I was ready to leave for Vietnam, smoke Lucky Strikes cigarettes, and shoot commies all day in the jungle, but Vietcong decided otherwise for me. The whole endeavor started out great. My old CD-ROM discs still work, and the patches were easily enough to find. Surprisingly also, it works out of the box for Windows 11. No hassle involved, so it didn’t take long until I was welcomed with cool 60s tunes, and the tropics filled with deadly punji traps. Alas, it was not to be.
The issue
I’m not certain, but I think my chosen difficulty setting has to do with the game breaking down. I picked “vietnam”, which is the hardest. That means, the Vietcong is accurate and deadly, which is what I want for the authentic experience (and I like to suffer, apparently). However, as pointed out, I’m not sure of this, but it makes sense it would cause problems.
On mission 4, where I have to find and eliminate a dangerous group of Vietcong guerilla soldiers, and rendezvous with a friendly squad. The game constantly ends regardless of what I do because of the death of one of the men I need to rescue. There is no way for me to save him. When I go over a small hill, the enemy AI opens up, which gives me between ten seconds to one minute to find and save this guy. It’s ridiculous, and makes this mission absolutely broken. I have tried several times now, but no luck at all. He always dies, and the missions always end.
There is also no way to change the difficulty setting (if this now is linked), since what you pick, you are set with for the rest of the campaign. All this sucks, because I was having a really swell time sneaking through the jungle and popping VC, and getting popped by them. It feels a bit like a sin, game design-wise, because of the nature of the game. Vietcong plays it realistic, so why not make it so his/their death is an alternative path through the campaign? When stuff like this happens, it takes me out of the game every time. I can accept it, if it doesn’t put me on a road I can’t finish, that is.
The game itself
Beyond this moment of FUBAR, Vietcong by itself is a fantastic experience. The graphics, the shooting, and the AI feels pretty damn good. The atmosphere is also pretty tight. There are many details that make it feel true to the setting that it depicts. I have tried searching for a fix online, but nothing comes up. But, maybe you know dear reader, and if so, please tell me! I want to see the rest of the game. I should add that I did play it in my youth, but on a crappy computer at that moment in time. So, having it run smoothly now in 60 fps has been a blessing by itself, and shows the game in a different light.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Update: Hours later
A friend of mine (thanks Jonathan) said to lower the FPS to 60, since it seems to be an issue with the game if you run it faster than that. I did that, but the mission still ended in failure. In one last ditch attempt of rage, I stormed the enemy lines to see if that would work, and it did. I ran through the trenches like a crazy man and popped VC to the left and right like I was possessed by Willem Dafoe. Yet, I will not be finishing Vietcong. Because after that, you are left to your own devices, forcing you to fight off a whole battalion of hardened guerilla soldiers that respawns… alone. It’s impossible on the highest difficulty setting, which limits quick-saves to three. It is way too tough for me. I’m just too old for shenanigans like this, replaying sections until perfect memorization of enemy positions.
Once again, Illusion Softworks proves that they can’t make a game without having retarded solo moments like this. It ruins the entire premise of the game, considering it’s supposed to be a squad based shooter. All games by Illusion Softworks show so much promise, but always fall short because of issues like it. If it isn’t AI, it’s dumb map design. Even the first map in Hidden & Dangerous 2 has a segment like this, where you have to infiltrate an enemy Nazi base by yourself. Not to talk about the bullshit tanks with turrets that spin faster than a fidget spinner used by an autistic child. Oh well. Back on the bookshelf it goes.
| System: | PC (CD-ROM) |
| Played with: | Mouse & keyboard |
| Release year: | 2003 |
| Mods/fixes: | None |
| Enjoyment Rating: |  |
Tom's Gaming Vault 
Thank you, i will be seeking royalts in wet cat food for the mention.
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So, let me get this straight – you choose the difficulty that is beyond harder than hard (in a game where a single bullet to the head from an AK kills you instantly even on easy difficulty, nonetheless! Easy difficulty in this game equals to Insane difficulty in some of the modern games!)…
…and then you complain that it is too hard?
And that you got yourself into a situation that could only be solved by somebody that is almost impossibly good at this game?
Wow. Just… wow.
I am speechless.
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I don’t mind the high difficulty, it’s essentially the only way to play. But to me, they royally screwed up with the solo missions, making those missions a huge pain in the butt. You have Vietcong soldiers hiding around every corner, and they will spawn behind you, with you having a very limited number of saves.
It’s a design issue in a game up to that point felt very fair, and fun, especially since it’s squad based. And easy don’t kill you with one bullet, that’s one of problems with it. Playing it on anything less does not feel authentic. But then again, sending one guy against the whole of Vietnam feels like BS too. I mention all this, so I don’t see how you are “speechless”.
It would be like playing Arma in full realism, but then the designers expects the player go up against the whole enemy army by yourself, after being combined arms to that point.
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No, no, and no.
I said bullets from an AK kill you in one hit on Easy if they hit you in the head. This is not the case for every weapon, however. That is why I had that specified.
“You have Vietcong soldiers hiding around every corner, and they will spawn behind you, with you having a very limited number of saves.”
You wanted Vietnam. You got Vietnam. Go see some documentaries. Even in real life, the Cong were appearing behind soldiers as if spawning in, driving them to near insanity:
https://imgur.com/QUxnaFc
https://imgur.com/GvANv47
This is what they were crawling out of.
“but then the designers expects the player go up against the whole enemy army by yourself”
That’s kinda what happened. Sure, they were frequently skin&bones, barely able to hold their weapons, but still. It was VIETNAM.
“I don’t mind the high difficulty, it’s essentially the only way to play”
You clearly do mind it. Play on normal, then. Normal is the high difficulty one for this game. 🙂
The first few missions are rather easy. Also, having the squad makes it much easier, thus compounding your difficulty problem.
Try finishing the game on normal (or maybe hard), i.e. get beyond the first few missions which are essentially tutorial missions, and then we will talk.
Operation Tin Can is where the gloves are taken off. If you can’t handle the difficulty from this missions onwards, then you need to play on a lower difficulty. Sure, you will have to trudge through the first few missions that you will consider too easy until that point.
Also of note is that I consider Tin Can to be easy still. There are way harder missions beyond that. And I despise the stealth ones.
tl;dr for other readers – you played on the super-mega-duper-insane-game+++ difficulty, you finished the actual tutorial missions, and then you stopped playing, because you found it to be too hard.
By the way, when using Vietnam as an adjective, it can be used with a meaning of “impossibly hard”. You literally have to count the bullets you have in your gun in your head in some of the missions just to survive (due to the absence of GUI). Vietnam meant to be pretty much impossible to beat. That’s its point.
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Okay, sure, but that does not remove the fact that the game drops its initial premise. From realistic squad-based game, to the typical superhuman solo shooter (with a massive difficulty spike). That’s my issue, and lowering the difficulty would force me to restart, with the knowledge that I now can eat a couple of bullets. It just blew away all the joy I was having.
I also picked that setting since it removed all the hud elements, which is a plague in modern games – so picking anything else than that would make the experience less “cool”. I probably could handle the difficulty (eventually), but it just wasn’t fun, since the pivot in design. Like I said, it goes against the idea of being a squad – the reason I played it in the first place. And there are a million solo shooters already.
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