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RS Thank You Tripwire!

Diem

Grizzled Veteran
Jul 10, 2011
94
20
Arizona
My first Tripwire game was Killing Floor. Got it a few years ago, a very big fan of it, and have over 100 hours played as of last weekend.

Last year I saw advertisements for Red Orchestra 2 on KF. I looked at it, and thought that it was a cool game. I got it, but found out that it was way more demanding than Killing Floor, and my PC couldn't run it well. So I let it sit for a few months and eventually came back to it, toned down all the graphics, and was able to play it at PS1 level graphics at about ~25 FPS. But I'm not a big graphics person. I had a ton of fun with it, and still enjoy it. Plus, I got the DDE, so I got a couple extra Killing Floor characters.

However, I started seeing advertisements for Rising Storm recently. This really piqued my interest, though. I'm a big fan of WWII history (hence why I got RO2), especially American history. In RO2, you played as Nazis and Soviets--two factions I am not very fond of at all. Still, the historical elements and realism were fantastic. When I saw that Rising Storm had Americans in it, and knowing how good RO2 was, I knew I wanted it. When I saw it had a flamethrower, I knew I NEEDED it.

I suppose I'm a bit of a pyromaniac. Flamethrowers in games have always been my favorite weapons, especially Killing Floor. Up until now, my favorite game with a flamethrower was Call of Duty: World at War. In Campaign, it was awesome. In multiplayer, it wasn't as good (for the sake of balance), but with skill, you could do great with it. Even then, its range was quite short, even if it did have infinite ammo.

So today I got the DDE (so I can go back and use the special characters on KF). When I was installing it, though, I felt a bit of unease when I learned that the game was multiplayer only and had no singleplayer. My performance with RO2 in singleplayer wasn't that great, so I imagined multiplayer with lag/latency would be worse. Plus, sometimes I like to sit back and not be challanged and just play against AI. I was also surprised that a multiplayer-only game was 10 GB. Most full games, i.e. Battlefield, Halo, etc., are only 6-7 GB.

So while I waited for that to download, I took a night drive out to my local Microsoft store to pre-order my Xbox One along with RYSE and Battlefield 4. When I got back, it was done, and I started playing. Found a server with nothing but bots, though, as I didn't want to go headfirst and get slaughtered by a bunch of veterans.

Holy crap. Way better than I expected.

First off, the Flamethrower is usable right off the bat. In World at War, it was the last thing you unlocked (hence why I never prestiged in that game, because that was back when not prestiging was sensible). And not only that, its range is actually realistic. I kept killing people I didn't think I'd actually be killing. My furthest kill was from 29m away. Not only that, but you can deflect flames off of surfaces; something I didn't notice until I got an achievement for it.

Most importantly, it's an "instant" kill. Well, maybe. I was playing on a Realistic server, and I saw a thread about how the Flamethrower is underpowered, so it may not be as great outside of Realistic. In World at War multiplayer, it had a weird "pulse" to it where you would shoot a stream, but it had a "rate of fire" where you had to get two "hits" with it to kill someone. It was weird, but as I said, if you could master it, you'd be very deadly.

Even Killing Floor is awkward because the Flamethrower has this ridiculous recoil that makes your aim fly upwards for no reason. It's still powerful and works well in every other area, though, but not as satisfying as RS.

I suppose this sort of turned into a Flamethrower love letter, but that's really what I was hoping for most. It won't be the only thing I enjoy, though. I'll try out the M1A1 Carbine and Thompson soon enough. Although I don't know what the unlocks are in this game, nor the upgrades. If someone could direct me to that, that'd be welcome.

Sorry for the length here, so I'll end this now.

Thanks, Tripwire! Between Killing Floor, Red Orchestra 2, and Rising Storm, I'm now a dedicated fan and can't wait to see what other games you produce :D