Other than Onslaught mode, Battlefield Bad Company 2 gamers have been able to receive DLC map updates offered by its makers, for free. This has been a great incentive for the game and assures when it comes to playing online you and your fellow soldier buddies are not limited to the maps that you team has purchased, as seen in many other popular games I could mention – ahem. Knowing that there aren’t any restrictions on who has or hasn’t purchased a particular map pack is great, but Battlefield now gets its first complete premium map update in the form of the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam pack.
This premium DLC acts as a stand-alone add-on, where everything is self contained, be it weapons, maps and modes. Fans are treating to the same modes found in the main game, with squad death matches, rush and conquest modes all available to you. So when jumping in you will already know what you need to do.
The original multiplayer experience has been given the Vietnam era treatment, all the way through its maps, weapons and vehicles. Originally this DLC started off with four maps: Phi Bai Valley, Hill 137, Vantage Point and Kao San Temple, but thanks to a community driven launch incentive gamers now have a new map to play with called Operation Hastings. All five maps bring a varied gaming experience to the war table, from the torturous choking points in Kao San Temple, which force you and your team into battle through tight passageways, to vertical encounters in the paddy field hills of Vantage Point. Being Vietnam, most of these maps are littered with tree cover, which maybe safe if you were firing paintballs, but this is Battlefield, so any wooden structures are prone to the good old Destruction 2.0. Expect many instances of running between wooden shack to wooden shack, as each cover crumbles around you from enemy fire.
Vehicles in Vietnam are fairly limited, which considering the maps they feature in it is a good thing. With the lack of heavy hardware it forces you be act more on your feet and it keeps the maps and both teams more on a level playing field. Saying that though, the UH-1 Huey is the Blackhawk in Vietnam, where if you get a good pilot and gunner team together you can consistently bring a heavy rain of bullets and rockets to the enemy below, which isn’t fun when you are on the receiving end of it. This can be pretty disconcerting for gamers when first entering into this game’s modes, but later you soon learn ways to avoid this aerial attack by taking good cover and not to hang around in obvious spawn points and open spots.
Each weapon in Vietnam is available from the off in order to keep a level playing field for any newcomer to the battlefield. Each class has their own arsenal of weaponry available to them as well as a few generic weapons that span all classes. Assault troops have the good old M16 and AK-47, Engineers have the Uzi and sub-machines guns to accompany their RPG launchers, Medics have the M60 and RPK light machine guns and lastly the Recon class has the M21 and SVD rifles available to them. Topping these weapon classes, you also have the usual array of pistols, shotguns and the usual specialist kits, from the ammo and medic boxes, blowtorches, syringe and TNT explosives. A new weapon in your arsenal in Vietnam is the flamethrower; this played a large part in the Vietnam War and can also become a key weapon in the game itself too. With a few maps having particular choking points in them, there is nothing more satisfying than running into such areas and flushing out some penned-in enemies with a few spurts of fire pointed in their general direction – mmm, nothing like the smell of burning corpses in the morning.
Having played through Vietnam for some time now, I feel this pack brings a compact, lighter, and most of all fun alternative to the original Battlefield maps and gameplay. It is a great decision by its developers that your scores in Vietnam also effects your character’s progress in the main game; and with Vietnam having that condensed yet fun arcade feel about it, it felt to me that you can easily level up a lot faster than you do in the original game, which is always a bonus if you are starting off new in the game and wish to level up a specific class.
So if you’re a Battlefield veteran that has had your fill in the main game, and you are looking for a new challenge as well as a change of scene, then I’d thoroughly recommend picking up Vietnam. It is a great addition to the franchise and seamlessly blends in very well with main game. Sadly, as this is premium DLC over the standard free DLC content normally offered in Battlefield, your online buddies might not all have or be willing to buy this pack, which brings you back to playing the original game mode and maps instead. However, if you can twist their arm in buying this add-on then I am certain you and your squad will have a lot of fun, so much so that it will easily make up for the 1200 MS Points investment.
