From: Roberto Chiavini <mumaye@mail.dada.it>
Subject: Three reviews

Operation Apocalypse (Vae Victis 10)

Vae Victis reaches ten numbers with its first esclusively solitaire
game, a sort of remake of the helicopter assault operation showed in the
first part of Coppola’s masterpiece “Apocalypse Now”. Unfortunately, the
game falls really very far from being a masterpiece itself.

I don’t like especially the Vietnam games and I don’t like very tactical
games, so I’m probably not too balanced in this short review, but I have
not liked at all this system (as I haven’t liked in the past another
solitaire Vietnam game, “First Team”, appeared on “The Wargamer” 56,
back in the mid-Eighties). 

Anyway, as always, the graphics are worth the effort of trying at least
once this flawed design. You play as the Americans, with twelve combat
platoons (heli-transported by 12 Huey), trying to destroy the Vietcong
positions inside a small village, taking away, if possible, the most
civilians you can and capturing the VC commissar of that village. You
have also a couple of Cobras and perhaps a Phantom air strike to aid
your attempt.

The system play (really dumbly) the VCs. You have to roll for the
initial placement of the Vcs (six different possibilities) and for their
approach to your attack (defensive or counterassaulting). The VCs should
have a few reinforcements during the game (almost doubling their initial
strength). The rules are very peculiar (firing against the helicopters
flying or not, snipers, trenches, mines, terrorists, etc.), but almost
all the fun is raided away by a lot (and I mean really a lot) of
die/dice rolls. It depends almost exclusively on your luck if you win or
you lose the game (because after a few tries, you understand how to you
use your “dummy” helicopters to turn away the “dumb” VC fire from your
most important units and if you have luck they remain unhurt; otherwise
you are terribly destroyed.

I cannot reccomend this game if not to the die-rolling fanatic, the
“Apocalypse Now” re-enacting club and the wargamers really fond of this
subject and of an ultratactical approach with very few tactic decisions
to make.

I rate this game 4 ½ in a scale 1 to 10.