The Vietnam War, a time that perhaps future historians will see as a watershed for the American military. Fresh from the set pieces and costly campaigns of Korea America entered a war that was to set the scene for future conflicts. This was a classic battle of technology versus fundamental nationalism. Publicised as a fight for good against evil (democracy vs communism) this was a time when America lost its blind faith in politicians and created deep devisions in society. It was also in a time of rebellion against establishment. All of this has been captured in Conflict Vietnam.

The game begins by backgrounding how the main character was drafted, a bit about the war and the other countries involved in the conflict. Its a very basic intoduction and South Korea, Austrailia and some other countries get a mention, although nothing of New Zealand's involvement. Whatever your political views on the conflict may be, our troops acquitted themselves with distinction in the war and it is a shame they do not get a mention here.

The opening sequence of the game sees you on board a Huey helicopter in flight to the Ghost Town firebase. It is classic imagery of the conflict. Borrowing heavily from movies on the subject, there are some classic lines and some very colourful language. The language can best be described as 'very earthy' with expletives dispersed in most sentences. It certainly draws the player into the gritty life of a US infantryman on the front line, but some may find it too offputting. Combined with some grubby, muddy, dirty graphics of the firebase, these elements deliver a most realistic Vietnam experience.

As soon as you touch down you are off on your training tutorial,egged on by the tannoy blaring over period hard rock tunes. The mission-based objectives and added side missions all help to build the story. As you tear about the base you get to over hear snippets of conversations between soldiers, which weave the story of the era for the player and rather than being contrived, come across as very believable.

One of your first tasks is to come to terms with the movement system. A simple compass and arrow system means it's very easy to determine where you have to go to next, and rather than pointing as the crow flies it points you on the path you need to follow by flicking to the next direction as you get to a corner or junction in the base.

Once you hit the firing range, however, you also hit some of the issues of the game. Selecting weapons is achieved by pulling up a vertically scrolling list of weapons and selecting what you want. Selecting the firing method for the weapon (single shot, fully auto, etc.) is done in a similar manner. This is OK in the confines of the firing range, but in the heat of combat we just found it clumsy. There are many examples of simple one-button weapon selection layouts and we can only suspect that the delay inherent in how this game's mechanics work is an attempt to introduce some realistic delay in swapping weapons.

Following on from this is the sighting and firing control. As you pull up the assault rifle for the first time to your shoulder, you are struck on how much space the gun graphic takes up on the screen. Rather than looking down the sleek barrell of your M-16 it feels like a boar war .303 rifle. It's hard to see what you are aiming at and the overall sight picture makes it hard to target. For a game that is ultimately a FPS this aspect is vital and really lets the whole game down.

Pretty much after this you are thrown into combat proper and this only serves to highten the frustration with the aiming control. Targets, as they pop up and advance, are very hard to discern, not from the clutter of the surrounding terrain but from the obscuring effect of the weapon. We found ourselves dropping out of targetting into general gun control and back again to gain a view of the bigger picture. Realistic yes, but unfortunately in can be frustrating.

With this latest release SCI promised more control of your squad mates and certainly they have delivered on this. You can now through various button combinations direct them to form on you while selecting a single soldier direct to perform a specific function - directing your MG expert to take a machine gun position, for instance, or directing another to bandage a colleague. This opens the door for some interesting tactical challenges and is a welcome change to the limited control you see in other similar games.

As you progress through the game a basic RPG element is introduced. Based on the performance of the individual, skill points are issued to each unit member and these can be applied to weapns such as pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, etc.. The ability to build a squad that suits your style and tactics is a great enhancement to the genre and brings the players closer to the on-screen team mates.

The missions are varied and involve the full gambit of the Vietnam era with base defence, combat patrols, and so on. You are ultimately pulled into the historic events of the Tet Offensive that saw a massive nationwide assault by the Vietcong against political and military targets. You and your mates find yourselves out on a limb and you must guide them back home again. It's a good, believable story and given also the atmosphere so carefully crafted, it reaches a level not often seen FPS games. The 14 missions are, however, very long and tough so even on easy levels experienced players may find the game a long haul.

Graphically the game is good and serves as a good canvas for the story. Some of the better effects are achieved by filling the screen with a jumble of graphic elements but some of this brilliance is offset by the rather wooden facial animation of the squad. This is a shame as movement animation is excellent, particularly the prone and laying-down animations; rather than just crawling the soldier will roll in a manner to make any Hollywood actor proud.

The music is great, very much in keeping with the era and spot on for conjuring the illusion of being there, but sound effects are rather insipid. Gun sounds did not have the crack and immediacy that you would expect and the explosion really did not rate for this, and all this seems at odds to the high production values expressed in the musical score.

There is also no online play. There is a four-player mode but if this game wanted to be a true contender it really needed to have been online-enabled. This is a big disappointment considering the number of competing titles that do including the feature, even on PlayStation 2.