Review Pt 1

GUI/Menu
Feels like a re-made BF1942 GUI with worse structure. Then again, the background music is 10x better so I enjoyed exploring the different options. If this is your first time starting the game up, don't forget to go to Mods\BfVietnam\Settings\VideoDefault.con and set renderer.allowAllRefreshRates to 1. Also, if the startup movies are annoying you, renaming og deleting the "Movies" directory should take care of that.

I miss a few options here (most noticeably the "all voices in English" sound option that was found in BF1942), and the layout/structure is worse then in BF1942, but once you get used to it, it's not half bad.

The in-game GUI seemed to miss all the new BF1942 1.6 features like voting and buddy lists. This is not cool. Hopefully DICE will get around fixing this very soon.

Graphics & Engine
Not a huge step up, but at least the rendering engine got a nice boost. The character models and textures (first and third person) in particular look very nice. The player is also allowed much more control over their character now V different bodies and heads are available to customize your appearance.

No huge graphical improvements to the vehicles and air units, but they still look nicer then the BF1942 models. I also really, really like the chopper models.

The effects are also much improved. Hovering the helicopter a few feet above ground kicks up dust and grass, as does riding any vehicle through rough terrain. Explosions also look more realistic, with more dirt and shrapnel being thrown around.

The water looks much better from way up (in an aircraft or chopper), but it looks very flat and basic when getting closer. I dont know if this is a driver issue or something related to my rig, but Im definitely not a big fan of how it looks now.

The movement, physics and netcode feels more or less identical to what were used to in BF1942. I was hoping the revised engine would have a more solid feel to it, but only minor changes have been made here (reduced leading on targets being the most important one)

Level load times have increased quite a bit. On my 3200+ with 1GB RAM and 2x WD120GB SATA 8mb (RAID0), it still takes 20-25 seconds to load a level. I dont even want to think about how long time it takes for you guys with 512MB RAM and a 5400rpm disk . Thankfully, the loading music varies, so its not quite as frustrating as it was in BF1942.

The foliage system looks great. At first I was afraid it would just be a cheap way to spice up what would otherwise look like BF1942 levels, but it really does make all the difference. I noticed some people are bitching about the grass fading away when you lay down in it, but that wasnt a big issue for me.

I also havent had the time to see how the foliage looks in high vs low detail settings V I will take a closer look at this once I get home tonight.

Vehicles
The vehicles, while a lot more powerful then in BF1942, still seem pretty well balanced. The planes are faster and do a lot more damage, but they are also way easier to shoot down. The Vietcong antiaircraft missile helps a lot here too :)

Initially (the DICE started talking about how easy it was to fly the choppers), I was scared it wouldn't take any skill to fly them. Thankfully this is not the case. While they are easier to control compared to the DC choppers, they are far from "easy" to fly (meaning if you can fly the DC choppers pretty well, you should get the hang of the BFNAM ones fairly quickly. If you suck at flying the choppers in DC, you will still suck almost as much in BFNAM).

You now have a lot more control over the choppers, which is very nice. Hovering is a lot easier, and so is turning the chopper body around mid air.

For those chopper pilots up for the task, loading a chopper up with 4-5 guys and flying into the flag capture zone is very effective. With that many guys in a chopper (or any other vehicle for that matter) a flag can be turned from one team to the other team in less than 10 seconds.

As always, a good joystick is the key.

The transportation wire thing that the choppers now have (launch the wire and it will hook into any vehicle below) is also very nice. Its damn hard to get someone hooked on there, but once you get the hang of it, its a very effective way to move tanks and other vehicles quickly.

Note that you can also move spawn points around the maps. For more info on this, check out rnpvenoms awesome post here: http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=9549072

Seeing a tank wired to a chopper blowing away another tank on the ground for the first time made me warm and fuzzy in all the right places. It was awesome.

Speaking of tanks, they seem fairly similar to those in BF1942 (speed, damage they do, etc). Im sure UM wont be disappointed.

On all ground vehicles there is one big change. The secondary gunner can now no longer turn around freely. This was quite frustrating at times (especially if the tank driver wasnt aware of enemies behind the tank).

A lot of the vehicles also have positions where the player can shoot freely with their own weapon (second position in the jeep, on the back of the motorbikes, etc). Zooming through the jungle with Somebody to love on the radio while (trying to) gun down Vietcong with your M60 is pretty damn awesome.. but pretty damn hard as well. Still, atleast you dont feel like a sitting duck anymore.

Weapons

The models and animations look a lot nicer, which is good. The balance seems good all around V no weapon in particular stands out as THE BEST weapon (but keep in mind this is from my limited playtesting). It does appear as if you dont have to lead your target as much anymore, which is also a Good Thing.

Theres much more variety now, and each solder has multiple choices when it comes to weapons and kits. The engineers also have quite a few cool new tools on both sides V everything from mortar launchers to booby traps to old school Vietcong traps.