System: DS
Dev: Coyote Console
Pub: Majesco
Release: Aug. 20, 2007
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: Teen
Review by Nathan Meunier

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Review Rating Legend
1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
2.5 - 2.9 = Average
3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
3.5 - 3.9 = Good
4.0 - 4.4 = Great
4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
5.0 = The Best

The flaw with this setup is your men often receive the brunt of the enemy fire that you've just managed to dodge around. Fortunately, by holding the right trigger you can move your entire group as one, and with some finagling it's possible to have them standing directly over you're currently selected character. In this "slave" mode you can fire, but your comrades will not. There's enough variety in the controls to work around the minor kinks, but after playing through a few consecutive levels you're likely to end up with a hand cramp.

Nothing incredibly revolutionary is happening on the audio and visual fronts, but the jungle and other combat environments look and sound great. The trees, rock outcroppings, rivers, and other land features are fairly realistic. As you work your way further into enemy territory, villages, destroyed vehicles, farm animals, rice fields, debris, and other elements are a nice touch. In earlier levels the music is silent, allowing the atmospheric sounds of the wilderness to take over, at least until the quiet is broken by gunfire and explosions. The soldiers and enemies are quite small, but this allows for a lot of action to happen on-screen at once.

Each level is immense, and the game's many missions will take a reasonable amount of time to complete. The pace of each level is deliberately slow, as you have to watch out for VC ambushes - they like to jump out of the bushes - and numerous traps. Taking the time to cover all the ground in a particular area can be a drag on some missions, but it also often makes the difference between survival and being blown to bits. Hidden through each level are health power-ups, grenades, and dog tags, which can be collected to boost your mission rating. On your travels through the dense jungle you'll come up against foot soldiers, traps, tanks, grenadiers, cannons, and a variety of other increasingly difficult dangers.

For a budget title, Operation: Vietnam is a pleasant surprise. It may not rank very high on the must-have list, yet those who decide to shell out the $19.99 for the game won't be disappointed once they get a few missions into this action-packed romp through war-torn Vietnam.

By Nathan Meunier
CCC Freelance Writer

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