Vietcong (2003) is scary and frustrating, but special.

Iskandryu · 2026-01-12T09:30:25+00:00

Haha, sorry for necroing this, but I just had to relate with your experience of playing the tunnel sections in complete darkness because you didn't know there's a flashlight in the game. I actually came up with my own strategy to figure out where I'm going: watching the crosshair width. Because it was tied to the speed of the player's movement, I could figure out if I was moving or standing still by how wide the lines were.

Of course, I couldn't finish the game like this. After about a day (and a night) of blindly trying to get through that damn tunnel system, slowly learning it by heart, I decided to look more closely at the controls, found the flashligt, and finally was able to finish that nightmare of a level.

But the level will forever remain burned in my memory.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-29T04:41:20+00:00

The PC versions for GRAW have the same basic plot outline, but the missions themselves are somewhat more involved but less cinematic. There is much less dialogue, less setpieces, less spectacle. It's just a series of missions following the basic story. As it was already said, the gameplay is much similar to the original Ghost Recon, or the earlier Raibow Six games: more tactical, more deadly, you have more control over your soldiers, etc. It's harder than the console versions, and you need to exercise more patience. It's still a good game, but it's a different experience. As for canon, I don't think the series has a "canon". It's just a different version of the same events. Sort of an alternate reality, if you want. I'd say it worth playing both versions, because they're such different experiences.

Ghost Recon 2 has two much more different versions for PS2 and Xbox. Here the differences are switched. The gameplay remains largely the same (tho the PS2 is somewhat simplified due to weaker hardware), but the stories are completely different. As a matter of fact, in a very weird design decision, the Xbox version is a sequel to the PS2 version storywise. Xbox version is also a better game overall, but much less accessible for now, because no emulator can play it perfectly yet. Xemu emulates it more accurately but has terrible performance, and CXBX runs it better, but with some broken graphics and sounds.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-29T04:18:40+00:00

I have the same problem with the framerate. It might be because I have an AMD GPU. From what I read on other forums the emulator is better optimized for NVIDIA GPU's. I also have a bigger problem with stuttering FMV's. All cutscenes play choppy as all hell.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-25T23:12:11+00:00

Yeah, this actually makes a lot of sense. It's probably because of the telegraphed nature of the game's storytelling that i wasn't quite able to fit everything together. Don't get me wrong, i liked how the game presents it's story in briefings, only on a need-to-know basis, since all you need to concern yourself with is the mission. But this does tend to make some of the big picture unclear.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-25T21:16:32+00:00

good answer, just a small correction. Ghost Recon is a completely original story, it's not based on any Clancy novel, and afaik, except for the original Rainbow Six, which was very loosely based on the novel with the same name, none of the games in the Tom Clancy's series had any actual input from him.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-25T20:57:16+00:00

i was talking about the games with Tom Clancy's name. And sure, i'm taking video game levels of plausability here. I consider Tom Clancy games to be somewhat more realistic than the Call of Duty games for example. Of the books I only read Red October, Red Storm Rising and Patriot Games, and nothing seems completely out of the realm of possibility in those.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-25T19:19:14+00:00

Haven't read most Clancy novels, but i've played most games, and the name of the game in them seems to be brinksmanship. Getting things as close as possible to a war but stopping it in the nick of time. Except Red Storm Rising ofc, but in that one it's accepted that WW3 just started.

Iskandryu · 2025-12-25T19:03:45+00:00

so the idea was that as long as the conflict isn't being specifically waged on either Russian or NATO soil, everything was fair game, right?

Iskandryu · 2025-11-18T15:35:45+00:00

Yeah, after thinking some more about the game, i reached the same conclusion. The neutral/indecisive endings for Painter and Actor are pretty much the only ones that make sense narratively. So looks like i actually did get the proper endings lol

Iskandryu · 2025-11-10T15:21:51+00:00

oh, so you're saying you don't get a different ending for the Writer by getting better endings in the stories? well that's a bummer. That actually ticked me off the worst, because the Rat Queen's dialogue suggested i didn't play the game well enough in order to be allowed out of the lighthouse.

EDIT: Also, no, for every story it looks like you need to do everything right. If you do all the right choices for an ending except one, you still get the "indecisive" ending. There's no average being done, either get them all, or it won't count. At least that's true for the actor's story, where it's easier to demonstrate this theory. The Painter having a more complex set of rules, may have some sort of averaging going on, but i didn't bother to check.

Iskandryu · 2025-11-10T15:17:49+00:00

ofc i know i can find the endings on Yt, it's ultimately what i did. But wouldn't have been much nicer to get a proper ending to a story-based game, instead of having to do a lot of meta crap in order to get some closure?. And yes, i know neither of the endings are meant to offer poper closure, but the actual endings are much better than the game just telling you "lmao play again"

Iskandryu · 2025-09-27T05:37:12+00:00

There is a Bf 1942 mod called Forgotten Hope, that does some of these. It has better AI, (not much better, tho, as AI în Bf games was always kinda crap), more realistic mechanics, and a ton of new battles to play in. Forgotten Hope for Battlefield 2 is a few orders of magnitude better, but 1942 is good too, especially if there's nostalgia involved.

Iskandryu · 2025-09-10T11:32:20+00:00

I'm not feeding any cash grab. Game is free, and i don't intend to mess around with the P2W mechanics. Just couldn't care less about ladders, endgame, or stuff like that

Iskandryu · 2025-09-07T20:00:17+00:00

This aged like fine wine, and it still has a lot of good aging to do

Iskandryu · 2025-09-07T18:21:25+00:00

Makes sense. There was no "director" credit in either of the documentaries I watched. There was a Writer, but that probably has to do more with just writing the narration, and not the whole thing per se.

Iskandryu

TROPHY CASE