Two weeks of silence…Sorry about that but there’s good reasons, firstly Deus Ex, secondly Dead Island, thirdly Trackmania 2 and finally Red Orchestra 2. Trying to squeeze all of those into a busy work week while also maintaining a blog is tricky business and something had to give.

I never played the first WW2 themed multiplayer shooter Red Orchestra but I admired it from a distance. There’s only space for one first person war simulator in ones life and at that time I was knee deep into Arma. Now after a few hours of crawling on my belly in RO2 I can understand why the first one had such a large cult following.

RO2 sits somewhere between Battlefield 2 and Arma. This game is a one shot one kill sort of game, it’s also a game where bullets are affected by gravity and distance, so it’s a bit of a sim but I don’t find it as brutal as Arma. It’s generally easier to kill someone at 180 meters away with a 70 year old bolt action rifle in RO2 than it is to do the same thing with a modern equivalent in Arma.

Multiplayer matches are played out in large-ish arenas and can hold up to 64 players, the modes I’ve played have been quite familiar ‘territory control’ types; get as many dudes as you can into an area and defend it until it’s captured. Re-spawning is controlled by reinforcements where everyone is revived in 30 second chunks and you can choose to re-spawn in either captured territory or on your squad leader, so far so Battlefield. Most interestingly there’s a commander in each team who is responsible for giving orders to squad leaders, laying down artillery fire and controlling reinforcement spawning. There’s probably more to it but I didn’t even realise there were commanders or even squad leaders until after about two hours in.

This game unfortunately still feels a bit like a mod. I had absolutely no idea what was going on during my first few matches. I didn’t know which way to look and found it impossible to follow my team mates without getting a bullet in the skull en-route. Randomly a hint popped up on my screen about 3 hours in which said ‘press T for tactical view’ – as soon as I held that T button down it all started to click. The tactical view basically shows all relevant information including territory markers, way-points and spotted enemies. It only appears for as long as you have the button held down and I’ve grown to really appreciate not having my vision constantly bombarded by HUD information. I wish they extended this to the rest of the UI as there’s still, “DUDEMAN killed DUDELADY at 100m with [insert gun image]” as well as “ARTILLERY INCOMING!” and things like that. They should think of better ways of delivering this information to you, perhaps with more defined audio signals. The whole UI from in-game information to menus just looks and feels like a 5 year old game which adds to the unshakable ‘mod’ feeling of the entire experience.

Polish issues aside though there’s lots to love about this game. Movement, aiming, positioning and awareness are essential skills to develop as you play. Your character has weight and movement which directly impacts clarity of vision. Crawl and sprint and your head will bob just slowly enough for you to make out shapes and silhouettes. Sprinting removes access to the gun which can take a second or two to ready again. Running without aiming or sprinting gives you a very loose control over aim, you can only vaguely aim the gun in a direction without a crosshair and there’s a very slight amount of aim movement before your head starts to scroll. Aiming while moving is very slow and sight is narrowed killing all peripheral vision. Again during aiming there’s a slight ‘give’ to the site so that you can neatly look around without having your gun obscure the area you are scanning, it’s really subtle and barely noticeable but is such a clever little feature.

There’s an initially awkward cover system in place which with use matures into one of the main pillars of combat. Press left control whilst near a wall and you enter cover mode which is somewhat similar to that of Killzone, press aim and you pop your head over cover for a shot, you’re free to move and lean and blind fire too but what’s most important is that firing from cover steadies your aim dramatically. RO2 is all about positioning yourself safely, taking a shot, moving and repeating, at least that’s what I’ve found while playing as a rifleman. There’s many other roles I’m yet to explore and I’m eager to do so once I feel comfortable as a rifleman.

One last thing I want to say is that the developers have nailed atmosphere and detail. The game does not look incredible but it looks nice, it echoes the rose tinted ‘golden days’ of PC gaming back when COD was still seen as an innovative series. Audio is very well executed, the lines of dialog and shouts made by other players as they spot enemies, get shot or request help are nearly as good as in Bad Company 2. Atmospherically there’s some incredible experiences to be had while you nervously wait for the enemy to run through the smoke to the position you are defending. Animation is done really well – it’s just like in the films as you watch a small squad of soldiers running in the distance through your crosshair, shooting someone who is at full-pelt causes their body to drop like a sack of potatoes.

It’s tragic and horrific imagery but it’s also very tightly tied to the gameplay which is quite a remarkable achievement. Being able to give the player an authentic feeling and deeply atmospheric WW2 recreation while also keeping the game fun and flowing is something I’m not sure many studios could pull off.

[6] - This score and review may change in a few weeks once it has been patched and refined, something the developers are promising to do.

About the author

Michael Manning

Michael is a sound designer and composer working in the games industry. His portfolio can be found at www.manningaudio.com