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Battlefield Vietnam pre-Alpha Test Drive
"You're gonna love the Nam."
 December
9, 2003. Redwood City, CA - You know 2004 is going to be a good year
when it hasn't even arrived and you've been invited to attend a press-only,
first hand LAN test for Electronic Art's Battlefield Vietnam (sequel to
the smashing Battlefield 1942 for you Taliban living in caves). Hoorah! I
mobilized immediately and rendezvoused with SimHQ's Bubba Wolford en
route from Houston to San Francisco. We marched into EA's Building 250 bright
and early, eager to witness the evolution of one of the most undeniably fun
and enjoyable PC games ever.
"Goooood Mornin', Viet-Nam!"
This was my first visit to EA's campus. Their headquarters is comprised of
several modern office building sprawled across a couple city blocks, with
parks, volleyball courts, and spacious landscaping framing the grounds. Mercy!
This is a good company to work for. Inside, the building was dense with
activity. Our friendly PR contact, Steve Groll, escorted us up to the
PR offices. There we met Tim McDowd, Jerris Mungai, Erica Kyles, and
the other EA folks who have worked to keep us up to speed with the status of
various Battlefield projects, as well as
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (2003) and past titles such as
Sub Command (2001), and
Fleet Command
(1999). After a couple cups of coffee we were brought to the combat room.
 Helosim
(your humble correspondent) was seated between Sal "Sluggo" Accardo from
Gamespy and Woldford (SimHQ). Across the table was Computer Gaming
World's Senior Editor, Ken Brown and Assistant Editor Johnny Liu
(two really nice gentlemen), along with Groll (EA PR). Somewhere in the bowels
of the development studio, a score of EA and DICE developers were poised to
welcome us to the jungle. EA producer Reid Schneider probably intended
to brief us on the new features and maps but being able soldiers, we dove in
and the fighting and smack began. My friend from SimHQ reminds me that I
suggested earlier that we team up on the other journalists and here I am, on
the opposing team, sending full metal jackets his way. Too late, can't talk,
no time for sentiment, must kill.
If you've played the BF42 mod Eve of
Destruction, you have had a taste of what's to come with Battlefield
Vietnam, but that's all, merely a taste. DICE has adopted the great
gameplay and balance that makes Battlefield so addictive, coupled it with a
new and far superior graphics rendering engine, infused new sounds, and
expanded on many elements that take the game to the next level. Some of the
changes were so clever I wanted to deliver myself a "why didn't I think of
that!?" slap.
"All he's got is that stupid gun he carries
around like John Wayne."
 There
are four classes of soldier available--infantry, engineer, heavy weapons
support, and sniper. Medics were absent in this build. However, each of the
four classes has two sub-classes, so for example you may choose between an
engineer with mortars or an engineer with mines; a heavy weapons solider with
an RPG or a shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking SAM, etc. You also have a few
choices for the uniform and facial characteristics for your solider so the
BF-VN maps are not filled with clones. This all adds up to greater diversity
and should make the action even more interesting. The VNC soldiers have some
note-worthy weapons at their disposal unlike anything seen in EoD or BF42:
tire-puncturing stars, pungi sticks, and booby traps (I got the
impression more of this type of weapon will be in the final version). EA plans
14~15 maps in total, from rice fields and huts, to jungle warfare, to urban
settings.
 The
first map we were shown featured a group of linked islands, rivers snaking
through jungle foliage that would make Capt. Kurtz nervous. A huge variety of
ferns, vines, Eucalyptus trees,
banana plants, trees, brush, and undergrowth make
BF-VN an astounding place to hunt and do battle. In regular Battlefield
1942 when you come under fire your first response is to drop prone and look
for cover. In the denser parts of the Battlefield Vietnam jungle, you drop
prone and disappear. DICE will want to look into making the enemy name tags
harder to pick out for this to have total effect but as it currently plays
it's pretty good. To offset the abundance of cover and prevent BF-VN from
becoming a sniper haven, DICE has added a "threat indicator", yellow arrows
around the mini-map that signify which direction you are being shot from.
Think of this as being able to hear the shots and discern their origin. A very
good touch.
"Here, only the silent survive."
Once you are down and hiding in the grass, you find that the leaves are
slightly translucent--you can perceive movement and shapes through the
vegetation. This is a big improvement over BF42, where once you hid behind a
bush, you couldn't see a darn thing. If you crawled forward until you could
see, you were no longer in cover. With the new game, you can hide and still
see pretty well. Boy, are snipers going to like this. Groll mentioned they are
considering putting a limit on the sniper class, say, allowing only two
snipers to a game per side. Hoorah! I have little doubt that DICE/EA will be
successful in getting the right balance--that's one of the hallmarks of a BF
game.
 The
graphics shine in other areas as well. The huts, hootches, and bridges are
authentic-looking. Explosions have more of a hot gas/billowing fire effect.
Tanks, artillery, jeeps, Hueys, and Cobras are nicely detailed and the
lines and rounded surfaces are smoother than in BF42. Soldiers spray blood
when hit by rifle fire. The new rendering engine improves the overall look
significantly. Visibility is limited but it appeared that I could see farther
and more clearly than BF42. One element that won't make the cut is weather
effect, specifically rain. EA producer Reid Schneider says, "Our goal is to
make the player feel like they're really in Vietnam. We've created a lot of
fogging effects and lighting effects to get that eerie, creepy feeling.
Weather effects are something we are looking at but I don't believe we will be
able to support that." His team has accomplished the overall effect. BF-VN
looks more like a place and less like a game than BF42, which is saying a lot
because the maps of BF42--Wake, Guam, Husky, etc.--always stick in my mind as
locales I know just as personally as my own neighborhood. The new Battlefield
game will virtually take you to Vietnam.
Really superb audio effects compliment the
graphics. The game environment is laden with subtle ambience: crickets, winds,
footstep sounds. Tanks and heavy artillery create massive peals of thunder,
making blasting stuff even more pleasurable. Schneider tells me that the
finished version will also include NVA propaganda radio.
"A day without blood is like a day without
sunshine."
After nearly an hour of furious action, in which Helosim routinely topped
Gamespy, SimHQ, and CGW, along with many EA devs in the final outcome, we got
a change of maps. We were on the Ho Chi Minh Trail with even more thick
foliage. I was Charlie, I laid pungi sticks
 everywhere
and took cover on a bluff overlooking a pair of swinging vine bridges, waiting
for Sluggo (Gamespy) or Capt. Sparrow (Steve Groll, EA) to venture by. After
capping several brave souls who tried to cross the bridge, I ventured forth my
own bad self and got across. I grabbed a tank and began shellacking the hell
out of an American base. Hoorah! I moved up to the center of the base to
capture the flag. New to BF-VN is a small stopwatch that tells you how
long you have to wait until the flag changes to your side. If you are alone
the stopwatch can take a good, long, nerve-racking time. If you have teammates
on hand the flag changes much more quickly. Schneider says this is intentional
to foster more team play. I kind of liked the suspense of crawling
around a flag, not knowing when or if it was going to change, but most of the
other testers agreed the new way is better.
Eventually the flag changes--triumphant, I
drive my smoking, damaged tank over to a fresh, new one and switch. Suddenly
I'm getting blasted! It's loud and with all the rocking going on I cannot get
my bearings. That rascally Groll has jumped in my near-death tank and is
pasting me good. I work the turret around but my tank explodes before I
can teach him to mind his elders. I've met my match and the smirking is
unbearable. So it goes.
 "You
either surf or you fight."
The vehicles in BF Vietnam are not far removed from their ancestors in
BF42. Of course, they are 1960's vintage and this go-round they include air
assault and troop transport helicopters. A chopper can lower a chain to a boat
or tank and air drop in to another distant location--a great tactical move.
The helos in BF-VN are more more responsive to control input and easier to fly
than those in Desert Combat or Eve of Destruction because they use a different
physics model, one designed for rotary wing aircraft. You can load
multiple infantry in a Huey, man the door gun, and even blast Wagner from the
speakers and put the fear of God in the Communist enemy. Jets can deliver
napalm loads that are a sight to behold, huge walls of fire.
 Tanks
play a reduced role in Vietnam. The terrain doesn't favor armor--so many
ravines, rivers, and trees mean you can't take your Patton cross-country at
any decent rate of speed like you could in BF42. Heavy weapons soldiers with
RPGs can take advantage of the abundant cover to attack tanks and
escape retribution easily in many areas. Tank versus tank engagements are even
scarier than before. When your tank is hit by another heavy round, it gets
shaken and throws your aim off. Tankers will have to devise different tactics
to use armor effectively. Expect to see smacktards streaming the chat window
with "I need a pickup" now more than ever--DICE thoughtfully included
the ability for the passenger to shoot while riding in the jeep. There are
no submarines in this installment of the Battlefield series but they do
have some nifty patrol boats and one-man junks. Fast and maneuverable patrol
river boats with mounted .50 cals will allow you to load up men, cross rivers,
and sweep in behind the enemy positions. I impressed Schneider with my naval
skills by running my boat aground several times. Hoorah!
 "Out
here, due process is a bullet."
One more map, nirvana approaches an end. This one is called Game Warden.
Trails, rice paddy fields, hootches galore. An EA staffer lays out a huge
platter of chocolate chip cookies. I smell 'em but I ain't budgin'. My
buddy SimHQ has teamed up with me and we are causing the enemy much grief and
consternation. I try the heat-seeking shoulder-fired missile out on an
attacking helo--he toasts me. I blast a guy getting in a helo and he
retorts he was trying to have a look at the inflight music...oops, sorry about
that. Forgot this is an evaluation test not the bragging rights for the
International Fall Frag Fest. Getting carried away is easy with this game.
EA says they are especially committed to
minimizing any bugs with this game and they are including Punkbuster, a
comprehensive anti-cheat utility. Another concept they are considering is
adding more control over game types, such as an option for "sniper only" games
and the like. I mentioned the appeal of surprises like the hidden airfield one
of the BF42 desert maps and Schneider agreed that there will be such secrets
in Vietnam. Finally, the single player version of BF-VN has not been
forgotten. The dev team has taken steps to ensure the AI soldiers will
interact with vehicles more naturally and the player will be able to issue
hold position and attack commands that his AI squad mates will follow.
"Sound off like ya got a pair!"
So, what do I think? I'm glad to say it was very impressive. It's a
Battlefield game, in all the best ways that count: gameplay, balance,
atmosphere; but it's a new game in many other ways--a different period, more
classes, customizable characters, more weapons, nicely modeled helos, new and
quite interesting maps, and utterly great graphics. Battlefield Vietnam
wins the war of multiplayer action/wargames, hoorah! EA's approach to the
game and and attitude toward the player community is totally earnest. They
value the mod community and they respect player opinions to a greater degree
than I have seen in a while. EA flew in a cadre of journalists from Europe to
ensure good coverage across the Atlantic, a marvelous thing to do, in my
opinion. Playing the game and conversing with the dev team leads me to believe
that they are going to have another blockbuster on their hands.
A free copy of Battlefield Vietnam to the first player to correctly
list the source of all the heading quotes above.
Post your guesses here!
Battlefield Vietnam
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Dice
Anticipated release: Spring 2004
Hardware requirements: Pentium 1.8 GHz
  
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