Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

Review from Barry - Saturday, 24 September 2011 @ 3:29am

The feel of the rough wooden stock against your cheek while you squint down the weathered iron sights. The pressure of the rifle butt in your shoulder while your arms start to ache from holding the rifle steady. The heat of the sun beating down on your already tired body from the two hour walk through the thick underbrush to get a clean shot. Your finger takes the slack off the trigger while you make your final adjustments.

The wind, distance to target, steady stance, your breathing, each of these things you need to take into account before pulling the trigger. One shot. Win or lose - it all hinges on your finger moving a metal trigger back another millimeter before the firing mechanism is engaged and a bullet thunders towards where you had your rifle pointed..

FIX BAYONETS!!

That is what Red Orchestra 2 is all about. If you think RO2 is going to be your run of the mill ww2 arcade shooter like your Call of Duty's or your Battlefield’s you are in for a rude shock. There are no red dot scopes to unlock, or faster reload perks, none of that. All you have is your rifle, your ammo and your skill.

Red Orchestra 2 is the sequel to, you guessed it, Red Orchestra 1 which is a sequel to a Unreal Tornament mod, so needless to say there is a bit of common theme here, Russians V Nazi circa mid 1940’s. Like its predecessors RO2 brings that “realism” which aims to push RO2 more into the simulation camp.

Unless he has a machine gun - this is not going to end well

True to its roots RO2 is primarily a multiplayer game - it does ship with two single player campaigns - One from the Russian point of view, the other from Ze Germans. As you can expect with a game focused on multiplayer, the single player campaigns serve as more of a primer to how to use the weapons and the cover system to battle enemies that don’t get stuck on doors.

Yes, sadly the AI in the single player campaigns is pretty fubar. Ordering your troops from place to place will usually result them getting stuck on some part of the scenery or taking cover ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE COVER. The enemy AI isn’t much better, so at least it is a fair fight. So maybe just forget the single player missions and lock and load into a multi player server.

The first thing you will come to notice about RO2’s multiplayer is the maps - they are big.
Needless to say they are also full of places to hide behind / in. This is where the tension kicks in - because the maps are quite large and it only takes one bullet to send you back to the spawn - everyone plays it safe. So in my experience it was not uncommon to stalk quietly though the broken rubble searching for that perfect spot, only to be brought down some some clown hiding in a doorway.

You just know theres about 8 enemies waiting for you to step out of cover...

At least when you are stalking though the levels they are nice to look at. You really get a feel for the people of Stalingrad. Busted up houses and rubble filled streets make for perfect killing grounds. I for one would not like to be the poor sod that has to go get the morning paper and some fresh milk!.

Because you are quite susceptible to bullets, the makers of RO2, Tripwire interactive have added in a nice cover system for you, it works well, left ctrl to snap in and out of cover, space to vault it and just push down the trigger to fire blindly over it.

Blind fire in RO2 is fantastic, its not like your Gears of War or Army of Two cover, if you blind fire over cover - you have no idea where its going, except down range (thats why they call it blind fire). It is a great way to turn the tide if you are stuck suppressed behind cover.

How many walls can a nazi jump if a nazi could jump walls?

It is a shame then that there seems to be some wicked bugs and frame rate issues going on that do their best to ruin all the hard work that has gone into this game. There is always a small window for a game grabbing the punters attention before a new game comes along - this is the nature of today's game industry. So with so many new titles about to drop I think Red orchestra 2's bugs and frame rate issues might not be patched quickly enough to keep you playing.

Pros

• Realistic WW2 game play
  
• Unparalleled weapon realism
  
• Fantastically detailed large maps
  
• Awesome Blind fire and cover system
  

Cons

• Borders on simulation
  
• Single player missions marred by horrible AI
  
• Game style lends towards camping, which can be frustrating on large maps.