Shellshock: Nam '67

Forget medals. Forget honor. Just survive.

Lessons would have to be learned in Vietnam. And in 1967, class, and Hell, was definitely in session. —Steve Blum

Shellshock: Nam '67 is a Vietnam War Third-Person Shooter for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. It was made by Guerrilla Games and published by Eidos, released in 2004, the same year as another game by the same developers, Killzone.

You play as Caleb "Cal" Walker, who has been drafted to fight in the war. At first, you are tasked with battling the VC presence in Kon Tum province. Eventually, you are ordered to rescue a military journalist who was investigating an NVA general named Ngo Diem, also known as "King Cong". The rest of the game is then spent trying to stop Diem and the threat that he and his forces are posing on American forces.

A First-Person Shooter sequel, Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, would be released in 2009, developed by Rebellion Developments.

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This game provides examples of:

• Authority Equals Asskicking: General Diem, who fights you with an M60 machine gun.
• An Arm and a Leg: It′s possible to dismember enemies, unless you′re using silenced weapons.
• Anyone Can Die: And boy do they! Supporting characters (and by the end of the game, almost all of them) drop like flies as the game progresses.
  • In order: Pvt. Tomkins, Lt. O′Brien, Sgt. Ramirez′s team, Pvt. Kowalski, Mama-san, Short Timer, Pvt. Dillon/Deuce (implied, off-screen), Sgt. Platt, and Col. Salter.
• Artificial Stupidity: Both the friendly and hostile AI never bothered to take cover or at least avoid your line of fire.
• Ax Crazy: Played straight with General Diem. The guys takes weeks to torture a prisoner, and would rather execute them himself.
  • Downplayed with Kowalski, who gets nicknamed as "Psycho". The guy maybe trigger-happy (killing any POW he comes across, even if his commanders ordered him to keep them alive), though he only comes across as being slightly eccentric rather than being insanely violent.
• Badass Mustache: Sgt. Platt.
• Big Bad: General Diem. He and his forces are pretty much the main threat throughout the game.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the first few missions, Sgt. Ramirez and his team would support you and your team from overwhelming enemy attacks. Later on, you do this to his team.
• Bittersweet Ending: General Diem is dead, but Walker′s base has been destroyed with virtually everyone he has known of dead, except for Monty. To twist the knife further, the war would continue to rage for another 8 years, and he would get infected by the Whiteknight virus.
• Boom! Headshot!: The best way to tell if you got a headshot is to see if the guy′s head disintegrated with brain matter in sight.
• Boss Battle: Only one, and it′s against General Diem and his elite guard.
• Bottomless Magazines: Mounted M60′s and Maxim guns. Though unlike the MG42′s from Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, they can overheat if fired for too long.
• Black and Gray Morality: The US soldiers are not saints, but the NVA and the VC they′re fighting against are worse than them.
• Black Dude Dies First: Pvt. Tomkins is the first important character to die.
• Booby Trap: Tripwire grenades, claymore mines, and bamboo spikes.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: This is guaranteed to happen to any US soldier that the VC/NVA captures.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: US and ARVN soldiers wear olive drab and ERDL uniforms, while the VC wear black and gray pajamas and the NVA wear bright green and tan uniforms.
• Death From Above: Courtesy of napalms or gunships.
• Decapitation Presentation: Walker presents Diem's decapitated head on Col. Salter′s table.
• Dirty Communists: Both the VC and the NVA are explicitly shown to be committing atrocities.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: The Special Forces are depicted as being more capable than regular US soldiers. This includes Ramirez and his team, and eventually, you.
• Elite Mooks: General Diem′s elite guard, who can take more hits than any other enemy in the game.
• Expy: General Diem is a North Vietnamese Colonel Kurtz. The difference being that Kurtz went renegade, while Diem is still loyal to his government.
  • Lt. O′Brien is a slightly more competent version of Lt. Wolfe.
• Featureless Protagonist/Heroic Mime: Walker doesn′t speak a single word, and he gets zero characterization at all. In fact, he has no set appearance; you can either make him be a white guy with a helmet or a hat, or a black guy with a helmet. His uniform also changes the moment he joins the SF.
• Final Battle: The last mission, where the NVA attacks (and overruns) Walker′s base.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Your allies will never die, unless they′re either a randomly-generated Red Shirt or scripted to die.
• Grenade Spam: Enemy soldiers will often throw what appears to be an inexhaustible amount of grenades. This is no more apparent than in the penultimate mission.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Played straight by the Special Forces, none of whom wear helmets. This would include Walker himself.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "Men Down", Sgt. Ramirez and his team stays behind to provide covering fire for Walker and the others so they escape from VC forces. As a result, they get blown up by an RPG.
• Intrepid Reporter/Mr. Exposition: Military journalist Corey Fanning, who basically tells the player all about General Diem (who′s still known only as "King Cong" at this time).
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Monty tortures Mama-san with a knife to force her to reveal General Diem′s location. When she does, Monty slits her throat.
• Kill'Em All: The only characters to survive the whole game are Howell (who returns home halfway to the game), Walker and Monty.
• Made of Iron: General Diem and his men are much tougher than regular enemies.
• Made of Plasticine: A single shot from a pistol is powerful enough to dismember some poor soldier.
• The Mole: Mama-san and her prostitutes are acting as double agents for the NVA.
• More Dakka: This is the Vietnam War, after all. Aside from the M60, there′s also the Maxim gun used by the Communists.
• The Neidermeyer: Lt. O′Brien isn′t held in high regard by anyone. In fact, in the first level of the game he requests mortar support at the wrong coordinates, killing most of Tomkins′ squad except for the man himself.
• New Meat: Walker and Kowalski.
• Not Enough to Bury: Kowalski gets gibbed by an RPG. Short Timer doesn′t take his death well.
• Obligatory War Crime Scene: The Communists commit multiple of these, whether by torturing American POW′s and civilians, attempting to execute Montagnard chiefs. The Americans and South Vietnamese are also guilty of this to a much lesser extent; namely, executing prisoners of war after interrogating them.
• Only Six Faces/You All Look Familiar: Generic American soldiers all look the same, with only two models.
• Punny Name: General Diem is nicknamed "King Cong".
• Rare Guns: You can buy a Gyrojet rocket pistol from Deuce. It can hold two rounds at a time.
• Sergeant Rock: Sgt. Ramirez.
• Shout-Out: A Tagline references/mocks the Medal of Honor games, saying "Forget medals. Forget honor. Just survive".
  • Three with Platoon: A Neidermeyer Lieutenant accidentally calling mortar support on friendly soldiers, and US soldiers investigating a village that turns out to be hiding VC weapons, and setting it ablaze, and the Final Battle is a borderline pastiche of that movie′s own final battle, complete with a napalm airstrike.
  • Some of Mama-san′s prostitutes would say, "Me love you long time".
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Most American soldiers are seen with their sleeves rolled up, except for Tick Tock.
• Storming the Castle: Twice.
  • In the third mission you attack an old French fort that is used by the NVA as a prison camp. In the fourth mission the opposite happens, where you must hold off NVA forces trying to reclaim the fort.
  • The penultimate mission has you, Monty, and Short Timer assaulting Diem′s compound, an abandoned Buddhist temple near the Laotian border.
• Take Cover: Downplayed. The game has no cover mechanics, though crouching or going prone can protect you from enemy fire and make your shots more accurate.
• Take That: See Shout-Out.
• Took a Level In Badass: Walker starts the game as a New Meat who goes on routine patrol missions, to a Special Forces commando who personally kills a high-ranking NVA general.
• Translation Convention: With some exceptions, Vietnamese is translated as English. As a result, you′re more likely to hear VC and NVA soldiers speaking English and not just when they′re taunting the Americans.
• Tunnel Network: As in Real Life these are used frequently by the VC. In fact, the tunnels can and will never stop spawning enemies unless you seal them with a C4 charge.
• Urban Warfare: Two missions take place in a war-torn town.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In one mission you′ll come across some wounded, bedridden VC′s, and an unarmed medic who′s treating them. You can kill them with no repercussions.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The NVA sappers, who only wear shorts with explosives strapped around them, which is Truth in Television.
• War Is Hell: As expected from a story set in the Vietnam War. Combat is incredibly bloody and messy, and there are almost no heroic moments, with many characters dying in vain.
• We Sell Everything: Deuce sells drugs, postcards, R&R licenses... and a Gyrojet rocket pistol.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Deuce is nowhere to be seen in the Final Battle. It′s implied however, that he died offscreen.
• The World's Expert on Getting Killed: Gardner, an experienced soldier who′s familiar with booby traps, dies from a spike trap.