Hands On: Men of Valor
We go toe to toe with Charlie in the jungles of Vietnam
Tags: Men Of Valor Categories: Previews, Xbox Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Aug 4th, 2004
One of the genres to see massive growth in the last few years is the military based first person shooter. Whether individually or with a squad, most games within the burgeoning genre have taken place during World War II. Slowly, the attention has shifted to the conflict in Vietnam, and this is where the Men of Valor attempt to survive.
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Men of Valor pays tribute to the men on the front lines in a war that was often confusing. Traveling through the dense jungle, small villages were often found to have inhabitants that weren’t too terribly friendly to the U.S. interests. The soldiers would feel the brunt of this as they were merely doing their job, often wanting to be home, away from the conflict that was making less and less sense as it dragged on.
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This is the scenario players are thrust into with the game, and while it is a bit easier to discern which villagers are friendly and which ones are part of the opposition (hint: it’s a first person shooter) accomplishing the various tasks won’t be a walk in the park – or jungle.
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The primary goal is to survive – which may seem a bit of an understatement, but with the way Men of Valor is set up, it will not be an easy task. While there is a squad traveling with the player, there are no commands available to provide covering fire or to fall back to the teammates. This is particularly bothersome when attempting to take point and clear the path ahead, or to mark a bunker for an airstrike.
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The second (and perhaps bigger) hindrance is that there is no “run” – now, this may just be a case of how the beta version was operating, but there were times when running quickly from one piece of cover to another would be very useful, but impossible to execute.
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While there is no option of move quickly, the rest of the controls are fairly natural. The left thumbstick is used to move, the right to look, and the right trigger is used to fire. From here, the controls deviate from what is expected, but there are some twists that definitely make things interesting.
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The left trigger goes into “precise aim” which is not quite like looking through a scope, but more akin to taking the time to pick a shot, rather than just wildly firing off rounds. The A button will either swap a weapon out (picked by the D pad) or switch a weapon’s mode (such as from semi-automatic to full automatic).
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Perhaps the best, and newest, addition is the use of the B button – bandaging the player while in combat. While under heavy fire getting shot is to be expected, and while the health meter drops, it is now possible to at stem some, if not much of the damage that will happen over time by stopping the bleeding by applying a bandage. This new gameplay element doesn’t add strategically to the game, but does help immerse the player in the world of real-life combat, as well as provide a glimpse as to what a soldier really did have to go through in the jungles of Vietnam.
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Men of Valor has players filling the boot of a young black soldier just trying to survive. The race of the player may not affect gameplay, but does affect the game, as the setting is the Vietnam War, racial tensions are high, even thousands of miles away from home.
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This plays into the game’s audio. Men of Valor does a great job of immersing the player in what was undoubtedly a very confusing period – not sure of what is going on, where shots are coming from or even who is firing, everybody starts yelling at once, further adding to the cacophony.
The graphics are decent, but nothing stands out the way the audio does.
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The tasks in Men of Valor are taken right out of the history pages, but seen on a much more personal level. Whether searching and clearing huts in the jungle or traveling up river in a boat, the emphasis is on survival, rather than the large scale offensives that the suits back in Washington were looking at on their big boards. This is a clear distinction between WWII and Vietnam, and one that is made very clear in Men of Valor.
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The various missions are rather linear with narrow paths – not much jungle to go explore There is a thick growth of underbrush however to help in the confusion as there are plenty of places for enemies to hide and ambush from. Also in order to keep players on their toes is the occasional booby trap, where sometimes just one false step and it’s time to restart.
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The restarting isn’t much of a problem, but hopefully 2015 will put in a few more checkpoints before the game ships. There have been several times where after a major firefight one would expect a checkpoint to be crossed before the next major battle. Unfortunately, at times that isn’t the case, and traveling back further in a mission after respawning can be frustrating, particularly when the battles can take a little while to get through.
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With a bit more balancing, Men of Valor would really give players a taste of what it was like to be on the ground in Vietnam during the 60’s while still allowing for a videogame-like feel.
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Tags: Men Of Valor
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Aug 4th, 2004 and is filed under Previews, Xbox Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
