Battlefield Vietnam Gold
 

Looks like this one's going to have to replace my aging CoD server :D

Seriously though, I'm excited about the new helicopters, new models, new maps, new ways to frag babay!

I'm with ya on the choppers ... that and a rumored port of DC

Are there any graphical upgrades? or just the same ol' engine with limited view distance.

I'm buying it either way, just curious if i'm buying a mod or a actual new game.

Yup, they upgraded the engine, all new higher-detail player models, as well as more lush terrain. It's supposed to look really nice.

There is a brief mention of the new look in this preview : http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=21226

Oh boy, just when I realised I'm flat-out broke...

So many good games coming out these months, it's hard to keep up!
Will they release a demo?

This was taken from an interview with AJ Marini, Lead Designer for Battlefield Vietnam.
From EA Games
So, I guess this means that there *might* be a demo in the future. Most likely there will be, though. It just won't happen before the release.

A good demo, is a demo made after or upon release. Anything else is not what the final product will be, so I wouldnt call it a product demo, but a beta/test.

The *only* thing that is making me dubious towards BF Vietnam is the fact that the helicopters aren't gonna control like in Desert Combat. Oh well, I guess we'll get used to it, but I figured they'd copy Trauma Team's (DC creators) control scheme for the helicopters since it's so popular.

-Lasereth

It's a good call, since Trauma is invovled now, but the general consensus is that EOD's 'copter control is much better then DC.

It should be cool either way, as long as it's still tough, need to give us pilots an edge ya'know ;)

Hell, any improvement on the choppers will be appreciated...of course, the best parts going to be watching DC chopper pro's trying to use those skills on the BF choppers, which'll probably have completely different physics.

They've already announced that the copters will control differently than EoD and DC, so I think we're all fucked until we master the BF: Vietnam copter controls. :)

-Lasereth

im drooling over the two trailers on the website...mmmmmmm ccr:)

:thumbsup:

Sorry thats all I gotta say.... I can't wait!! :)

Roger that.

Brings back a good story.

Back when Desert Combat first launched, I was trying to find an awesome "I'm flying in a helicopter to beat ass" nostalgic song. The first thing that came to mind was "CCR - Fortunate Son." I put it in Winamp, and started DC, and got in the UH-60 helicopter and lifted off the ground with my teamates, and oh was it a joyous site. The song fit PERFECTLY. There's just something about Fortunate Son that kicks ass and takes names. Perfect song for flying helicopters over the horizon. I played the song during Desert Combat for months. Then the Vietnam trailer comes out, and guess what, Fortunate Son :)

CCR - Fortunate Son and Ride Of The Valkeryes (sp?) are easily 2 of the best fit songs for beating ass with helicopters, especially with the UH-60.

Ok, just loaded & played a version...at 640X480, 16 color, single player, low resolution, with my standard BF setup (running nothing else), and the lag was so bad I quit after 2 minutes. Now, my version was a loaner, so I didn't re-optimize or anything, bus still, Damn, that was some screwey stuff.

Guess it has something to do with the fact that its been used in just about every Jungle-warfare, Vietnam-era movie in existence... its a paradigm you expect to hear now.

Not to promote anything warez-y but a little green man told me that BF:V retail is allready being distributed...

Which should mean those bad, evil pirates will be good at the game on day one.

UUmm, Yea, that's the ticket... Us evil pirates. I mean THOSE evil pirates.... :) Really, I'll buy the thing, If I can figure out why it's so crappy on my system.

I can't wait until Monday!

I hear rumours that you can stream mp3's from your computer when you fly in the chopper... I wanna do that... play Tom Waits' Singapore... that oughta scare the shit outta the VC! :)

Those rumors are quite true. I think there's a limit on how many songs you can put in there, though. I'm trying to find it on eagames, but to no avail. Perhaps later.

Looking forward to this one.

Although I hope the new helo physics aren't too different or, more correctly, are not unintuitive.

I've become quite the HIND pilot but I'm sort of ambivalent about the new physics.

They wont be the same as DC ( the choppers that is). So all you DC'ers will need to re-learn :)

Oh , and I heard the transport choppers have auto-hover.

Wow, the HIND is really hard to be consistent with ! And it's true, the game is to feature all new controls for the helos. I'm grabbing my copy today, I'll post back with my impressions :)

PLEASE do!

I'm really curious (and I'll have to wait for my check at the end of the month :( )

I just went all around town and no one has it. The game store in the local mall has it, but they got 12 copies, and 12 people reserved them. So I'm screwed for a little while.

Yeah but it was great because I didn't watch any movies recently or Google it or anything to find the song. I just thought of one that would be cool and that's the first that came to mind. Then we played it a bunch, over and over, and then it comes in the Vietnam trailer :) A nice surprise.

ok guys, I won't mention how I played it, because TFP doesn't support that kind of stuff, but here's my review so far :)

Helicopter controls: Perfectly fine. VERY similar to Desert Combat. The only difference is that it's easier for newbs to control it, and you can stay at a position in the air without touching anything. Let go of keyboard and mouse and you hover. It played "Bird is the Word" by the Trashmen when I got in the helicopter :)

Infantry: OH MY GOD. The weapons are SPECTACULAR. The reloading animations are INCREDIBLE. The best part is the sound, also. My God. I love it. Huge explosion sounds and huge assault rifle sounds. Very loud and crisp. The pistol fires VERY fast now, as fast as you can click. I can unload the entire clip in about 2 seconds.

Menus: PERFECT. Very "vietnam-ish." It does what Vice City's menus did for with the 80s. Plays CCR's "Fortunate Son" (did I call it or what) during the main menu.

Intro CG: Awesome as hell. Also plays Fortunate Son.

Graphics: Good. Reminds me of Far Cry. Flora EVERYWHERE. At your home base, a radio blares news about the Vietnam war.

Loading times: No longer than regular Battlefield (at least on my computer).


My impressions so far: A MUST-HAVE. Will buy it as soon as the stores get it here. The best parts overall so far: The weapons and level design.

Sounds good... now I'm just waiting for the cash :(

Yeah, I concur with what RedJake said, having played it myself, it's a must-buy. Just waiting for the retailers in Boone to get their shit together.

What spec is ya system Jake? Id like to know how mine is gonna handle it.

People exaggerate how much we need to upgrade :)

I'm running a GeForce 4 Ti4200 128 MB, Abit NF7-S, Barton 2500+, and 768 MB PC2100 RAM. I ran it on HIGH DETAIL and HIGH SOUND! And it was playable! I could stand to clock it down a bit, but it was just too awesome with the graphics all the way up.

I just got done with my first play-test. Holy shit! Fans of the first Battlefield need to play this ASAP. Oh, and DC Copter fans: don't worry, the copter controls are nearly the same as Desert Combat. There are a few minor changes, but you'll get used to them in no-time.

The graphics are amazing! It runs damn good on my PC too. I'm running an Athlon XP 1900+, 512 MB of PC2100, and a GeForce 4 TI4200.

I'm gonna go play it some more. :)

-Lasereth

Damn. I need to hurry up and finish my pc so I can pick this up. Sounds AWESOME!!!!

one of the interesting (and fun) aspects of the game is already apparent: the flora makes sniping and ambushing very easy :) out of the 30 or so times I've died so far, I saw who killed me around 7 times. the rest of the time I was shot from a bush or something :) it's awesome....

you can prone inside a plant or bush too, and nuke everything with the Animal Mother machine gun.

The rocket launcher is AWESOME :)

Same thing for me, I get killed and almost never see any of the people who pwn me. It's pretty cool though. I think the first patch that EA releases is either gonna mega-nerf the rocket launcher or remove it entirely from the Animal Mother class, because that combo is uber-powerful, there's literally no better class in the entire game so far.

What was your name ingame ?

I'm still undecided, it needs patches.

I'll post more when I've slept on it.

Reviews of the game are up now--

1UP.com:
http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrank...eviewid=337122
score: 7.0 out of 10 (70%)

Gamespy: http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/march04/bfvietnampc/
score: 4 out of 5 stars (80%)

IGN:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/499/499490p1.html
8.2 out of 10 (82%)

After playing it some more, I've basically found a few major problems with it. If you want to know them, read IGN's review. They literally cover every aspect that I don't like.

I'd probably give it around 80-85% so far. The biggest gripe I have is that the flora and level design make it so that the action is dispersed instead of concentrated like in BF 1942.

It's a good game, but I think I'll stick to DC until they patch it (or until the Trauma Team releases DC for BF: Vietnam :) ).

-Lasereth

It plays SO damn slow for me... I have a P4 2.6 with 1gig of 3200 RAM, and a GeForce4Ti4200. And I have to play it in 800x600 with medium detail for it to be almost fluent... why oh why?
At first I thought it was lag due to me being on crappy servers, but then I tried the singleplayer part and it was the same... basically it gives me a jerk in the movement / a slight pause every second or so. Has anybody else had this problem?
Oh, I play as hu-man by the way. If you see me, don't shoot! I'm having speed issues here! ;)

After reading some previews on this in a couple gaming mags, I think I might be buying this game! To think, I will have paid for 3 games in the last 3 months (CoD, UT2k4, and now this!) and the last game I bought before that was SimCity2000 when it came out :P

The reviews are basically right. The game is fun as hell, but some major problems (that I didn't realize 'til after playing it for a long while) have arisen.

Don't get me wrong, the game is awesome, but it needs some patches.

Currently: there's no reason to be anything other than the LAW and heavy assault soldier. I mean you get the best gun in the game, and a rocket launcher. You're unstoppable! not quite fair..

Getting killed 5 times in a row without seeing who is killing you gets old

the helicopter controls have proved to be a bit frustrating....I want DC controls :(

The AI is STUPID in single player mode (a la BF1942)

The map layout is superb on 4 of the maps, the rest are a little bland


All in all, so far, I give the game a high 7 or low 8 out of 10.

I think it will prove to get better with age, like wine. We just need some patches!

Anyone who's having FPS or lag problems, cut your video detail level. My friends and I cut it to low, and it runs like butter, and the display's not too bad either.

I TOTALLY agree with you, redjake, that getting killed like that sucks. Happens to me about once a night.

The sniper rifle is definitly improved. Head shots kill instantly, kinda like UT. And the grass & trees make them damn hard to spot. Unfortunatly, that makes them the perfect spawn camper gun. And I like that, unlike DC, a heavy machine gun can take out a helicopter now.

I also like the new weapons. Bouncing bettys around a flag make for some damn fine defense, and the NVA engineers moving tunnels is WAY cool.

*sigh* now I gotta shell out for the GeForce ;)

I am enjoying this SIGNIFICANTLY more now that I bought the game and am playing online. Playing against real people is uncomparable. I play as Mad Max if anyone is interested. As seen in this screen shot :)

<img src="http://www.appstate.edu/~jt52439/ScreenShot6.jpg">

i was considering buying bf1942...what are the benefits? and how much better than CS is it?:)

I have also been playing it alot. There are definatly some balancing issues that need to be adressed! Certainly on a few maps (one inparticular but the name escapes me) the US start with ALL flags and the Veitcong are stuck being gunned down at spawn for the entire game. That said, I would rank this game up there as some of the most fun iv had playing online. Period. Its just a heck of alot of fun and I was a chopper lover when I played DC but I now stick too foot as the jungle means you can actually have intense shoot outs without instantly identifiying someones position in the feild. It really adds to the combat

I like Battlefield 1942 and Vietnam much, much more than CS. I played CS for a while, but went straight back to BF. BF has vehicles and huge weaponry to use (defguns, navalships, etc). There are levels sort of like CS, but the matches last way longer (you respawn if you die) and the entire game is designed around the "King of the Hill" basis. In other words, whoever holds a flag the longest wins. Players move towards a flag and capture it by surrounding it for a few seconds. Whichever team holds the flag the longest wins.

In CS, you walk around and shoot when you see someone. Sometimes you can do neat stuff, but it's basically shoot or die in a few seconds. In BF, the average game starts out like this: get in a jet, take off into the air, flying straight for the enemy flag. Up ahead, you see a jet, and take it out with a well-aimed missile. After you turn around towards the enemy flag, you see a huge Panzer tank defending the flag. You aim the jet at the panzer and go full speed ahead at it. 50 feet from the tank, you bail out and hit the parachute. Your jet soars down on top of the tank, shattering its armor and blowing it to hell and back (along with any infantry nearby). You sail to the ground with your parachute and dispatch the last enemy with your M60 machine gun. The flag is yours!

That's just a little description of how a few minutes of BF is. It's simply more exciting and has more opportunities to do cool stuff. I love the game. I think it has a physics engine only rivalled by Halo when it comes to FPS. I suggest you try it out. :)

-Lasereth

It's fun, I feel like the main difference between Vietnam and 1942 is that in Vietnam when I fire at someone, they fall over. I like that feeling.

Most of the time I get the feeling that U.S. is overpowered, but more or less the situation on most maps is this, I get to camp with only my gun to defend me or I get helicopters etc. etc. but I have to attack people who are already entrenched. I had this happen on one map and neither team was able to have a strong showing. =(

To end, buy it, play it, enjoy it.

I'm loving BF:V, the maps seem pretty realistic. If only there were some watter buffalo, it would be all right. I can't fly a helo for shit, but I've had a ton of fun with this game. Killing a guy with your machete is great fun.

That's why you should have played Desert Combat for months before Vietnam came out :) Seriously though, it's second nature after flying the helicopters in DC around...

I think it is a pretty good game but a significant amount of class re-balancing is needed. The U.S M60/Law is broken and several changes needed to be made.

1. Make the m60 worthless while standing, nearly worthless when crouching and accurate when bipod and prone are used.

2. Take the Law/M79 away from the M60 and give it to the Mossberg, M16 or Car15.

3. Take the Medikit and give it to the sniper, not the AA class.

4. Give the US a stinger, the stinger class gets a pistol - just like the VC.

5. Make the sniper rifles kill in one hit if it is a chest/head shot - might already be this way but I didn't think so.

Just a few things I thought of when playing.

I totally agree. This is what happened (I'm Mad Max) earlier when I got a hold of the M60:
<img src="http://www.appstate.edu/~jt52439/ScreenShot11.jpg">

Not a pretty sight. Nonetheless, I got a lot of the flags for my team and helped out with all aspects of the game. I probably wasted 60 people with the M60, the rest are flags. My team sucked so I had to do everything. But the other team needs something equivalent to the M60.

It is rather hard to nail someone if you are standing up though; that doesn't need to be changed too much. I always Insta-Prone if I see someone.

Yes, I agree that sniper shots should kill with a chest shot. The VC sniper only has a 5 bullet capacity AND it's bolt action while the American sniper rifles are all semi-automatic. The VC sniper rifle should kill in one shot to offset it's disadvantages.

RedJake, I've played with the Bots, and the VC sniper rifle was killing with a head shot. Haven't had a chance to test with other players.

Well, I just got this not too long ago, and I have VERY few gripes.
I do agree that the m60/law combo is a bit much, but I think it may be offset by proper countermeasures. E.G., you get killed by an m60, come back with a sniper and take him out from a distance.

As for the choppers, considering that I absoloutly loved them in DC, they're just as much fun in Nam. One of the best things is flying over the battlefield blaring "Fortunate Son" over the speakers. Greatness.

Like I said before, nothing rivals the feeling you get when you are hauling a load of soldiers off to battle in a helicopter and you have that blaring out of the speakers :)

I find that Ride of the Valkyries works just as well.

Try "You Really Got Me" with the tanks :) One vietnamese guy got in front of me and started headbanging when I was playing it :)

Yeah, it'd be pretty cool if that Vietcong wasn't me. Or Las. Or was just an actual AI response.

The vietnamese guy that headbanged in front of me when I was blasting some rock was some random guy online (on the opposite team). I let him head bang for a while and get himself a flag and then I lit his ass up :) But it was awesome :)

I never played 1942 but I love this one. I agree that M60/LAW combo is silly. I usually play NVA/VC but I completely love the CAR-15 when I pick it up or play as US/ARVN.

Tossing a grenade in the open window of a BMP and taking out a whole squad trying to cap a flag just can't be beat.

I play as JimmyJam_(NYC) in most online shooters. Redjake I've played with you a time or two.