I don't think I am breeching any rules in this post, but I am a great fan of both Red Orchestra and Project Reality. The intent of this post is to honor both mods, to encourage RO players to try PR (especially if you have Battlefield 2 lying dormant somewhere), but also perhaps to inspire the RO devs (and other modders) to strive to go one step closer to the 'perfect' WWII game. (Incidentally I have mentined RO positively on PR forums to those interested in WW2)
Just a quick background for those that haven't tried it.. PR is little like vanilla BF2. Though it is set in modern day battelfields of Iraq & Afganistan, with some fictional battlefields in Korea and China. But British troops are present, as well as US, Chinese, Iraqi, and various insurgents. But after playing many months of PR I could never go back to vanilla BF2. There is far more cooperation, far more fun, far more variety, far more realism, and a far better community in PR than BF2.
In Red Orchestra and Project Reality there is a striving for realism. Weapon handling, iron sights, shell ballistics and lethality are very good (IMO) in both. No crosshairs firing from the hip in either of course. I play both and intend to support both in the future. I know they are limited by the capabilities of the respective engines, but I am hoping in the future Ro2 (?) might borrow some of the innovative ideas from PR. =)
Here's a few things I love most about each game:
Red Orchestra (RO)
+ superb death animations, unsurpassed ragdolls, dismemberment & bloody skins
+ excellent first person tank animations with buttoning up hatches etc.
+ slightly better MG tracer effect
+ constant flow of new maps to play on
+ weapon resting feature.
+ Better indoor maps
+ It's the Russian front!
- Whiplash recoil on PPSh
Project Reality (aka PR)
+ Better motion captured animation of soldiers walking & running
+ Better detail on soldiers (incl.bump mapping)
+ More natural tank turning animation, plus crew enter and bail out of tank hatches
+ Some environmental physics - at least tanks don't get stuck on road signs!
+ molotov cocktail type grenades (on some maps)!
+ some deformable buildings - RPGs can take out walls in some maps!
+ Slightly better and more effective supression effects
+ Larger outdoor maps - making far more variety of tactics possible
- slow loading resource hog (really needs 2GB)
RO makes a solid effort at being a team game, especially within the confines of the UT engine. But I find Project Reality an even more satisying team game for these reasons:
+ faster (and therfore easier) to use radio commands
+ A limited 'Radar'. It's not so much a radar as a guide to knowing where friendly soldiers are, which simulates (IMO) the wide peripheral vision of real life that PC monitors severely lack. In RO the lack of awareness of friendlies outside your narrow vision contributes to the feeling of a lonely match to me. It makes holding a position or advancing together very difficult. In PR the radar contributes to realism and teamwork. But it's not ueber. There's no UAV in PR. You are able to 'spot' enemies for others on your team to know enemy whereabouts on 'radar' for a few moments. The spotter gets a point for this too, encouraging teamwork.
+ Better voice comms - there are channels for individual squads. Voice is used more often and effectively.
+ Better spawning system - cleverly implemented mobile and deployable spawn points - so less dull running to 'the front' required than RO - more tactics possible - squadmates can spawn together.
+ Fair distribution of specialized weapons (Players with fastest loading PCs cannot hog sniper rifles et al like they do in RO!)
For all these reasons I find PR has better teamwork in my experience (Australian servers) than RO. PR often features very good coordination between vehicles, specialized weapons and foot soliders. In fact you have to have effective teamwork to win. I love RO, but it does feel to me a bit like a deathmatch after PR.
I hope there is a RO2 with UT3 engine with some of PRs extra features. And a future PR with RO features! =)
Soldier on!
Just a quick background for those that haven't tried it.. PR is little like vanilla BF2. Though it is set in modern day battelfields of Iraq & Afganistan, with some fictional battlefields in Korea and China. But British troops are present, as well as US, Chinese, Iraqi, and various insurgents. But after playing many months of PR I could never go back to vanilla BF2. There is far more cooperation, far more fun, far more variety, far more realism, and a far better community in PR than BF2.
In Red Orchestra and Project Reality there is a striving for realism. Weapon handling, iron sights, shell ballistics and lethality are very good (IMO) in both. No crosshairs firing from the hip in either of course. I play both and intend to support both in the future. I know they are limited by the capabilities of the respective engines, but I am hoping in the future Ro2 (?) might borrow some of the innovative ideas from PR. =)
Here's a few things I love most about each game:
Red Orchestra (RO)
+ superb death animations, unsurpassed ragdolls, dismemberment & bloody skins
+ excellent first person tank animations with buttoning up hatches etc.
+ slightly better MG tracer effect
+ constant flow of new maps to play on
+ weapon resting feature.
+ Better indoor maps
+ It's the Russian front!
- Whiplash recoil on PPSh
Project Reality (aka PR)
+ Better motion captured animation of soldiers walking & running
+ Better detail on soldiers (incl.bump mapping)
+ More natural tank turning animation, plus crew enter and bail out of tank hatches
+ Some environmental physics - at least tanks don't get stuck on road signs!
+ molotov cocktail type grenades (on some maps)!
+ some deformable buildings - RPGs can take out walls in some maps!
+ Slightly better and more effective supression effects
+ Larger outdoor maps - making far more variety of tactics possible
- slow loading resource hog (really needs 2GB)
RO makes a solid effort at being a team game, especially within the confines of the UT engine. But I find Project Reality an even more satisying team game for these reasons:
+ faster (and therfore easier) to use radio commands
+ A limited 'Radar'. It's not so much a radar as a guide to knowing where friendly soldiers are, which simulates (IMO) the wide peripheral vision of real life that PC monitors severely lack. In RO the lack of awareness of friendlies outside your narrow vision contributes to the feeling of a lonely match to me. It makes holding a position or advancing together very difficult. In PR the radar contributes to realism and teamwork. But it's not ueber. There's no UAV in PR. You are able to 'spot' enemies for others on your team to know enemy whereabouts on 'radar' for a few moments. The spotter gets a point for this too, encouraging teamwork.
+ Better voice comms - there are channels for individual squads. Voice is used more often and effectively.
+ Better spawning system - cleverly implemented mobile and deployable spawn points - so less dull running to 'the front' required than RO - more tactics possible - squadmates can spawn together.
+ Fair distribution of specialized weapons (Players with fastest loading PCs cannot hog sniper rifles et al like they do in RO!)
For all these reasons I find PR has better teamwork in my experience (Australian servers) than RO. PR often features very good coordination between vehicles, specialized weapons and foot soliders. In fact you have to have effective teamwork to win. I love RO, but it does feel to me a bit like a deathmatch after PR.
I hope there is a RO2 with UT3 engine with some of PRs extra features. And a future PR with RO features! =)
Soldier on!
Last edited:
