Film

Apocalypse Soon

Shellshock Belittles Vietnam

by Bradley Steinbacher

Having run the near-gamut of World War II opportunities (see the Medal of Honor series, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942, etc.), game developers have started turning their sights toward America's most controversial war, Vietnam. There are a slew of new 'Nam games coming out this year, and their arrival is a bit of a surprise. It was just last year, after all, that Electronic Arts first dabbled in the Pacific Theater with Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, giving gamers worldwide (and presumably in Japan) an opportunity to gun down not just Nazis, but Japanese soldiers as well, inserting the sticky matter of race into the world of war video games. Killing Nazis feels much less troubling than mowing down a gaggle of Japanese soldiers, even though it probably shouldn't, and the oncoming flood of Vietnam games sends off a number of warning flares, chief among them, should we enjoy killing enemies in a war we shouldn't have fought?

Shellshock: Nam '67 is uninterested in this question, choosing instead to revel in severed limbs and mists of blood. A third-person shooter, it's all run and gun and piles of bodies, pausing only occasionally for some brief ruminations on the merits of war. You play a new soldier--I named mine "Kurtz"--who arrives in country greener than green, with little training for both soldier and player beyond run here and shoot at that. There are a handful of stealth missions to be found, but for the most part Shellshock is a straight shoot-'em-up, requiring only quick hands instead of intelligence, a hardy trigger finger instead of skill.

Your enemies come in two choices: big hats and little hats. Those wearing big hats are sometimes women, and the screams they produce when shot are unpleasant to experience. All your enemies speak English--an odd choice, especially since many of them sound like they're from New Jersey--with the majority of their dialogue consisting of "You die American!"

Worst of all is the sheer amount of pointless carnage on display. Heads explode, and limbs go flying. Torture comes into play. Shoot an enemy in the head and you get bonus points; take a close round yourself and you lose an arm or a leg. If you happen to shoot your fellow soldier, however, you'll only get a reprimand before he dusts himself off and returns to battle. All the violence in the game (save for those directed at your comrades) has been jacked up to such an extent that it would be comical save for the fact that Shellshock's developer, Guerrilla Games, has attempted to infuse the game with some morality. Vietnam was a terrible war, they tell you--now go have some fun shooting shit.

Then, presumably, you'll want to join up and shoot shit for real. Shellshock wants YOU.