Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad

Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad is the successor to Red Orchestra: Ostfront. It keeps to the theme of the titanic and most important battle front of WW2. More men fought, died and experienced the brutality of total war on the Eastern Front than in any other theater of the conflict. While Ostfront spanned the whole German-Soviet war, this game focuses just on the immense struggle for Stalingrad.

The Good: The depictions of the battlefields are very well done. In fact if you look at wartime photos of the battlegrounds, you would see the stunning effort Tripwire developers went to, to ensure accuracy. When you are fighting at Fallen Fighter's Square or Pavlov's House, it looks like you are really there. The weapons are pretty well modeled and deadly. The game doesn't give your character health points. Although you can bandage a minor wound, the majority of hits by a rifle caliber bullet will kill you. The lethality of the battlefield may be a turn off for some but for those more interested in authenticity, this will appeal. There are several different modes of play from the basically free for all to the slower paced count down mode where you get one life per objective. Considering the instant death awaiting around every corner, this particular game mode makes one very cautious.

Each map has a certain load out of soldiers/weapons. This is to keep the teams balanced and offers some historical authenticity to the teams. Not everyone will be getting an automatic weapon or smoke grenades. Commanders can call in artillery. Those toting a light machine gun can be resupplied with ammo by their teammates. The majority of troops will however, be your basic rifleman with a bolt action rifle.

Some more good news is this game is produced by Tripwire. This company has a history of supporting their product, and allowing modders to make new maps and the like. They have already released several patches to correct various problems and I have complete faith that they will continue to do so and have already been working on additional free content such as new vehicles.

The Bad: The game like many these days, was released too early. There are many bugs and performance issues that detract. Although I run the game pretty stable and smooth, many people with high end systems are getting sub-standard performance. Tripwire has been working hard to squash the bugs though one of the new features of the game was saving stats and being able to upgrade your basic weapon. This system is currently horribly bugged. It is not saving stats properly, and is awarding Steam achievements and scores that are quite impossible. I don't personally care much about the stats but for some, this is a big turn off. It IS being worked on though at the time of this review. I do have faith that Tripwire will stand by its product and keep working to make the game run like it should have.

Another bad feature for those that enjoy historical authenticity is the addition of some weapons into the mix that were basically prototypes. And not only were these weapons rare and their use in Stalingrad questionable, they are available in numbers far too many. Although the numbers have been reduced, many feel that they are still too prevalent.

Recon planes....the commander can call in a recon plane. Although this plane can be shot down, it provides far too much information and really, shouldn't exist for the level of combat represented.

The Summary: Buy this game if you like WW2. Buy this game if you like FPS games. But have patience for the eventual bug fixing, additional maps provided by the community, and new vehicles and weapons that will be coming. I fully suspect that in time, this game will span all of the Eastern Front once more with the help of the dedicated modding community.

I like WWII shooters and I like games that aim to be more realistic. I played the original Red Orchestra, didn't buy that one, but decided to give this one a try. The trailers made the game look pretty fun, and it is, but it requires more patience and craftiness than the typical run-of-the-mill shooter.
The game looks good first of all. I play with the graphics on the highest settings and it looks like a war movie. I also tried toning them down to get the frame rates higher in multiplayer. The game still looks decent on the medium graphic settings.
I'm most interested in the controls because that is the part of the game that you must deal with to get your character to do what you want. In a game that requires quick reflexes, the control scheme is very important. I custom mapped some of the keys to make it easier for me - the game lets you do this in the "controls" section of settings. There is one key used for three important functions (get behind cover, pick up items, and bandage yourself), which I'm not too thrilled about, but I'll probably get used to it after a while. Also the mechanics of getting behind cover can be awkward in the game. The game prompts you whenever you may take cover, you can't use just anything, but most walls let you. Also your character has trouble jumping over certain things they should be able to jump over and trouble climbing over things that shouldn't pose a problem.
You have to use the sights of the gun to aim properly at distance - there is no painted on crosshair in the middle of the screen. When you bring up your iron sights, your character moves much slower, so it's best to lean around corners before charging out. If you run around like its Call of Duty you will be shot and you will die, sometimes slowly while you frantically hit the medic bandage/cover/take items button.
The single player AI is not too bright. Your comrades have mastered the art of taking cover on the wrong side of a wall, running around in the open, and getting shot. In general, they do not behave like a human and I'll leave it at that.
The multiplayer is where the main focus of the game is. I haven't played all the maps yet as I just got the game yesterday, but the ones I played were fun. Lots of places to hide out and pick off enemies. The mixture of tanks and men is really cool. Also I'll just mention that the bullet ballistics are there and are very welcome for the realism. For all the realism though, bullet wounds should have been in the game. There is a little blood when you shoot someone, but you should be able to put a literal hole through their body - before and after they die.
Overall, its a fun shooter. Takes some patience, but it's satisfying when you break through the enemy lines and drop a few before going out in a blaze of communist or fascist glory. By the way, I have this on Steam so that takes care of the updates for me.

I hope I am not the only one in that I miss the feel of an authentic WW 2 shooter, or the multiplayer feeling of the first time I played the original Call of Duty. Where you have to work as a team to overcome impossible odds and still win the battle. Where you are in a building and your buddy just took a bullet through the head and falls to a pile at your feet. You hear the enemy downstairs and you are alone or might have one other battle buddy with you and your heart starts to race because you know what is about to come. Or pushing back the bad guys and when you look left to right you see your team giving each other cover fire and putting the baddies to sleep. Red Orchestra 2 brings all that back to life.

Red Orchestra 2 for me is a breath of fresh air. The way your character moves and you are running to cover. The way it feels when you pull up your iron sites on the enemy, hold your breath, fire, and watch him fall head first into the dirt for a forever sleep. This game just feels so good with the way you move and fire. The new cover system adds more immersion and works well.

Graphics are to my eyes look great, the way the sun creeps through the cracks of a half demolished building, the way shadows over cast the battlefield, the spray of red mist after a successful shot, how the characters move and take cover, everything about it brings it to life and feels like you really are about to die and this world of war. The maps are a lot of fun and I love how they are laid out, very entertaining.

CONS: Now I came from the beta, yeah there are a few bugs and hiccups, but it's still very playable and is minor issues that will be ironed out with soon too come patches. Don't let all the negativity about it steer you away from this amazing title, we are talking about a lower end budget gaming company that put this together and they did a amazing job with it and you will be having a blast and will easily look past them.

All in all, this game is amazing, I love the feel of this great WWII shooter and will for sure be playing this for a long, long time. Do yourself a favor, give yourself some fresh air and pick this title up, you wont regret it.