When I was a kid (and I’m talking 4-5 years old here) my father let me play a game called Wolfenstein 3D. You might’ve heard of it. I have no idea how he pulled this off, but my mother didn’t really seem to mind at all. This launched a bit of a weird obsession with World War 2.
I’ve always found WW2 interesting. Admittedly, I’m not alone. Literally a billion games have been made around this subject, the first Medal of Honors, Battlefields, and Call of Dutys included. I found the eastern front particularly interesting since the western front gets way more coverage here in Canadian schools (obviously). However, when my grade 12 history class touched on the fact that, hey, the USSR was involved too (a fact I only vaguely knew from the first Call of Duty games), and went into a bit of detail, I found the subject interesting. Seeing Red Orchestra pop up on Steam, I always intended to try it out. And so finally, thanks to a Steam sale, I did.
The game focuses on, as you’d expect, the eastern front of WW2: the Russians (or I suppose Soviets at this point in time) versus the Germans. The game had won a Game of the Year award (one of millions given out to millions of different games, I’m sure) and had pretty positive reviews, so I had high hopes. The gameplay sound simple enough. You’re given a mission and a map and a squad. When you die, you take control of another squad member whose class can vary (you could be one class one second, die, and become another class when you take control of what was formerly an AI). You have a limited number of squad members, so you can lose the mission that way, but you do have reinforcements that come in from time to time. You can also control your squad members… or at least you’re supposed to be able to. I ran into a bit of a problem during the in-game tutorial (see video below).
This isn’t the only bug I ran into either. This game is fucking littered with them. I can’t emphasize enough how unpolished this game felt. My gun would randomly start endlessly reloading, my squad floated across the ground on their backs, and one point I became stuck, and, to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered to start it up again. I was done after about 4 or so hours. I even uninstalled it when I needed more room on my hard drive for Quake Live shoutcasting footage, and I don’t regret it a bit.
The entire feel of the game is just wrong. It feels sluggish, like your character took the phrase “piano tied to your ass” a little too literally. The graphics look off, too. And that’s coming from someone who really doesn’t give a shit about game graphics. There’s just something about it that doesn’t seem right. I wish I could put my finger on it exactly. The feel of a game plays a huge role in whether or not I’m going to like it. Some games feel sloppy and loose, some games feel tight and responsive. Every movement in Red Orchestra 2 feels like you’re trying to run frantically to a bathroom to vomit, and the game feels so bad that this may actually be the case. It’s all over the place, it’s so sloppy and disorienting that you have to wonder why the hell it was even released in the first place. I’m personally curious to know how much money Tripwire had to dish out to buy that Game of the Year award, because they certainly didn’t produce a game worthy of one.
There are some cool aspects of the game, I’ll admit. Lots of details like being able to adjust the sights on your scope to get better accuracy at different distances, stuff like that. And that’s cool. But if you can’t even get to a point to use those features then what’s the point of even adding them in the first place? Playing through the tutorial at the beginning I remember thinking “wow, they put some thought into this. It’s kind of cool!” but at the same time just how realistic do you want a game to be? I found it to be kind of a pain in the ass in the end, but if you’re into that kind of realism in games then it’s a good reason to check it out at least for that aspect. They definitely put in an effort in that regard.
Really, though, it’s hard to think of when I was last so disappointed with a game. It’s playable – just – but the amount of bugs and the jerky awkward feel made it nearly unbearable to continue. By the end of it I just wanted the mission to end so I could quit and clean my vomit-stained bathroom or something, anything, to get away from it. Oh, and the missions themselves are boring too. It’s just the same old thing. Clear out building, take building. Clear out next building, take building. Yay! We took the area from the Germans! Let’s stare at a map of the next area for a bit before doing the same thing again. And don’t count on the maps looking interesting and detailed. They’re rather bland and unimaginative.
It wasn’t for me, but if you’re a hardcore WW2 fan then it might be worth a look (I guess), but don’t come crying to me when you realise you wasted your hard-earned money on it.
3/10, only because 2/10 seems too brutal for a game that spawned a hilarious bug video.