Mission briefing
Most missions are carried out in squad format, but the player has no actual control over the other squad members. They pretty much operate on their own, providing cover fire, disengaging traps, and placing explosives. Whether deployed by APC, as in Figure D, or slopping through a rice paddy, your squad mates will always have your back.

FIGURE D


Take care of your squad mates and they'll take care of you. Roll over picture for a larger image.

If the action gets too thick, just call in air support, like the napalm strike in Figure E.

FIGURE E


Napalm smells like victory. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Shepard's tour takes him from Da Nang, up to Ke Sahn, into the bush, swamps, rice paddies, and even the VC (Viet Cong) tunnel system. He'll experience the carnage of the Tet Offensive, and house-to-house fighting in Hue (pronounced whey, as in curds and whey), all the way to the Imperial Palace.

The game's cut scenes are peppered with actual video and still footage from the Vietnam War, along with quotes from various servicemen and political figures of the time. Between assignments, the realism of the character is brought home through a series of narrated letters to and from home.

Men of Valor has a multiplayer feature as well, which I know is important to some of you. Unfortunately, as I've stated before, I have no desire whatsoever to play online games, so that's one aspect I didn't test.

Debriefing
Men of Valor could have been a really great game. Notice I said "could have been." The story, plot, and character development are top-notch. The dialog doesn't seem forced or trite like a lot of games, it feels real and natural. Men of Valor even features the voice talents of several celebrities.

Phil LaMarr, whom you may remember from Mad TV, lends his voice as that of Dean Shepard. LaMarr has done many other game voice-overs, as well as animated shows like Futurama, Family Guy, and King of the Hill.

Sean Astin, late of the Lord of the Rings movies, provides the voice of Shepard's buddy Hodges. And Shepard's commander, Captain Dandridge, is voiced by Tucker Smallwood, who played the Commodore on Space: Above and Beyond, and more recently the Xindi-Primate on Enterprise.

Speaking of celebrities. How could Vivendi and 2015 do a Marine-centered Vietnam game without including a Basic Training intro featuring R. Lee Ermey? You may remember Lee Ermey as the hard-core drill instructor of Boys in Company C and Full Metal Jacket fame. I can't even think of the Marines without Lee Ermey coming to mind. Ermey is currently featured on the History Channel's Mail Call.

The game's music score is unbelievable, featuring appropriate era music from the likes of Strawberry Alarmclock, The Mamas and the Papas, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, and much more. The music is both included on the game cd and downloadable from the official site, but is in .ogg format rather than MP3.

The game was developed by 2015, the same studio that created Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and Vivendi Universal, one of the studios behind Half-Life 2. With the combination of these two working together, I really expected a lot more. I think where the game goes wrong is that it's a PC port of an Xbox game, and only the bare minimum was done to port the game.