red orchestra 2 heroes of stalingrad single player review

The uniforms are distinct, but not the fluorescent green cycling jackets you need on a smoky battlefield. It's the thrill of sprinting across an open field, enemy machinegun fire whizzing all around you.ĭeath in RO2 is so sudden and violent that you're constantly on edge, an experience that's exacerbated by all the little pieces of information the game is keeping from you.įirstly, at a distance there's no easy, instant way to tell if a soldier is on your side. It's the time I rounded a corner to come face to face with a Nazi holding a grenade above his head, bayoneted him in the stomach, and then dived down some stairs to escape the blast. It's listening to the footsteps echoing through the building, and freezing as you hear creaking on the stairs. It's creeping through the ruined buildings of Pavlov's House, one of the best maps, and jumping every time you see a piece of paper float through the air. Again, it's the little things that have made me play it for 25 hours in a week. Ignore how dull the idea of another World War 2 shooter sounds, and look to the experiences RO2 provides. Let's be clear: none of these things are bad, they're just not why Red Orchestra is great.

On any server I've ever joined, the one tank-only map is the moment in the war when everyone disappears to write letters home to their mothers. They require a whole different set of skills to use well, and have lovingly detailed interiors, but they are an easily ignored nuisance on the few maps that actually include them.

Sometimes, but not this time, it would be the way he clutches his stomach, yelling in Russian, or the way he fires his machinegun madly during his last few seconds of life.Įven tanks don't add much to the experience. It's in the way he fell, forced by some terrible weight. It's in the mark on your enemy's chest where the bullet hit, and the way his blood spritzed from his back, marking that bullet's exit. It's the little things that make the difference, such as the sound of your own breathing when you lifted the rifle to your face, and the way it bobbed slightly in your hands. It's exactly like a million other games, but it feels nothing like any other game. Looking down through the rubble, you see an enemy soldier break from behind a wall. Every room could conceal an enemy soldier, and you've died a hundred times already, always from that one angle you didn't check.

You've got your back against the wall in a room with one door, two windows and three walls, and you're peeking around a corner into the exposed core of a half-destroyed building. You're a soldier in either Hitler or Stalin's army, and you're shit-scared.

Red orchestra 2 heroes of stalingrad single player review