RS2 Vietnam

[Floyd]

I only played RO2 sparingly, but here's my take from my limited time on RO2:Vietnam.
Skirmish mode is CoD. Run n gun, though strategy may help you win, the most fun is from running around capping/re-capping objectives and killing people. From the chat logs it would appear that its mainly used for XP farming (for those that care about that type of stuff). I don't know if that slipped by them, but XP points and achievements can be had with just two people playing.

The other game modes, to be honest, are still RO2. I think the gameplay often seen has a lot to do with the players of today. As John once said (paraphrasing), "Call of Duty ruined a generation of fps players". On a 64 man TE/Supremacy server, if/when you get two teams with RO vets playing, the action can be quite exhilarating and intense. Some of the house to house fighting is great. I think often there are too many reinforcements as I've yet to see any side run out. So there really is no fear of death. (On the flip side, I surmise that most players today would just leave the server if they had to wait more than 10 seconds for their teammates to finish out the round). The jungle is done well, imo. There are some terrain issues that we find from time to time, but considering the complexity of some of the maps, they are well done.

In short, its still a LOT more fast paced than RO:Ost. There are those that spawn, run to action, die, spawn, run to action, die. (And this is even after learning the nuances of the game.) I guess for some people, that's what they enjoy. They don't really help the team (and I guess if the reinforcements weren't as plentiful they'd be a real detriment). Be prepared for that RO:Ost experience of dying from unknown places and learning the maps. Personally, I like the environments of the maps. Hopefully, the gameplay settles down to be a bit more tactical as time goes on.

I haven't had any performance or game issues (but then I never have with any Tripwire game). Some have issues, but that's with every title. For the $23 I spent, I'm happy with the value.

 

[Gladius]

I played the whole series and RO1, respectively in the Darkest Hour modification was my favourite. Let me explain why that was, so you can better understand the conclusions I draw on RS2 Vietnam. What I liked the most about RO1 was the combined arms aspect. Large maps where you could hunt those armored beasts, without having permanently a dozen enemy infantry at hand grenade throwing distance at you. RO1 had those meart grinder maps too, where its basically about running into the cap, get rekt and rinse and repeat. I liked the larger combined arms maps better, because of their slower pace that allowed for more tactical duels between small groups of players.

RO2 focussed on the meat grinder aspect and the tanks were expulsed into insignificance. Tank hunting was still there but it felt like a shooting range thing at the edge of the map, on a one-way road. I was very disappointed by RO2 in the beginning. On top of ruining the combined arms aspect, there was that horrendous levelling and weapon unlock thing. So I had really trouble to like RO2. But in the end I have to admit that it is a good game in its own way. It is different than it's predecessor and I don't agree with all the design choices, but overall it's not a bad game.

RS1 I didn't play much. It felt acradey. Map design was mostly about forcing the players into melee distance. The weapons felt like from a community mod, what this game actually was.

So I was really sceptical about how RS2 will turn out. From my perspective (Killing Floor 1+2 included) I can see that TWI is not necessarily building on top of proven concepts. Their successor games seem not to aim at sustaining a certain clientele. So my expectations werent high, tbh. But now, having played the new game for 81 hours so far, I'm positively surprized. First of all the core game mechanics are an improvement. The weapon models and handling dynamics are an improvement. Yes, there are some problems yet, but I'm confident they are going to get fixed. And in terms of gameplay / map design the supremacy mode is a step back to the roots to the big combined arms maps in RO1. The asymmetric scenarios where the cap zones are nonlinear, are like the Debrecen variants of RO1. I like that a lot. It's a welcome divesification to the monotonous meat grinder maps in territory mode.

So I would say that RS2 sits somewhere between RO1 and RO2.