The long awaited tactical WWII shooter is here, with some major blemishes, but still offers solid gameplay and fun.
The game is buggy. From a technical standpoint, it is a launch nightmare. It has crashed several times on me, and kept Steam (arghh... Steam) crashing alongside. However, this happened rarely during actual gameplay. Sometimes the servers do not refresh and you have to exit the game. Constant rohgame.exe crash errors. But keep in mind that this is a small dev team and they are constantly working to fix all issues. In 2 days there have been 3 updates since launch. I expect more to come..
- The performance on my high end setup runs great on high, a bit stuttery on ultra even though I can run most games on highest with no problems. This one is a bit of a wild card in terms of performance. Some older setups are running better as a matter of fact. Sometimes it ran better on high, than low settings. Go figure. The graphics, while a lot of people say...suck, and are from the 2005 era... are not warranted. It's not the best looking game by any means, but I find no faults with it as a whole. Reminds me of Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway mixed with COD2. Single player does look better than MP for sure.
- Singleplayer campaign, not much to say about it. It's plain. Uninspiring. Typical. Dead A.I. It had potential. On several occasions I could not get past a point in game because of...bugs. So I had to restart. Some of the features have been left out for later downloads like Co-op and bot skirmishes. Otherwise, it serves only as practice for the next thing...
- Multiplayer. This is why you most likely got this game. And it's different from your typical FPS best-sellers. For those who never played Red Orchestra or who are used to Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield Bad Company, look further else. For those ARMA II, or Ostfront vets or even Call of Duty: United Offense players...this game may be the one you wanted to play for a while. The core gameplay is solid. One shot kills are common. You will get shot quickly if you run around without any tactics not keeping your eyes open for snipers, even from multiple stories and windows. Some of the weapons like Elite Riflemen and PPSH have some questionable recoil when you fire in semi-automatic burst, and some imbalances are being worked now as we speak. Bolt action is a better choice at this point. Keep in mind that classes are limited, so not many will carry snipers and Gewehr's around the map. But there are assault, elite riflemen, sniper, commander, and other classes. Higher classes can call in a limited artilery and recon planes. There aren't that many weapons in the game, and you level up slow. Only one weapon is silenced, and it's a handgun. I found the vehicle (tanks) gameplay sections rather boring to be honest. And not that many players, it seems, are interested in tank warfare at the moment.
- The maps, are large with multiple levels of interaction, like windows, awnings, stairs, and floors. The main problem with the maps is that they feel like custom made maps and not something that shipped with a retail game. Not all though. Most of them also feel empty, with too much empty space. Or what I call dead space, with action focusing on other parts of the map. The textures could have used some more work. I think some, not all maps should have more options as to where the action is headed, insdead of having this narrow bottleneck where everyone is focusing on. Bigger is not always better.
- Gameplay, and Gunplay. A little tweaking is necessary to get away from the too sensitive controls. Remember to hold left shift when aiming down the sights, that is an extra aim focus mechanism. I like that you can adjust both free look, and iron sights speed. Big plus. Also a plus is the cover. While a bit imperfect, you no longer have to stand up to see someone from cover. Not only that, but if you don't use cover, and just aim from a spot, you will automatically pop up when aiming down the sights. Great option on that one. Sometimes you do get stuck while trying to use cover, because the bandaide, heal, and cover are tied to the same button. And when you're not fataly shot you have to bandaide yourself from dying. Yeah, there are no regeneration health bars or health packs. The world of Red Orchestra 2 is brutal and unforgiving.
Overall this is not a highly polished, nor the best looking game. But it does give PC players an option of a 32 or 64 player realistic-tactical shooter that, quite honestly has been lacking in availability on PC. It may not be for everyone. But if you enjoyed games like Operation Flashpoint, and Call of Duty: United Offensive, without all those crazy killstreaks and perks, and want a more brutal serious FPS, like ARMA II... this is a good game with lots of petential once everything is patched up.
A solid 7.5 out of 10