PC Gamer Review (very fair)

[iTzDusty]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/13/red-orchestra-2-heroes-of-stalingrad-review/

I think this is the most honest review I've read, you should all check it out.

 

[Echo Black]

PCG in general puts out good reviews, and this one was not bad, but the way he dramatizes things like "the thrill of sprinting across an open field, enemy machinegun fire whizzing all around you" essentially confirms he didn't play ROOST (or PR or Insurgency or any other shooter that leans more toward the realistic), as all these "thrills" are old hat to people who did. Or perhaps he did play them - I guess reviewers need to write assuming their readership has no prior knowledge/experience of any kind, but it's still a bit odd how they spend so many paragraphs trying to relay a dramatic war scenario instead of more thoroughly going over the mechanics of the game.

He wasted time with metaphors, parables and mentioning run of the mill FPS thrills yet forgot to mention features that are actually particular to RO2 and rarely seen in shooters, such as the unique weapon handling (things like free-aim or range adjustment of ironsights), the first-person cover system + blind-fire mechanic (which for all its poor implementation is very rare to see in a FPS), the bleeding/bandage system, soldier chatter, and so on.

---

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Overall I thought it was a fair and decent review, but I feel the bots in single player weren't as bad as he said. He must have been playing on the easiest setting.

 

[Drecks]

Overall I thought it was a fair and decent review, but I feel the bots in single player weren't as bad as he said. He must have been playing on the easiest setting.

I didn't even try SP.... Mr. Moe...

 

[MtnMan01]

Good review. Theres some good points. They should just dump the single campaigns IMO. Fix up the training.
I just got a new laptop an it runs the game pretty good.(25-40+fps)
Just the run of the mill bugs hit me. What sticks out for me is

"The complete lock up every 5-10 mins. For about 3-5 secs., and the hit detection."

Things will get better a lot better. TWI are aware of all the problems
for sure. But some of these bugs are going to be a real pain, to track down
with the endless makeup of the different pc configerations.
(for optimization)

Things should/could be streamlined IMO. But than again I'm not a pc game developer.

Am I disappointed? Not really Theres great potential with this HoS.
I can't find a game that wasn't buggy on release(some more some less)
I'll wait, real things take time. I can't see myself jumping ship
unless the water is up to my neck n still rising.

Just my .02 cents worth.

 

[Zetsumei]

Overall I thought it was a fair and decent review, but I feel the bots in single player weren't as bad as he said. He must have been playing on the easiest setting.

Thing is the bots are pretty ok multi player bots. But they are not similar to single player bots.

So it makes the campaign in general feel like you are playing a regular multi player map rather than some sort of campaign. Personally I hoped that while the mp maps were being used that TWI set up some sort of sp campaign, similar to perhaps rainbox six or whatever.

Rather than 10 bots play vs 10 bots, while occasionally respawning. It would be much more fun in my opinion if the enemy was set up from the beginning dug in somewhere, and you try to infiltrate and flank.

 

[Machete234]

when you’re stood at a window and bullets start to chip against the frame, all the colour drains from the screen, the world blurs, and your aim becomes worse than a drunk teenager in a nightclub bathroom. You need to get out of there to catch your breath, like the person who enters the bathroom after the teenager. It’s a smart way to stop camping.

But I think he is right that the killing itself in the game has much more suspense than any other game.
I think thats what kept me playing: ther perfect killshot and how it feels more rewarding than in other games.

 

[Grobut]

But I think he is right that the killing itself in the game has much more suspense than any other game.

I don't, it's piss easy to kill someone in Ro2, and just as easy to die, it just ends up feeling like a grind to me.

In the mod and Ost, every kill felt like a victory to me, like i had to work for it and earn it, and staying alive for a long time felt like a real accomplishemnt, not so in HoS, in HoS most kills feel cheap, and staying alive feels like a luck of the draw, more like a failure on the enemy's part and not like you had much to do with it.

 

[Krobar]

I don't, it's piss easy to kill someone in Ro2, and just as easy to die, it just ends up feeling like a grind to me.

In the mod and Ost, every kill felt like a victory to me, like i had to work for it and earn it, and staying alive for a long time felt like a real accomplishemnt, not so in HoS, in HoS most kills feel cheap, and staying alive feels like a luck of the draw, more like a failure on the enemy's part and not like you had much to do with it.

Also the fear of death isn't so often, I remember playing RO1 on Leningrad and when I heard Germans coming up the stairs of the Anti-Tank Building I would go hide in a bathtub hoping that they wouldn't be thorough with their clear out. While in RO2 if I hear someone I pick up one of the hundreds of MKbs on the ground and rush down the stairs (Grain Elevator) holding down LMB.

 

[Imperial Dane]

A good review, honest and trying to be illuminating towards new players mostly i imagine since those will be the ones needing persuading and explanation. Although i wonder after some time we might see a follow-up review to see how far RO2 has come after the time he pointed out it definately needs for bug-fixing and what not.

 

[Westernesse]

But I think he is right that the killing itself in the game has much more suspense than any other game.
I think thats what kept me playing: ther perfect killshot and how it feels more rewarding than in other games.

There's certainly some of this along with surviving being under fire and getting to safety, bleeding out and killing the guy who shot you or on realism just not knowing if you killed the guy behind the window or if he got to safety until 5-20 seconds later (delay + sometimes a long bleed out).

 

[[TORO]Patosentado]

I don't, it's piss easy to kill someone in Ro2, and just as easy to die, it just ends up feeling like a grind to me.

In the mod and Ost, every kill felt like a victory to me, like i had to work for it and earn it, and staying alive for a long time felt like a real accomplishemnt, not so in HoS, in HoS most kills feel cheap, and staying alive feels like a luck of the draw, more like a failure on the enemy's part and not like you had much to do with it.

In other FPS it is really hard to kill, in RO/RO2 it si not easy, is realistic, IRL when you hit somebody with a full sized rifle cartridge he is dead when he hits the floor most of the times...

 

[luciferintears]

Yeah seems fair. Few things i agree and others i dont.

I'd give it roughly the same score, maybe a 70-75.

I think the reviewer said it well, its a good game but it doest really excel at much. There are games out there that have done almost everything RO2 has, only better.

Its competent (i dont even want to say that, due to the crippling bugs i still experience), yet bland.

In the mod and Ost, every kill felt like a victory to me, like i had to work for it and earn it, and staying alive for a long time felt like a real accomplishemnt, not so in HoS, in HoS most kills feel cheap, and staying alive feels like a luck of the draw, more like a failure on the enemy's part and not like you had much to do with it.

i agree.

i went through an RO/DH match with maybe 3 kills but 1 death; and i still felt satisfied at the end. In RO2 the pace is too quick. "i died, oh well let me just sprint back 5seconds and catch my killer off guard."

In Ost Front, if you died you usually had to jog/crawl back to the battlefield for 5-10min; that is why you tried very hard not to die...

 

[monster]

Guys- companies like PCGamer are *PAID* to put out good reviews.

 

[Grobut]

In other FPS it is really hard to kill, in RO/RO2 it si not easy, is realistic, IRL when you hit somebody with a full sized rifle cartridge he is dead when he hits the floor most of the times...

I'm not comparing Ro2:HoS to "other games", i am comparing it to Ro:Ost, Ro:CA and RO.

The weapons, if anything, did even more damage in previous versions of RO, since there was no bandaging and bleedout in thouse games to save you, and the whole torso was one big insta death hitbox for rifle rounds, whereas in HoS, there's allways a chance you'll just go into bleedout instead and can bandage it away.

This has nothing to do with weapon damage, which seems to be unchanged apart from the inclusion of the bandage/bleedout system, it has to do with the shooting, weapons handling and movement mechanics of the games.

 

[JCoquillon]

I think the review was more than fair and sums up my feelings.

A great game that has potential, but right now is still badly flawed by the bugs present and the missing features/content. In fact the review is perhaps a little too forgiving imho.

This is a long post and one I haven't made for good reason until now. I'd been sitting back thinking the best, fearing the worst and hoping for the best. But at present I am disappointed and jaded.

The server browser bug is perhaps my biggest issue. I can restart the game 4-5 times some days to get the browser working. Then connect to a server, find it's full and then have to restart it all over again to begin the process all over. If I finally do get it in it's often to experience a crash 10-20 mins later.

This is not a router issue or problem with my connection, this is an RO2 issue. No other games or software cause me these issues.

The achievements/perks systems being broken at launch and then reset has meant I have no interest in it now. I wasted 50-100 hours in the first few weeks that don't count towards my final stats/achievements. I now just don't have the time and energy to put back into levelling up, plus with the somewhat jaded feelings I have towards the game and it's bugs, I also lack the motivation.

Combine that with the current player counts and even finding a good server that's full enough but has space is a real challenge some days.

I know player counts have dropped and MW3 and BF3 and Skyrim and the like are big contributors to this. But right now the player numbers are kinda shockingly low this close after release. I can only hope that the long promised and delayed co-op modes and campaign modes one day make it to us and can help this...

I have been a long term supporter of TWI, and active in the RO community since the early days of the beta. But my faith in them has been heavily knocked about recently.

Recent posts have suggested that the players are complaining over nothing or making mountains out of molehills. Or that because it's not the game that individuals wanted personally they are moaning for the sake of it. This imho is not the case.

The game is just still unfinished, flawed by some fairly game-breaking and irritating bugs, and it didn't deliver several key features we were promised, and simply isn't yet the game we had been hyped up to expect.

With time hopefully this will change and updates will see the remaining features and new content added and will help rebuild the player base. I just hope it's not too late to pull it back.

Also now the SDK is finally becoming functional (was a long enough wait to even get it available!) some progress can begin on the mods. Over at In Country: Vietnam it was mildly irritating to be asked how you are progressing when the community was under the misapprehension that we had early access to the SDK before the game's release. Only Rising Storm had this access and ICV is only now finally able to start dipping our toes into the RO2 SDK and start making some real progress.

 

[gasgas]

78 is too much considering all the critics he does.

 

[Kirq]

Good review. I agree with it in most parts. But I also believe that RO2 will be a different (much better) game within a year, with major bugs fixed and missing content patched in. I've bought Collectors Edition of RO2 (first CE in my life), I've payed for it three times more then I pay for regular new titles. And I would consider it my worst game purchase ever if it wasn't TWI game, because I know they will finally fix it and they will ad tons of free DLC on top of that.

Basically I think that adding SP campaign was probably worst developement decision during RO2 production. It burned lots of resources and added almost nothing to the game. Worse, in some reviews it's a stone draging MP down.

PS. I've tried to play it last night, but couldn't find populated server without bots

 

[dazman76]

Not a bad review I guess. They do make some good and fair points, and I can't help but agree with the Single Player comments. It is a shame that RO2 was released with SP - as much as I like the idea and always welcome SP components in MP games, it is pretty clunky and broken in places. The tank training is a good example - I've played it three times now, and each time it fell over in a slightly different way heh

I really think RO2 needs a demo - however, before that it really needs some priority fixes so people aren't turned away. These are in progress now - so I really hope that (a) TWI can nail some of the bigger issues quickly and (b) as soon as they've done that, they consider unleashing a limited demo on the unwashed masses Really, no review can tell you what you need to know about a game like RO2 - you have to play it to know if you'll enjoy it or not. I read the negative thoughts, and I read comments from RO:CA/RO1 vets (of which I'm one myself) who aren't happy with RO2 - but still, I find plenty to enjoy here, and I mostly have good games that keep me coming back for more.

78 is too much considering all the critics he does.

Apologies for being massively off-topic but... how DID you manage that 150m nade kill?

 

[Spindle]

Apologies for being massively off-topic but... how DID you manage that 150m nade kill?

He got the kill after he respawned