Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is Tripwire Interactive's newest game. You might have played Red Orchestra 1, or Killing Floor, and recognize the name from those games, as yes, they are also Tripwire Interactive games. Red Orchestra 2 has only been out for a couple of days now, so consider this more like some preliminary thoughts rather than a full fledged review.
So I drove around all day on the 13th trying to find a place to buy it, but I ended having to get a PaySafe card and buy it from GamersGate, as I couldn't find it retail near me. GamersGate wouldn't let me download it, as it's a Steamworks game, so I activated it on Steam and downloaded it. The servers were completely clogged however, and it took some time. (To be expected.) By the time it was downloaded, I finished a movie I was watching, (Following) and started playing. To the settings I went immediately, and found a variety of options, which is always good. Here's my rig:
So my PC is old, but my low resolution makes up for most of that, so I threw all the graphics options, every single one, on highest, and enabled everything possible.
I decided to try out Single Player first, since even though I had purchased the Deluxe Edition for the Day 1 unlocks, I wanted to learn the game first. Once I loaded the first Axis mission (since the Allies campaign is locked) I found myself in a well put together tutorial, with beautiful graphics, but they were a little laggy. I decided not to worry because I could change those later. The tutorial was very well put together, I had no trouble going through it except for the whole L-Shift + W + L-ALT slide thing, as the message disappeared and I had to figure the bugger out. Other than that, no problems, and a great way to try the game out.
Onto the first mission! I jumped right in, and spawned as a standard rifleman with a Kar-98 and a Mauser. At first the manual bolting threw me off, but I learned to double-click for each shot, becoming a machine of efficiency. In fact, the added realism created a much more believable environment, which I loved. Another thing I loved right away was the ability to look at your clip/mag and see how much ammunition you have left. It gives you an approximate, and since I turn the ammo-meter off in all the games I play, this was just a great addition. Finally, the last combat gimmick was the scope sighting. If your target was far, or close, you could adjust your sights to compensate. This may work well, but unfortunately, I had no idea what close/far was in the game. I find myself playing awkward American boy trying to figure out how many meters things were, before I finally starting hitting things. Perhaps this would be easier for Europeans. It was most certainly difficult for me.
Calling in Arty
A few other things stood out in the gameplay. One is the 1st person cover system. I’ve always wanted a first person cover system. In fact, I was working on developing a game that had a first person cover system. Red Orchestra’s is fantastic, as you can blind fire from behind cover, or lean out and shoot. If an enemy is behind cover, you can still shoot them most of the time, but it’s more difficult. (This is done by shooting through or right next to the cover, or if they’re sticking out a tad.) You can take cover behind almost anything, by pressing L-CTRL. Finally, there’s the mantling. Mantling allows you to vault over objects, which I much prefer to a jump, since that eliminates BF2 and CSS style bunny-hopping. There is still a jump in game, but it’s slow, awkward, and you barely move. Mantling’s simple, feels natural, and executes quickly - the perfect solution.
The weapons are pretty nice. I didn’t get my Day 1 unlocks for some reason, so they haven’t been overly diverse, but there’s enough and more to come. It doesn’t feel like you’re playing something like Battlefront 2 where there’s 4 weapon choices in the game. Weapons are entirely dynamic, and you can pick up individual ones that you want. Some of them have cool gimmicks as well, like attachable bayonets, or on the sniper rifle, you can switch between the scope for long range, and the iron sights for CQC. You can carry a couple of primary weapons, as well as grenades and pistols. Squad Leaders have binoculars, but I’ll talk about that a little later.
The weapon accuracy is a bit too much in my opinion. I would have preferred to see them a bit more inaccurate, as just about everything can snipe another person from far away. I feel like the weapons should also have a bit more sway when firing them, perhaps something like in Brothers in Arms. You can hold your breath while shooting, which also zooms you in a bit (I was disappointed to see this in a game acclaimed for realism. I don’t know about you, but when I hold my breath, nothing magical happens.) and makes shots easier. Another little tidbit - the Kar-98 scope doesn’t take up the whole screen, which I find neat. Instead, when using it, it appears in the center of your screen, but you can still see a little to the right and to the left.
Looking Downsight
The AI is alright. They aren’t very conformed, and something (again) like in Brothers in Arms would have made a better substitute. I found that on Normal Difficulty, my squad ran around in all directions getting mowed down. They made no attempt to stick to cover, and use supressive fire techniques. The enemy made no attempt to flank, which would have been nice, and I would try out harder difficulties, but because the player’s team’s AI is so horrible, I think I’ll just get my ass veritably kicked.
Squad command definitely needs some improvement. A couple of missions in, you are given your own squad and walked through a simple tutorial. It’s very decentralized, the command buttons are all over the keyboard, and there’s no decent commands. You can order your soldiers to attack objectives, but you don’t actually see the object, you choose from a list. This wastes valuable time, rather than like in BiA where you point at the enemies you want them to attack. Also, there is no suppress option, which is desperately needed. So when I tell my troops to attack, they get up, and charge straight forward, and die a few seconds later. I generally have to tell them to take cover somewhere, and finish off the missions with the non-squad members, and myself. This is quite annoying and I desperately hope them improve upon this. As a squad leader, you also have binoculars which can call in artillery. I found this to be quite helpful in eliminating machine gun nests, or other enemy entrenchments.
Overall, the single player is fun, a little laggy, needs better AI and squad command, but probably worth a quick playthrough. The reason why most people buy this game, however, is probably the multiplayer...which sadly needs even more improvement.
The game, from what I could tell was fairly balanced in multiplayer. I’m horrible at it and even I was doing well. It’s not very fast paced, or at least, if you make it so, you won’t live for very long. It’s considerably fun, and I can’t wait to see what time will bring in terms of organization, tactics, techniques, clans, etc. The immersion was incredible, and overall experience was very intense, playing something like a war movie.
What made the biggest impression was when I was crouched up against a second story door to a balcony, under heavy fire, when an ally came rushing up the stairs. I tried to warn him of the intense fire, and started blind firing to cover him, but he made it two steps before taking a bullet to the head. It was rather strange looking at him slumped over with blood splashed on the wall behind him.
The servers were very populated, and I found myself in some 60+ player battles. There’s a fair amount of them, and the server list was easy enough to navigate, very smoothed and polished experience overall. I can’t complain there. I should note did have some massive cursor lag, but that went away once I turned Anti-Aliasing off. (As is often the case.)
I played a variety of roles, and found them all quite interesting. Defending a position was very dynamic in that it was very difficult if a certain weapon wasn’t there. Especially when fighting tanks. Infantry attacking? Add some sharpshooters and an MG, and holy cow. It got very intense, especially picking up a falling MG, mowing down a few guys, getting shot, making the rush to regain the MG, and the like. The battles were most certainly very fun and climactic.
Mauser
Unfortunately, they were severely inhibited by the incredible lag that populated every server I played on. Even with a latency of under 30, the lag was incredible. Every time I fired a weapon, it got worse. Every time I jumped or mantled, it also got worse. This extremely cut into the amount of fun I could have, and even with the graphics options on the absolute lowest, I failed to do anything about the lag, only being able to remove the cursor lag.
I should also point out that I purchased the Digital Deluxe edition, hoping to both support the developer, and gain access to the Day 1 unlocks. Sadly, (and much to my bewilderment) I didn’t receive the Day 1 unlocks. Upon inquiring (along with many other people who had the same issue) the developers said they were aware of the issue and working to fix it. However, by that point, I’ll probably have unlocked them anyways, so hopefully they’ll do something or other to make up for it. Anyways, I only view it as a minor issue, so it’s not completely ruined the game for me. (I don’t own Killing Floor, nor do I have Team Fortress 2 installed, so I can’t comment on those extras.)
So basically I’ve come to a summary here. Red Orchestra 2 is very very very fun, unique, and realistic. There's a lot I didn't go into, simply because it's already a very long review, so my apologies for that. It’s a game that we haven’t seen much of in it’s genre, (except for ArmA and Brothers in Arms) and that makes it easily worth the price. It’s cheap enough already, and I sincerely hope to see some extensive post-release support, considering the game needs to be patched very badly. Something was implemented poorly, and it’s killing the fun. I’m not new to this, being a long-time Paradox fan, everyone knows how badly some of their releases can be, and usually the game ends up fantastic. I’ve no issue waiting, and no doubt that Tripwire will continue to support and improve upon Red Orchestra 2.
I am lost.
Originally Posted by Heinz Guderian
