14 DAY TRIAL // In a game world where the first person shooter space is dominated by blockbusters like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 it's nice to see that Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad manages to capture fans with the promise of debilitating suppression fire and with realistic military scenarios.
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad was created and published via Steam by Tripwire Interactive using a heavily modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 and I must say that this is one of the most punishing shooters I have played in some time.
I confess I spent quite a bit of time just going through the basic training section that kicks off the Axis campaign, struggling to use my bolt action rifle and the zero-ing in function to take out targets that were set at what seemed to be impossible to evaluate distances.
Playing on the regular difficulty the first missions, despite the close quarters house to house battles it advertised, was pretty easy and I died just one time, when an enemy shot me after vaulting a fence just as I was reloading after foolishly trying to shoot him with an empty weapon.
The second mission caused exponentially more trouble, with a number of Russian soldiers clustered in the middle of a political school managing to wide out my squad of Germans on two occasions, despite liberal use of grenades and suppressing fire.
The game is unforgiving at times and a lot of actions that would never lead to death in more mainstream shooters, like running through an open field without pausing for cover or entering a building without first peering around corners, leading to quick and unproductive death.
There are also some issues I have spotted, mostly weird behavior on the part of my squad mates, who often seem more interested in running around with their weapons holstered than in actively moving around to engage the enemy.
You can check out some gameplay from Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad in the video below.