Long, tedious, frustrating and even fun.
The game is split into four different levels, each with its own unique gameplay and objectives. The first level puts the player in the middle of a jungle where he is tasked to find explosives needed to destroy a bridge before continuing on to search a village for tunnel entrances. The jungle consists of various paths with a myriad of options and quickly overwhelms the player with little in the way of hints. The first level is easily the longest and most frustrating of the four, and a player may take hours without a good game guide before finding the explosives and the bridge. Along the way, Viet Cong will walk along the paths and fire at you, or will sometimes drop out from the treetops - often and quite literally on top of you, making it almost impossible for the player to dodge. Viet Cong will also randomly emerge from underground and shoot at the player at kneecap level, the only effective counter at the player's disposal is to jump and dodge the incoming bullet. Wire traps are also placed randomly along the path, once again dodged by jumping. Fortunately, the AI is lacking and the bullets move slowly enough to be easily anticipated and dodged. Occasionally, enemies that shoot from underground entrances will be hidden by the foreground foliage and will be impossible to see, but the greatest problem lies in dodging traps. If the player is shot when jumping traps, or if an enemy falls from the treetops onto the player while jumping traps, the player will often respawn right on top of the wire trap so that it becomes impossible to move without losing a life, adding to an increasingly frustrating game. Wire traps are also sometimes places in bizarre, pointless locations such as right next to a tree roadblock. The player is armed with a rifle, which expends ammunition, as well as a number of grenades. Grenades are the only means to kill enemies using tunnel traps and also kill all enemies on screen but are completely pointless as grenades take so long to throw, chances are you'll be shot before you can even throw one. The player can take a total of five wounds, and has five lives (or "squad members") available. Enemies will also drop kits that heal one wound and replenish all rifle ammunition.
Once the player finally finds and destroys the bridge, he then goes onto a village where he has to search various huts for a map, a torch and a tunnel entrance. Not only is the village crawling with Viet Cong, but villagers are also everywhere, and killing too many villagers will decrease the morale bar and end the mission. Some of the searchable objects in the huts have been booby trapped as well, and it will probably take one or two play-throughs to learn where everything is. Once the player finds all the needed objects, the second level begins, placing the player in the middle of a tunnel complex. Fortunately, this time the player actually has a map and therefore a clue of where to go. Unfortunately, the player only has two "squad members" to take along on this mission, and enemies are frequent and even more frustrating. The level is done in split-screen fashion, with the right side of the screen occupied by the map and the left side being presented in first-person fashion, all things considered not a bad effort on an NES. As the player is walking, however, the player's gunsight swings around, presumably to replicate how a soldier actually holds a rifle, but it makes aiming difficult and challenging, and enemies shoot back before the player can place the targeting reticle. There are two types of enemies: one will be standing with a gun while the other surfaces from the water with a knife. The latter is the most challenging of all as the low profile makes it extremely difficult to place the targeting reticle and for some reason the game seems to refuse to register headshots. The player's best bet against this enemy is to hope that the swinging motion of the rifle places the reticle square on the enemy from the start, otherwise count on getting wounded.
The objective of this level is to search various rooms for flares, a compass, and an exit. Rooms are scattered everywhere, and not all of them have anything useful. Some have rotten food, weapons and secret documents which simply add to a player's score, while others provide the player with badly needed medical supplies and ammunition. Once an exit is found, the next level begins - the player finds himself in a bunker equipped with a flare gun in the middle of the night as enemies approach from the darkness and start shooting. This is perhaps the easiest of the four levels as for once no maze navigation is required, and is very straightforward - just shoot the enemy. The player has a limited number of flares, but chances are he'll complete the level long before they're all expended. Flares are activated by aiming the targetting recticle on the flare gun and pressing the fire button; a flare will shoot out, lighting the sky and illuminating all enemies. The level ends once the player has killed a set number of enemy soldiers.
The final level is meant to represent the chaotic climax of the movie, if not done a bit bizarrely. Those of you familiar with the movie may recall Charlie Sheen's character, Chris Taylor, as he wanders the jungle aimlessly looking for his platoon leader, Sargent Barnes, wanting to extract a little revenge after a botched napalm bombing. The "jungle confrontation" mission switches some things around as the player is thrown into a third person running gun battle with Viet Cong running across the top of the screen like crazy as the player - you guessed it - navigates yet another maze. To make matters worse, you don't have as much ammunition as you did in the first level and you have a timer counting down to a napalm strike - not that it really matters because if the player makes one incorrect turn, he's dead anyway as he won't be able to make his way through. When the player finally does reach Sgt. Barnes, he won't find him in a wounded, pathetic state as in the movie, oh no - he's waiting for you inside of a bunker that the Viet Cong must've nicely set up for him, armed with a machine gun and a grenade launcher. This time around, Taylor's switched out his rifle for a grenade launcher of his own and the player must lob five gernades squarely on Barnes' bunker. This is much easier said than done, as Barnes' machine gun fire and gernades make it very difficult to approach within range. Once the level is completed, the player is treated to something that vaguely resembles the movie's dramatic ending, in a way summing up the game's attempt to vaguely replicate the movie experience as only the NES can do.
Graphics and sound are what you would typically expect on an NES game of the era, and display no glaring faults. The graphics are well-rendered at least, and it's not an ugly game to look at. Sound effects are overall decent, although the player death sound effect could use some work, which is nothing more but a strange buzzer tone. The midi musical score is appropriate and even at times rousing, especially for the second level on through, matching the tone of the levels nicely.
Overall, while Platoon is a frustrating affair, it has its moments and the gameplay is entertaining when the endless navigation through various mazes is taken out. While it can't be expected to live up to its namesake, Platoon is long, tedious, frustrating, and even fun.