Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

The Game Room
1

After seeing a hands-on written today, I’m pretty excited about this game.

The original Red Orchestra is pretty unique - a pretty hardcore, realistic WW2 shooter with some vehicles. It went too far in the pursuit of realism sometimes (like the ridiculously overblown recoil when firing guns from the hip, or making you move too slowly while aiming down the iron sights) but got a ton right: ballistics with drop and lead, well modelled vehicles, a good magazine system, etc.

It looks like the sequel will be the same, only bigger and better. It’s a proper PC game, so that means good controls, 64 player battles, huge maps, lots of detail, mods, etc… It looks like they took great effort to create authentic maps, with trips to the actual Stalingrad to do research.

They added a new cover system which sounds cool. May end up being a little camp friendly, as slower, realistic games tend to be - hopefully they offset this with game modes that require mobility. Persistant stat tracking is definitely a cool feature.

So with proper PC features, huge maps, realistic gameplay, it promises to be pretty much the anti-Call of Derp.

It says it’s due Q1 2011, but you’d think they’d have a specific release date set by now. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a full priced release or not - RO had a budget price, but that’s because it was basically an officially licensed mod of UT2K. Not sure if, with brand recognition and seemingly more work put into it, they’ll price it as a full game. It’ll probably be worth it anyway.

You can see the trailer and screen shots on the steam page.

2

I just bought Red Orchestra for $10 at one of those bargain game bins at a local retailer. I haven’t played an online FPS since Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Counterstrike back in 2001.

I quite like it. I also like it’s on-line community. Just judging from my limited play time on Steam it seems be a far more mature and respectful environment than many other online gaming communities.

RO2 looks good. Unfortunately I’m not a huge gamer…preferring to wait a few years till game prices drops and I can be sure that whatever cheap notebook I have at the time can run the program.

3

It may be good, but I am guessing that at some point, the public’s a[ppetite for yet another WW2 shooter will run out hopefully alongside the death of several modern-day shooter franchises.

4

I’m not sure what you’re talking about - every game from like 2002 to 2006 was a WW2 game, but then the market for it dried up very quickly and we haven’t had many WW2 games in a few years. Everything has moved on from copycat ww2 to copycat modern warfare.

RO2 is a very different game from the actiony shoot em up ww2 games that flooded the market though - it’s extremely detailed and punishingly realistic (actually too much so - some mechanics are too punishing in the name of realism and I hope they improve on that)

I can’t find word on the release date other than 2011 though.

5

That “suppression” mechanic worries me-apparently if someone blasts automatic fire over your heads you are constrained by the game from popping your head up or doing much of anything else actually. But in all it looks intriguing.

6

Beef, is it like the first Red Orchestra in that it’s multi-player only, or is there a decent single player campaign? Can’t tell from the review, but I’m guessing it’s multi-only. Looks like a lot of fun.

7

I hope they give us more tools to actually deal with the realistic [read: punishing and frustrating] dangers the first game brought up.

8

Nope, they have bots and a single-player campaign now. Since I prefer to play coop with a buddy of mine (he must have watched Enemy at the Gates dozens of times by now, so I know he’ll eat this up), this is very good news, as the campaign can be played coop too!

9

Sweet, I’ll have to see if my computer can run it. As a OFP and Arma fan, this sounds like just the thing I’d be interested in.

10

We’ve got a release date and price: August 30th, $40.