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Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
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Graphics & Sound:
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is set in World War II and there was a lot of design that went into getting the look and feel just right. The animated cut-scenes used to set the story and act as mission briefings have the feel of WWII propaganda films, complete with muted colors, lint, dust, scratches and artifacts. Not only that, but the in-game graphics have a filter applied that gives the grainy appearance of film from the WWII era. All of this works well together, giving you the feeling of "playing" in an old WWII movie.
The voice-work is excellently done, and, while all of the lines are in English (a good thing), the accents are thick, yet believable and, at times, small parts will slip into their native tongue. Mind you, it's only short phrases here or there, and it's ones that sound close enough that you'll understand it, anyway, but it's a nice touch.
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Gameplay:
This is not MW3. Heroes of Stalingrad is less arcade-y and more simulation. Guns are slow to reload and not exceedingly easy to aim, as you'll need to account for things such as bullets dropping due to gravity over distance. Not only that, but there is no way to increase or replace your health and, if you get hit and don't manage to bandage yourself to prevent blood loss, you'll even get to enjoy the thrill of bleeding out. There is no aiming assist, and you'll need to actually work with team members and play the game in a more tactical fashion than is required in most FPS games. If you're more of a run-and-gun lone wolf, this might not be the best fit for you.
As you play through Heroes of Stalingrad, you will have the opportunity to play as several different classes of soldiers, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Classes with lighter weapons allow you to be more agile, but you're not as deadly. Heavy machine guns pack a nice punch, but require a place to mount them to really deliver the appropriate accuracy. Later on, you will also get your hands on anti-tank rifles, tank mines and everyone's favorite - the satchel charge. It's very satisfying to run up to a tank and take it out as its turret slowly spins around in an attempt to blow you to bits. (Sorry tank... too slow.)
Later in the game, you'll even get to man a tank, jumping back and forth between the different stations, whether you're commanding, driving, shooting the gun or defending the tank with a machine gun. At first, "jumping between" the positions is more metaphorical, as you are actually switching between controlling the different soldiers. When your tank takes damage, however, members of your tank team can get dead, leaving you to physically jump between the different stations in order to get things done, yourself. When physically jumping between stations, the switch is animated and takes precious time that you most likely don't have, given that one of your men somehow managed to get killed. This usually happens shortly before the end of your tank. Also, it's possible for a tank to get badly torn up, but not completely destroyed. Rather than sitting in a dead tank watching to see if your team wins, you can "Scuttle" the tank, whereby your team blows it up from the inside. (It wasn't clear whether they left the tank or went down with the ship...) |
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Difficulty:
There are several different classes of soldier and you'll want to put in some time to learn what strategies are best for the different classes. You'll want to learn how each of the weapons handle and how quickly they reload, as being familiar with your weapons can be the difference between virtual life or death.
There are tutorials all along the Campaign Mode, teaching you a few new things, then sending you into battle to use your newly learned skills, such as using your weapons, taking cover, commanding your men or even operating a tank. Pay close attention when you get to the tank tutorial; you'll be learning how to serve in four different posts inside of the tank as well as how to switch between them.
If you have trouble making it through the Campaign missions, play things a bit safer; if you last long enough, you will get reinforcements. When you die, you take control of another team member already on the battlefield. If you manage to die when there are no other team members on the battlefield, the game is over. Therefore, finding a safe place and camping out until the cavalry arrives can be a very good strategy when your forces get low. For that matter, by carefully positioning yourself and using the squad communication to direct your forces, you can avoid a lot of the confrontations and simply push forward slowly while directing your men. When taking a building, look for opportunities to reduce enemy forces before entering the building and then try advancing even with the building or circling around to the back, rather than rushing in. You may get the drop on unsuspecting enemies or you may even find your men take the objective before you enter the building, based on the fact that you made it "close enough."
Multiplayer is available, and as of last check, there were a good number of servers, but often finding one with other players can be difficult. It seems that bots count as players, so just because you see some other players in a game doesn't necessarily mean that there are other people to shoot at. |
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Game Mechanics:
MW3 is most likely the biggest war game of 2011. However, on the PC, it was suffering from massive cheating (at least back when it launched and at the time of my review). In order to avoid the same plight, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad includes a "big brother" sort of program that runs in the background and makes sure you are not cheating. When I first installed and ran the game, this program would load whenever I loaded Windows. I don't know if that was supposed to happen, but that seems more than just a little bit overkill. This may have been part of what was keeping Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure from running, although there were a few things that had to be worked out, including a botched install, so I can't be certain. System Mechanic certainly didn't like it running itself, either. It's a little heavy-handed and invasive, which might be why players who set up servers to host games can opt not to use it on their server, if they choose, or can select from different levels of schoolmastering.
Consoles are consoles. When you make a game for a console, you know the exact hardware configuration and what it can do. Windows PCs, on the other hand, come in a mind-bending number of different configurations.
Mine, for example, has dual-screens. As a programmer, I find having two screens indispensable. My work machine has two monitors, as does my gaming machine. When a game supports dual monitors well, I can play the game in a panoramic fashion or, perhaps, with one screen dedicated to a tactical map. However, some games, such as Red Orchestra 2 seem to be designed without so much as considering the possibility of someone having two monitors. When I attempted to play Red Orchestra 2 on my main monitor only, it loaded fine and maximized into the one screen, but the game would allow the cursor to move off of the main screen and onto the other screen. It would still recognize the movement and turn my soldier around, but when I attempted to shoot while my cursor was over the second screen, I'd end up clicking some icon on my desktop. Not cool. Other games that don't try to support a second monitor at all at least confine the cursor to the one screen during gameplay, keeping this from happening.
To get around this problem, I had to either use AMD Eyefinity multi-display to make the computer treat both of my monitors as one wide screen or actually disable my second monitor while I played. The first option isn't available to everyone, as it's a feature of certain AMD hardware and disabling a monitor isn't merely a nuisance... it feels like a wasted investment. Why should I have to disable the monitor to be able to play the game? Not cool.
The most noticeable (and annoying) glitch I encountered was during a mission where there were enemy tanks in an urban setting. I had an anti-tank grenade and I threw it and a satchel charge at a tank. I killed it, but died in the explosion. When I respawned, I was supposedly in a tank (according to the tank diagram in the bottom left hand corner), but not only did it not render the tank, it didn't render me or respond to anything I did with the exception of looking at the map and sending commands. Being immobile, I couldn't even move in the hopes that my proximity would let my men advance and, being incorporeal, as well, there wasn't even the possibility of a stray bullet taking me out so I could respawn. Eventually, I gave up and restarted from the last checkpoint, but my annoyance level was way up there.
There are several servers out there, but you'll need to find out when others are playing or start up your own group of players and schedule times, however, because this doesn't seem to have the popular following of, say, MW3.
Personally, while I prefer a lot of realistic physics and simulation style gameplay in my racing games, I'm evidently not as overwhelmed with it in my shooters. I prefer MW3 to Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. But then, I was never much of a history buff, either. If you're looking for a realistic WWII game with the look and feel of WWII (based on the remaining footage available) and your gaming rig is up to date, then Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad may be for you.
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-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP/Vista/7, Dual Core 2.3 GHz or better processor, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB SM 3.0 DX9 Compliant NVIDIA(r) GeForce 7800 GTX or better ATI(r) Radeon(r) HD 2900 GT or better graphic card, DirectX 9.0c, 8 GB free hard drive space, Windows Supported Sound Card, Broadband Internet Connection required |
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Test System:
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 220 Processor 2.80 GHz, 4 GB dual-channel DDR3, ASUS Mainboard, CoolerMaster 850watt power supply, Dual boot: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit / Windows XP Home Edition (played in Windows 7), Graphics: ATI Radeon 3000 (on motherboard) / XFX ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB graphics card, Dual Monitors (Gateway HD2201 21" HDMI / Sony SDM-HS73), 1.5 TB Western Digital Caviar Green SATA Hard Drive, 750 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive, Logitech Gaming Mouse G700, Logitech Gaming Keyboard G105 for Modern Warfare 3, Logitech Z313 2.1-CH PC multimedia speaker system, A30 Gaming Headset, Cable Modem |
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