Shellshock: Nam '67

aka: SSN67
Moby ID: 14614
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Shellshock takes you back to the years of the Vietnam war. You take on the role of a rookie soldier on his first tour of duty. Using a third-person perspective, you experience napalm bombardments of civilian villages, sneaky night missions along the river banks, claustrophobic tunnel systems and huge battles in temples and open fields. Most missions are played as a team, but your team members cannot die and do not influence the mission objectives. You will have to assassinate enemy generals, take out crucial boats and guide your team through unknown territory.

The game does not have drivable vehicles, multiplayer options or extensive environmental interaction, but it features a particular system of dismantling the many bombs and traps: in a race against time, you have to perform a long key sequence in the correct order to clear the path. The atrocities on both sides are clearly shown in the cutscenes, filmed as through a shaky hand-camera. Either side is not afraid to abuse civilians for their cause and this sense of realism gives the game a rather raw edge. You can even purchase the services of hookers in the base camp.

Spellings

  • Shellshock: Вьетнам’ 67 - Russian spelling
  • 弹震症:越南1967 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Windows version)

216 People (197 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Development Director
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Lead Programmer
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Senior Environment Artist / Visualizer
Environment Artist
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 54% (based on 35 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 29 ratings with 2 reviews)

An alright game, but has too many shortcomings.

The Good
I'll start with the combat. Why? Because the game is about little else. The combat is satisfying, bloody, and it works well. You have a decent number of guns to choose from: a couple assault rifles, some rifles, submachine guns, RPGs, plus grenades, a combat knife, and a machete. Most enemies can be downed in one or shots if you hit the right spot. A somewhat entertaining and entirely sadistic dismemberment system is at your disposal. It makes for some easy and bloody kills.

The Bad
The bad? Well, graphically, the game is hit or miss. There always seems to be some sort of haze all over the battlefield. Plants and foliage can get rather glitchy. Some facial models can look really good, but more often they look a bit bad. The voice acting is just like like the graphics. At times, it sounds good. Your squad mates deliver some decent lines. The Vietcong baddies have some pretty bad voices and lines. They don't speak in their native tongue. Instead, they speak some laughably bad lines in stereotypical heavily accented English, like "You go home in body bag, GI!" or "I kill you, GI!". Also, the game is just too darn short. After the whole thing was done, my play clock was only at 3 hours, 47 minutes.

The Bottom Line
Overall, SSN67 is a bowl of mixed fruit. At the top, you have some moldy bananas, like mixed graphics, voice acting, and short length. But at the bottom, you might find a shiny apple or two in the combat and gameplay. Don't go out of your way to get this game. If you find it in a bargain bin for $5 like I did, get it if you want. Otherwise, you can turn your back.

Xbox · by bobthewookiee (73) · 2009

The closest to a Full Metal Jacket game.

The Good
Games like Shellshock only come along once in a while, while games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty represent World War II, not many games represented anything from Vietnam, there was Conflict: Vietnam, but the gameplay was so flawed it wasn't enjoyable. Well one day I noticed this game sitting on the shelf and wondered to myself if it could be any worse, so I rented this from my local blockbuster and I was shocked in both ways.

First off the game is just bloody and I mean bloody, this game just tears people up...literally. From heads, to legs and arms you can literally just tear off body parts with your weapons, hell even at one point I shot a charging Vietnamese soldier and his arm coming flying off with the gun still firing, now that's fun. The game gives you a true feeling of dread at times, in one mission you have to clear out a village and as you progress with your squad you will get ambushed and the first time I played this I was actually kinda jumpy about it. Once the firefight started, blood, body parts, screaming everything was flying and when all was said and done we were down to three enemy soldiers in a ditch where I threw a grenade in to flush them out, needless to say they tried to run only to be shot dead while the lone one was torn apart by the grenade and the whole was filled with gore and blood. Now that is fun.

The game does have a good bit of realism, it doesn't hold back, bad language, violence it's all here, even at times you wonder what side you are on since even your comrades can commit unspeakable deeds. The choice of weapons is phenomenal, automatic weapons, grenades (which come in very handy at time), knifes, machetes and even the always favorite flamethrower.

The music and the mood is very effective, it has '60s music from time to time, but the game can creep you out with some of the most spooky music I've ever heard in a war game. There is a good selection of levels to choose from and a variety of different challenges for these levels. There is a lot to like this game.

The Bad
Well, there were a few things that did bother me, one was the repetitive acting throughout the game from the Vietnamese enemies, they all sound the same, literally, I think they used one guy for hundreds of soldiers.

Also I'm surprised no one really got offended cause it did take some of the stereotypes from movies like Full Metal Jacket for the prostitutes, yes prostitutes, who have some lines such as "Me love you long time soldier boy". And here I thought only Full Metal Jacket only had that.

The only other thing that bothered me was the physics in this game, true you can blow apart body parts, but it is some of the weirdest i've seen. It's like there body becomes stiff and rigid, it would have been nice to have sort of rag doll effect instead.

The Bottom Line
You know this is a bad game, but it's an acquired taste. I love the gritty and dark mood to this game, true some people might think this game is offensive, mostly to the Vietnamese, but it isn't all that bad, hell there is worse games out there that can truly offend. If you're not into blood, gore, death and all that good stuff they stay away from this game, but if you're willing to give it a shot, rent it first before you buy.

PlayStation 2 · by Big John WV (26955) · 2008

Trivia

Shellshock: Nam '67 was named #4 Worst Game of the Year in the 14th Annual Computer Game Awards issue of Computer Games Magazine (March 2005).

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  • MobyGames ID: 14614
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Klaster_1, DreinIX, bobthewookiee, Victor Vance.

Game added September 4, 2004. Last modified January 31, 2024.