, er...he usually follows you instead (thankfully, the levels are generally linear enough to figure out where to go). Your interface for defusing booby traps (a quirky-looking maze that uses the arrow keys) is sloppy and unnecessary��not only did I fail most of my defusings, but I didn��t even get hurt as a result. Any levels that involve a building seem rushed in design, since the buildings are little more than bare walls with brown or gray textures and the occasional chair. Despite using the mouse, and no matter what sensitivity setting you use, your aim feels as imprecise as it would on a console controller.

OOOH, ME SO HOARY!

The atmospheric presentation reeks of trite, clich��d stereotypes on both sides. You have the bald American who curses liberally and is so transparently sociopathic that his handle is ��Psycho,�� and he, predictably, acts the cruelest and least levelheaded in all cut-scenes and scripted events. You occasionally see bodies contorted in ways that are supposed to shock you, but they actually remind you more of the same art you��ve seen in Doom II. The Vietnamese are portrayed as either pathetic, helpless civilians (whom you can generally kill without penalty��they usually just die, but some will actually attempt to fight you) or deviant enemies. Particularly unsettling is a sequence in which you literally have to kill every Vietnamese prostitute in a brothel, followed by an even more unsettling (and misogyny-soaked) cut-scene in which a Vietnamese mama-san is brutally tortured.

Despite the noble claims to portray the Vietnam War as a harsh and brutal experience, ShellShock feels more like a shooting gallery with occasional expletive-filled dialogue and a Rolling Stones soundtrack. No atmosphere, clich�� or not, can correct its overall mediocrity. ShellShock tries to be Apocalypse Now, but ends up The Green Berets.

Verdict

A bad third-person shooter is still bad even with ��60s music and Vietnamese prostitutes.

PUBLISHER: Eidos DEVELOPER: Guerrilla Games GENRE: Third-person Shooter ESRB RATING: M REQUIRED: Pentium III 1GHz, 256MB RAM, 3GB install, 32MB videocard, DVD-ROM drive RECOMMENDED: Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 128MB videocard MULTIPLAYER: None

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.