Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 Review
The game Red Orchestra began as a WWII mod to Unreal Tournament 2004. It gained popularity quickly after winning NVIDIA’s “$1,000,000 Make Something Unreal” contest. Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (RO) is a standalone follow-up that is available in the store, or via Steam download. It is, without a doubt, one of the most realistic First Person Shooters available. The movement of the character, firing of weapons, and use of vehicles are so realistic RO easily surpasses the other WWII competitors like Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. The problem is that this realism has its price in the gameplay. The pace of the game is slowed down and the intensity that often surrounds FPS games practically disappears. However, these negative aspects do not outweigh the overall superb gameplay and exciting graphics. RO is truly a fun game to play, but you will need to get used to the realism if you are really going to enjoy the experience.
One of the most distinguishable features of RO that demonstrates the game’s commitment to realism is the rifle firing. In your typical FPS it’s one click for one shot. In RO it’s a whole different ballgame with double-click rifle firing. The first click will fire the round, and a second click will reset the bolt on the rifle. This feature alone is more realistic than the average the FPS, but RO actually takes the realism a step further and removes the crosshair. Aiming with the rifle or machinegun requires you to look down the sight, without the aid of a crosshair. Not only that, but you must ‘bring up’ the rifle to even look down the sights. The rest of the time you are literally, shooting from the hip (unless you are in the prone position, of course). The only weapons available with crosshairs are sniper rifles and artillery. All of a sudden, playing as a rifleman becomes a whole lot more complex, and this is where the problems start. The double-click rifle firing seems to get a bit tedious after a few hours and becomes an almost automatic reflex instead of a unique aspect of the game. The removal of the crosshair, on the other hand, is a welcome challenge for any intermediate or experienced FPS player. So although RO went the extra mile to be as realistic as possible, the double-click seems to be more of an annoyance than anything else. Furthermore, it’s easy to see how the intensity of the gameplay is affected when you think about double-clicking through a clip and then reloading. All of a sudden running around every corner and dashing into every building becomes a likely suicide.
Selecting your class of character pretty much follows in line with every FPS out there. Choose your side, and choose a class. One annoying aspect, that reminds you of Team Fortress, is that the number of players per class is limited by the map. Unfortunately this means you might not be able to hop into a server on the fly and choose your favorite class, which can be a little frustrating at times. To make matters worse, you may find that you’re stuck with a class of character that can’t man a vehicle. This is perhaps much more frustrating than the class limitation. Again, the push for realism, in limiting the ability of classes to use vehicles, results in frustration and a general reduction of intensity in the gameplay. Rather than spawn and immediately have all players jump into vehicles, and race off to the front lines, you wind up with a gaggle of men running around wondering who’s going to be able to drive. Perhaps the only way to combat this type of frustration in RO is to embrace the realism and begin to play a little slower. Take your time to choose a character, and at the spawn, watch and maybe even follow your teammates for awhile. You will find that embracing the realism for RO, by changing your strategy and gameplay, will alleviate the frustration. It still may not fix the fact that some CS-style excitement is missing, but it should help you to keep from getting killed every 2 seconds.
There are about a dozen large maps in use on most servers. The maps are, in general, of high quality. The terrain is dark and pretty much dirty. There is always plenty of cover in grass, trees, and shrubs. The buildings and structures all follow the dirty theme, both inside and out. All of the difficulty seeing immediately affects your ability to distinguish friend from foe. It doesn’t help that the uniforms aren’t easily distinguishable as well, but having to pull out the binoculars to look more than 20 meters is the price you pay when you want real. It all certainly makes for a higher stress level when creeping around corners, and pretty much discourages any type of movement across open areas as light infantry. So, if you haven’t been keeping score thus far, you, as the average soldier, have no crosshair, potentially no ability to drive, almost no way to see clearly, and a rather difficult time aiming and firing. Sound difficult? Well, it should. Remember, RO is about realism, and that realism does have some drawbacks. But it definitely does have some positive aspects as well. In this example of terrain and uniforms, you are forced to change your style of gameplay to compensate. That change is inevitably a change to working as a team and playing a survivable strategy. If you can’t make this change, and enjoy the realism for what it is, it will be extremely difficult for you to play RO for any significant length of time.
The community for RO is pretty strong. This is definitely a benefit of being incorporated into Steam and right next to some of the most successful FPS ever created. But the reality is that it has to be this way, if the game really wants to be successful. The difficulty surrounding RO will pretty much weed out anyone looking for a 30 second thrill. The noob player that steals your vehicle right out from under you, or the beginner that continues to shoot teammates will play for about 5 minutes and disconnect. What remains is an experienced and mature group of players that are serious about playing the game the way it was meant to be played. If you are hit by a teammate (which is pretty likely) the apology comes pretty quick and easy, either in chat or over VoIP. Teamwork is the name of the game, and it is common place to group up at the spawn and head out together. Working the flanks, and managing the artillery takes patience but the rewards are well worth it. Watching your opponents lose an objective in a bloody engagement while you slog through the mud and the dirt toward their position is a fine way to spend your afternoon.
The key to enjoying RO is embracing the realism. Still, this does not negate the fact that the intensity of the gameplay is reduced, and the general pace of the game is slowed. The commitment to realism from RO’s creators is apparent in every aspect of the game, from how you fire your weapon, to how you capture an objective. You can’t escape all the thought that went into designing this ultra-realistic WWII FPS. Your choice, as a player, is to determine whether or not to embrace the realism and the difficulty, or move on. Based on the large player counts in the servers, and the high level of activity on the websites, the RO community looks to be rather strong, and not in danger of going anywhere anytime soon.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
75%. Red Orchestra is one of the most realistic WWI FPS games out
there. Unfortunately this is both a positive and a negative…