Red Orchestra 2 - Before the hammer falls

For the past two weeks I have been participating in the beta for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad on the PC which launches today, September 13th..All those who pre-ordered RO2's Digital Deluxe edition, which includes a few in-game unlocks, were allowed to play. Being a veteran of the Eastern Front through Red Orchestra Ostfront 41-45, I was eager to strap on my boots, grab my Mosin Nagant, and go protect the Motherland from the Fascists. In short, I have not been disappointed.

Being a veteran of the series, I was quickly familiar with the formula. Like its predecessor, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is a realistic first person shooter set on the Eastern Front which puts players in the boots of The Wehrmacht or Red Army in objective based maps with a mixture of infantry and tank fighting. Unlike it's predecessor, Heroes of Stalingrad focuses solely on the Battle of Stalingrad. This emphasis shifts the combat from the plains and trenches of the Russian countryside to the bombed out urban wasteland that is Stalingrad.

Every element of the gameplay has been tweaked to accommodate this new setting. Characters no longer get stuck on everything in the environment and movement feels very natural. All of the weapons have seen some major tweaking as well. All weapons are no longer as bulky or heavy as before, automatic rifles do not have the excessive kick as in the previous game, and LMGs still can rain death down onto the enemy as long as they are set up properly. Iron sites are a must as there is no crosshairs on the screen and there is a "deadzone" where the gun freely flows across the screen making firing from the hip utterly impossible. One may argue that the weapons have be tweaked a bit to much and now feel a bit to light compared to the previous title, but the weapons are far more accessible than they were before and their learning curve is not as steep.

Be very very quiet. I'm hunting Fritz.

That's not to say that RO2 is an easy game. The learning curve from the previous game may be flattened a bit but it's still there and sets this game apart from other shooters on the market. There are three main game modes. A revamped territories mode where both teams attack and defend objectives, a fallen fighters mode which is a standard TDM, and countdown which is a single life variation of the territories mode where one side attacks a single objective and the other side defends. Throughout the beta I've played mostly the territories mode which has been tweaked quite a bit from Ostfront. Both the territories and the countdown game mode requires some patients as you learn how the modes operate as well as how they play on each map.

To make things even more interesting the game now features a commander role and squad leader roles. The commander role can issue out orders to everybody as well as call in reinforcements during certain times of the game and call for artillery strikes. I haven't played as a commander yet, but it's a unique feature that adds a bit of strategy to the overall game. The squad leader role allows players in a fire team to spawn on the squad leader, like in Battlefield 2. The squad leaders and commander all are equipped with smoke grenades which are extremely effective in concealing movement and are vital for success.

I advise against being on the receiving end of that...

Red Orchestra 2 also features a suppression meter for all players. As in the previous game, as shots whiz by the characters head, your screen blurs making it very difficult to shoot back. This does a very good job of instilling fear into the player and makes them take cover. New to RO2 is a suppression meter. As you get shot at, the screen does not just blur, but the suppression meter goes down. As the suppression meter empties, the screen turns black and white, sounds are distorted, and it becomes very hard to aim. This adds a layer of tactics onto the gameplay as you can now suppress your enemy. Things like machine gun fire, grenades, and artillery are all excellent ways to deplete somebody's suppression meter. This gives a whole new dimension for machine gunners and tankers.

While there are tanks in the game, I have not yet had the chance to pilot one of the steel beasts. From bullet ridden corpses I have left behind after encountering a tank, I can tell you that they are a force to be reckoned with and can have a dramatic impact on the battlefield.

FOR MOTHER RUSSIA COMRADES

For all of it's good, I have to say my experience has been plagued by a variety of bugs. As the game is in beta, bugs were to be expected but not a the volume and frequency of which they occurred. Everything from the server browser to the melee has had problems. Framerate issues on great machines, latency problems with server, weapons discharging randomly are all just examples of some of the bugs that have been plaguing players for the past two weeks. While Tripwire has ironed out a majority of the game breaking bugs, repeated crashes, framerate issues, and latency all seem to be a reoccurring theme.

Since the game launched today the initial reaction to the public will be marred by these obvious flaws. I predict a very rocky launch for Red Orchestra 2. That said, all of my time with the beta has been enjoyable, nagging bugs aside. It's a must have for fans of the series and anybody who is sick of the same old FPS formula that has stagnated the genre since 2007 and CoD 4. Expect a full review of the game in the coming weeks on at www.gufuyourself.com. Yes, a bit of shameless self promotion for our new gaming community.

What's been going on.

I know I have been very inactive as of late and I have an excuse, I have a fulltime job now so I'm still getting in the groove of that. I finally have some more free time so I'll be able to update this from time to time. So what exactly have I been doing?

Well first things first, I have started to put some serious time into the next version of the Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options program. This time I'm actually doing a bit of real designing with it, not just throwing up on some C# forms and calling it good. This will allow me to add some pretty crazy customization elements into it. So far the only people who are able to do custom cvar tweaks to Crysis 2 are those who really understand what each one does and take the time to create their own files. My goal is to make it easier for everybody to create their own with this tool.

Right now as it is designed there are two sections, a basic and an advanced. Right now I'm really only working on the basic view. Here you will find the graphics options that are in the current version of the program as well as a few others that address new features added to Crysis 2 in patches. The second view will be an advanced view with multiple tabs allowing you to tweak every little setting to your hearts content. That is a major work in progress and I may need some help with that as it's kind of big.

Features that I will be releasing in the 2.0 launch will be...

• Functionality with DX9/DX11
• Ultra setting
• A checkbox for high res textures
• The ability to save and load multiple configurations

I have no idea when I'll finish the 2.0 release, but I am still working on it. I am documenting everything in the code because once 2.0 releases, I'm going open-source with it so you all can do whatever you want with it. I would release the current program but it's an ungodly mess that I am to ashamed to release to the public.

Other things that are going on in my life is that I have teamed up with GUFUYourself to work on their blog, youtube channel, and pretty much everything else. While this will remain my personal blog about things (of which I hopefully will start using more of), I will be writing articles for them as well as posting videos on their Youtube channel. I'll be posting more details of GUFUyourself on a later date.

As for me personally, other than work, paying bills, and living life, I've been trying to work on my ~75 game backlog. I'm playing Bayonetta, Vanquish, Forza 3, Trine, Total War: Shogun 2, Toy Soliders: Cold War, in addition to my normal Battlefield 2 Bad Company, ArmA 2, and WWII Online. I think I may play to many video games.

That's all for now. Hopefully I start updating this thing more often.