"War is fun," says the commander. "You get to shoot things."

The radio is cracking heavy static, the helicopter blades are whud-whud-whudding over our heads, bullets are whipping past, or plinking loudly against the chopper's hull. The commander in the seat next to me is still speaking but I can only hear snippets of what he says. It's almost impossible to make out the rest of his rubber-banding words. 

"It's -— and yeah -— sometimes you -— shot at -— that's -— "

I'd like to say this is an atmospheric feature of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, the latest multiplayer shooter to be set in the jungles of 1960s Vietnam. But it's really just the game's comm systems buckling under the pressure of a war sim that relies on wall-to-wall chatter. The pilot, who has a clearer radio channel with me, translates. 

"Basically, he says: war is fun!"

Like the conflict it's based on, the warfare in Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is not symmetrical. The two factions don't have matching abilities. US players can fly helicopters and drop napalm strikes. The North Vietnamese have tunnel systems and better camouflage. The first Hell Let Loose, set during WWII, had the same hardcore tactical battling and quick deaths. But the factions generally used the same explodey technologies and methods of war. Here, each side has a distinct flavour. The sound of choppers either makes you anxious or relieved. 

Down on the ground, you either can't see ten feet ahead of you for jungle bushes, or you can see for miles (and be sniped for miles). You can take a boat downriver, but a dozen muzzle flashes might erupt from the bushes at any moment. You almost never see the person who riflewrecks you from a mysterious position in an abandoned fishing village. The safest place, surely, is a hundred feet up in the sky.

A trail of white smoke whooshes past our helicopter. 

"Wow," says the pilot. "Rude."

The commander stirs next to me. "Was that an RPG?" he asks.

"Uh, maaaybe," says the pilot cheerfully.