It's worth noting that to achive "Realism" in a videogame (within the constraints of what a game can do, it's never going to be 100% real), you sometimes have to do things in a less realistic way to get realistic results.
Yeah, that sounds like a massive contradiction, but if you dig a little deeper, it actually makes some sense..
The main thing most RO vets seem to have a problem with in Ro2, is the lack of tactical play, Ost was something special, because it managed to create an environment where real military tactics actually worked, and gamey FPS-game tactics would usually fail. And it did so without becoming too bogged down in simulation, it was still a fast round-based MP game where you could jump in and be in combat allmost emediately.
A lot of us are seeing this take a hit in Ro2, where real-life tactics can often be overwhelmed by the sheer speed of common FPS-game tactics, the gameplay feels more mainstream to us, more like all the other dime-a-dozen WWII shooters we where trying to escape when we found RO.
And oddly enough, some of Ost's lack of realism seems to have been instrumental in creating that gameplay-realism, like the running speeds, yeah they where not true to life in Ost, they where a bit too slow, and the aim sway, yeah it was a bit overdone, but in a game environment where none of us fears death (because it's not death, it's just a short wait in a respawn que), they seem to have been vital in creating realistic tactical play, the limitations made us play with more caution.
Meanwhile, it can be argued that Ro2 more clousely mimmicks real human abillity in some respects, a human probably could and should be able to sprint faster and longer than he could in Ost for instance, but then, it translates into unrealistic tactics beeing used and succeeding, since we have no fear of death, we go all out with thease abillities with gusto and bravado, and are pulling off nothing short of heroic deeds that most real soldiers would never have risked knowing it was his neck on the line..
The bottom line for me is that, RO:Ca and RO:Ost where games that i loved for their tactical play, their immersion and historical accuracy, they where games that made me feel like a soldier in a war, and not as Tom Hanks and a war movie.
Ro:Hos reminds me more of BiA, MoH, the early CoD's, that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, it retains a lot of the origional RO spirit, it is more tactical than thouse games, and it is so nearly there, you could allmost taste it, but it's just out of reach..
I never liked games like BiA, MoH and the early CoD's, just never did, didn't find them fun, something about them has never clicked with me, but RO did, and in a big way!
Don't really know what to make of HoS.. and it frustrates me, because it's so clouse but just out of reach.. nearly there but then not quite..
