Preview of Shellshock: Nam '67
Shellshock: Nam '67
by ChewySeptember 9, 2004
Shellshock Nam ’67 is a 3rd person prospective of one of the most trying times in Americas’ history. You embark on your missions as one of 3 soldiers plopped down right in the middle of the action. This actually serves as an in game training before you get air lifted to the main base for some debriefing and further orders.
Shellshock does a good job of recreating the mood and feel of the Vietnam War, from weapons to landscape, it’s very accurate, even the dismembered limbs scattered around reminds you of the horror of this particular war. Maneuvering through brush and swampy areas you find yourself in a gauntlet of fire from every side, the explosions and weapon fire are very realistic, and the graphics overall are quite pleasing throughout the game.
You have an arsenal of weapons and items to use to help on your mission, you can switch to a first person prospective to get a better view of your surroundings, and binoculars are standard equipment to scout out the area ahead of you. Your character can crouch, and go completely belly down to sneak into areas or make him a more illusive target.
In this Preview build the enemy AI seems a little misguided, they don’t cover very well, and aside from finding the hidden stationary weapon that’s causing havoc, the enemies are easily eliminated. Now grant it this was in normal mode and there are 3 difficulty settings to choose from. Also, the game seemed a little linear in the early going, I’m not sure if this is by design or not, but hopefully it will open up a little in the final build.
Overall Shellshock is a nice little shooter, well representing the period it takes place in much like Medal of Honor Frontline did. That’s a big plus as far as I’m concerned when picking out a certain period in history to generate a game from. My one major complaint is very simple and hopefully the developers have already fixed this minor problem, I was unable to invert my controls, now I know many use the default settings, but I know just as many use the inverted scenario. This alone made the game very difficult for me to get into for some time. Now I “Needed” to play so I could get my comments out, but average Joe gamer might just toss it aside if it’s too much hassle. So please get this little option included somewhere.
Outside of that, I’m looking forward to the finished product and seeing how far they take the detail in this game based on the Vietnam War.
