Overall Rating

22/30

SYNOPSIS: This scenario is very good in some areas, but lacking in others. All in all I had fun while playing, but I didn't find the scenario a historically accurate challenge, due to the inefficeincy of the US forces.

Playability Rating

9 / 10

COMMENTS: The playability depends on who you play as. For a Vietnam scenario to be historically accurate, the Americans and South need to have no objectives in the scenario. This is good for historical accuracy, but bad for playability. I do not hold this against the scenario, I just gave up as the Americans after a few turns because of this and other playability problems. The US troops move extremely slow, especially in the jungle. So basically it is impossible to wage a war as them. And as the North, it is very easy to take advantage of this problem. The North has most of their units as Alpine status with 2 or 3 movement. With the addition of being able to paradrop 4 squares and ignoring zones of control, I was able to blitz right through enemy lines easily with Guerrillas and Vietcong Elite. After I figured that out, I realized that I needed no other types of units. This kept the game interesting as the North because I could easily get things done, but it just made the scenario very lopsided. This is a bad thing because the scenario is supposed to be played by either. I think the best thing to improve this situation would be to eliminate the paradrop ability fromt he North units and give it to more of the US units, and place more airbases on the map.

My first impression of the scenario was that it was chaotic. I started the scenario and there were units everywhere. The North was the same color as the cambodians, there were many types villages with the shields hid so I couldn't tell at first glance who they belonged to. Plus there is a wide variety of troops you can build which makes it hard to realize whats the best to use. This all would have amounted to a negative effect on the scenario except for the readme. The readme was great because it explained all the units! I had it in the background and often refrenced it for the first couple of turn before I got the hang of everything.

Level of General Care

4 / 10

COMMENTS: This is where the scenario lacked. 

MAP: The map was horrible. First off, it should have been a flat world, not a round one. I saw no reason to include the Soviets in this scenario, and they were isolated by a long wall of jungle. This looked very bad. But other than that, the terrain was boring. Nothing but jungle and swamp looking land that was called "tundra". I don't think South East Asia is barren. The map would have been a lot better if there were some forest, hills, and open grasslands along the coast or random spots.

AIRFORCE: I don't think much care was taken into the American airforce. When it said operation "Rolling Thunder" went underway, I wasn't attacked by any aircraft. When the rare event occured that I was attacked by aircraft, basically nothing happened. A mere Guerilla squad took out a B-52 bomber. And napalm was ineffective at best.

ROADS: Negotiations should have been disabled. The Cambodians broke the alliance with me and I lost access to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But even if I could use the trail, there was no need to because trails were just roads renamed, and most of my units were alpine. Since no railroads were used in the scenario, I think the author should have used railroads (of course renamed to something more fitting) as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But on the bright side, the trail looked good with Tunnel Entrances on the ends.

UNITS: I think that some of the unit images were inaccurate. The VietCong Elite had a Green Beret on his head. The B-52 Bomber was actually a Landcaster. Not only was the Airforce week (as I mentioned before) but so was the navy. Battleships were blown away by fortified NVA Regulars in the jungle. I would hate to see what would happen if the NVA Regulars were inside a city with a coastal fortress. But besides this, I thought that a good job was done on ground unit statistics. The battles weren't always one sided. The scenario favored neither the attack or defense. There troops had high Hit Points and Firepower, so sometimes lucky blows could be struck. I've done similar things in my scenarios and it pleases me to see someone else do the same.

README: The Readme was excellent. Very imformative on the units so I didn't waste them in the beginning as a learning experience.

TEXT: Much of the game.txt and lables.txt file has been altered for a generally positive effect on the scenario. It made it unique. However, I didn't like being called an "idiot" or a "shitbag". =)

Art and Originality

9 / 10

ART: This part was awesome. I think scenario designers who aren't very good artists or are timid ones should study the artwork of this scenario. Mischa may not be that great of an artist, I don't know. Almost all of the infantry were recycled units that the author messed around with for the scenario. I think that if you are not a good artist, you should at least do this with the scenario. The units were of good quality and I wasn't bored of seeing them used in many scenarios already, because they were changed! It made the scenario very unique and fun to play. Artwork is one of my favorite parts of the scenario and I think you don't have to be a good artist to do well in this area. All you have to do is spent some time recoloring, adding different details, or changing the weapons, and you've got unique looking art for your scenario. And it isn't difficult. But because they weren't original and still recognizable as old, and because the navy and airforce were recycled units, I feel that this scenario should not get a 10 in this area.