“You make another movie?” “Not this time, pal!”

 Lest you think that Battlefield: Vietnam is just another excuse for EA to release an expansion pack for Battlefield: 1942 and add a few extra miles to its huge, Scrooge McDuck-style money pile, think again! (Well, not about the money pile, though.)

BF:V takes all the elements that made BF:1942 one of the greatest multiplayer games ever, and shifts everything forward about 30 years, down to the mood music blaring in the foreground and news footage droning on in the background.

Everything about the interface has been changed to reflect the gritty, bloody fighting of the Vietnam Conflict – from the menu screens to the radio warnings that “We’re gettin’ wasted!! Retreat!!”

It’s not just a facelift – many strategies that worked in BF:1942 no longer apply, or at least must be modified to be successful in this dense, jungle environment. Air support now has a much larger role on most maps, with various helicopters from transports to gunships cruising the skies alongside jet fighters dog fighting for aerial dominance or spraying napalm on enemy troops.

Each of the “kits” is now much different, especially depending on which map you’re on. They’ve basically eliminated the medic kit, although some of the infantry packages include a medical pack. The American anti-tank troops now have a heavy M60 machine gun at their disposal for anti-personnel attacks, and the Viet Cong have engineers able to plant deadly booby traps or dig tunnels allowing new spawn points that can’t be captured by the enemy.

They’ve also added some new features like multiple “skins” for soldiers to add a little variety, and each kit has its choice of primary weapon, allowing for dozens of unique combinations on both sides. Contested flags now have timers that show you how long it takes before you can capture it, and the mini-map has warning signs that pop up to show you when one of your bases is in peril.

All the classic features of BF:1942 are there, such as the ability to jump in and out of different vehicles seamlessly; picking up weapons from fallen soldiers in the heat of battle; riding shotgun (literally) in a jeep or chopper while your buddy’s in the pilot seat; massive 32-player battles; and much more.

You can also duke it out single player, but the experience is much less rewarding. They’ve pretty much done away with any sort of “campaign” mode, probably because most folks were ignoring that feature anyway. The AI in single player and co-operative play has been beefed up significantly, but the computer-controlled bots still act unpredictably at times, running jeeps into trees for no reason and swiping helicopters without waiting for support.

I was a bit hesitant at first when I heard about a computer game based on Vietnam , one of the more controversial wars of our past. EA Games seems very aware of the subject matter, and they include gobs of historical information on the loading screens, putting the game into a nice context. Not that you’re going to see the game show up in a classroom any time soon, but it just further demonstrates the attention to detail that EA has shown with this project.

A couple of minor flaws I found – other than the sometimes-haphazard AI – include the massive system horsepower required to play the game effectively. A little bit of lag seems to be a constant problem on some systems, even when playing single-player mode. Also, there’s a slight shortage of good naval battles like the ones from BF:1942, but in historical context it probably makes sense. I also loved the urban close combat from the Stalingrad and Berlin levels in the original game; fortunately, there’s at least one map that’s very close to these two in BF: Vietnam , and it also includes a wide variety of jungle terrain to keep things interesting.

Overall I see no flaws that will keep this game from becoming the next big thing at your next LAN party – heck, it’s already the big thing from this weekend – and it won’t be too long before you start finding yourself loving the smell of napalm in the morning.