Vietcong: Purple Haze [PS2]

As the Vietnam shooter "wars" finally crystallize game by game, our worries have proven true: So far, none of them are worth your hard-earned money. VietCong: Purple Haze proves to be an under-par, run of the mill first-person shooter providing gamers with the vantage points of a semi-functional squad, a few excellent hand-picked tunes from the era, and, for the PlayStation 2, no online capabilities. If you want a good, solid Vietnam shooter for the PlayStation 2, you may just be out of luck.

Gameplay Developed on PlayStation 2 by Coyote Developments (Die Hard Vendetta, Zoocube) VietCong: Purple Haze is as awkward as it is dull, and as ordinary in design as it is uninspired in effect. Many things could be presented better, ranging from the simplest of things to the most obvious ones: From handling bombs to managing your team to disengaging trip wires. Your men bump into each other regularly, or forget their commands too quickly, or they get stuck on a tree branch, or behind a rock.

As an FPS with a semi-working squad, VietCong: Purple Haze functions relatively well, but it's clumsy and slow. You start out as a soldier with little personality who's dropped in and out of hot areas of the Vietnam jungles, enabling you to experience a swell of level types from stealth and attack to rescue, track and destroy, and more. You can jump into a Quick Fight, start a Single-Player Campaign or...well, that's it. On the Xbox and PC, you could jump online, but on the PS2, those modes were nixed. The title's core mode is, of course, the Single-Player Campaign, wherein, after each successful mission, you'll open up new weapons and missions for other modes.

As far as the controls work, the game offers quick drop, crouch, and prone positions, as well as jump and lean. The lean function is OK, and the jump button is rather clumsy, as collision detection isn't worked out with much polish or precision. The range of squad commands is broad, but actually commanding them is very awkward. You'll hit two buttons to pull up commands, then using icons, you tell them to attack, disperse, stop or follow. You'll have to pick a command and then tell that specific character to take the action. There are two levels of commands, but the weakness here is that when you just want them to do something as a group, it takes far longer and far more work than necessary. After playing a little Rainbow Six 3 (even the PS2 version), this experience is quite painful. In one level, I simply wanted my team to stay clear of the enemy Howitzer, but it took far too long just to get them clear of the thing, and they aren't smart enough on their own to recognize when a nearby bomb will blow. They also bump into each other, get stuck on objects, and will not always complete their tasks.