Lost Patrol - Gameplay

Gameplay

The player assumes the role of Sergeant Charlie Weaver, the only man left to take charge of the surviving crew. The player must learn the characteristics of the team, as completing the mission may hinge upon character reactions to the player's decisions, and then try to keep the group's morale high (or risk being fragged) and fatigue low, managing the dwindling resources (food rations, ammunition, hand grenades and Claymore mines) and fending off the enemy.

The game also features action sequences:

• Hand to hand combat - Scouts would at times encounter lone VC guerrilla guarding an arms or supply bunker. The player must defeat the opponent in unarmed combat, using a choice of keyboard or joystick controls. If the player fails to defeat the opponent before a timer expires, that soldier is assumed missing in action and is no longer available.
• Firefight - The player mans an M-60 machine gun against a group of the VC, trying to be neither killed nor overrun; hand grenades may be also used against the enemy.
• Machine gun nest - The squad encounters one or more entrenched machine gun positions of the NVA and the player must eliminate them by hurling hand grenades from the first-person perspective.
• Snipers - The squad is pinned down by enemy sniper fire, requiring the sniper(s) to be located and disposed of. The player can chose which member of the team will assume the role of the shooter, with skill levels varying. To locate the position of the sniper(s), a magnified view of the terrain is visible through the scope of the player's rifle, which he must use to locate the flashes of enemy fire.
• Mine field - The squad would at times have to cross mine fields laid by enemy forces to defend an entry to a bunker. Mine fields are visible on the map, but the booby traps are not (the only solution is to move slowly in an areas that may be mined). To successfully navigate the mine field, the player must choose a member of the squad to crawl through the minefield, stabbing at the ground along the way to check for explosives, before time limit runs out.

The player may always try to retreat from each encounter, but this is risky, too. The group may also encounter local Vietnamese (Montagnards in the mountains) civilians, including while entering villages visible on the map. A range of options is then available, from searching area to killing one or even all of civilians. The player may also attempt to communicate with the locals (in a friendly talk or a hard interrogation) using the key words typed from keyboard (for example, typing "VC" to ask for enemy forces).