Vietnam 65

This is a new game from developer Every Single Soldier that is published by Slitherine, LTD and is available through Steam. I actually purchased my game through the Slitherine site using an Easter discount code that was not offered through Steam, and picked the game up for about $7. The Slitherine site has a web page where you can register the product to generate a legitimate Steam key to download and play the product there if you prefer (to track total game time, garner Steam achievements, etc.)

The game is not gronard heavy, but rather a lighter turn-based strategy game situated in one of my favorite gaming periods, the Vietnam War (which I believe has received the shaft from most game developers). Whereas Battlefield at least visited in country with Battlefield Vietnam in 2004 (a damn fun first person/vehicle shooter), the likes of Call of Duty completely bypassed it going from WWII to Modern Warfare (not a bad game overall, but I would have liked to seen their take on the Nam).

There are two victory conditions for each mission: Hearts and Minds and Political Capital. The first can ebb and flow given combat and enemy proximity to villages, but at the end of the last turn (45) must be 50 or above to win any kind of a victory. The second is kind of like cash, but is more to keep the war going overall (run out and I think it is game over). The play mechanics are basically putting forces into the field and then constantly resupplying them so that search and destroy missions can be launched, among other tasks.

The developer is working on a host of tweaks for the next update, but right now the game is playable and enjoyable, and I can see myself putting some time into this.

The sprites are well done overall and convey the situation decently. It would be nice to toggle this to NATO symbols however.

The tactical map is useful for determining where the Ho Chi Min trail exists in the particular mission, but this takes time to develop.

I was doing fairly well for a first game, having the hearts and mind rating at 50 or above for the majority of the game, but it dropped in some of the final turns and I could not engage the enemy to the extent necessary to swing it back to my favor.

Personally I love the shadow box medal system that the game implements. I wish other games would do something like this (I am looking at you Command Ops).