Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

Stalingrad and the surrounding areas saw some of the worst fighting of the war. The ruins could be abandoned, or hold the enemy, forcing all into close-quarters combat. A group of houses might be burnt to the ground, only the chimneys still standing. Pavlov's House, one of several historical locations in this, which saw struggling over, and from, one floor to the next, had only frames(doors, etc.) left, making it look like an apple core. The 7 hour single-player of this gives context to these(and is, otherwise, essentially some desperately needed off-line practice; there are no characters or "plot", it's all about the importance of the sections and the killing and dying over them), contains actual letters from there, and briefs you with a combination of footage from the situation and "attack plan animations"(with propaganda... disgusting, since it's exactly what they saw back then).

The tutorials prepare you for many situations, including several rare ones. Like many of such, however, they are too scripted, not offering free exploration of the elements with optional "training wheels", they don't tell you in any detail what worked and why or vice versa of what you did, etc. Because of this, there is an inordinate amount of things you have to pick up on by diving in, and many will just give up on it, and this could have been avoided. This is one of the things that were greatly improved on from the original, but not quite enough. Another is the streamlining of mechanics, including, and most decisively, controls. You have to memorize far fewer keys, and several now do different things based on the situation, such as one switching between semi/fully automatic, replacing a heated barrel on the highly effective(when placed right, since it can't be moved beyond the 90 degree angle in front of you) machinegun, etc.

I won't be reviewing the Rising Sun portion of this, as it is only a demo. There are now more than the one mode, "Domination". They have you capture/defend objectives, outside of Search and Destroy, where you plant/defuse a bomb Counter-Strike style, and Firefight, which doesn't tell you what to do, making it even more intense than it already always is. Round length and amount of respawns pivotally vary: Territory has 30 minutes and countless(and Campaign is this but the winners vote on next area and which side to be on, letting a team conquer the whole Eastern Front), Countdown has 3 minutes per spot to take(and half-time swapping) and 2 extra(!). All of these are a distinct experience from the rest, and there are plenty of servers, which you actually get to choose between, also for the three rulesets.

From least to most mainstream, these are Classic, Realism and Action. Thus this addictive gem is open to FPS players(and certainly, if you aren't at least formidable at that, this is not for you) in addition to serving the niche who want a simulator/interactive documentary of this part of our too-recent memory. Upgrading, of the following, by "experience points" is now present. Weapons, where you can carry 1 2-handed, 1 1-handed and 1 grenade type, and include SMG's, rifles(some assalt, some sniper, etc.), pistols, etc. and can, in time, be equipped with a silencer, extended clip, bayonet or the like. Classes, all of whom have set roles, and mostly as little as 1-2 per, can, after a while, get new additions to your arsenal. This means that whether you've played 10 minutes or 10 hours "matters", you won't have tried all the content available in the former, as it is, for example, in Left 4 Dead. Seniority and rank also follows.

This is extremely close to actually being there. Nearly all of the minimal input you get is from your senses, translated into visual indicators. What you hear, see, touch – how much you're carrying, how hurt you are, etc. Almost nothing betrays that this is not real, only just enough that it's playable. The graphics are amazing, and will hold up for years to come. Bloom, motion blur, etc. start out overpowering, and remain important to hiding, or determining where someone else is. One of the first challenges of this, as has been pointed out, is telling friend and foe apart. Color? What about lighting? Symbol…? Tiny. The atmosphere is gripping and unbroken. Every level is well-designed with flanking, vantage points and the like. The map now has a shortcut via the Tactical View, that adds POI to the sparse HUD.

Vehicles include: the APC, vital to moving almost a dozen soldiers from one place to the next in very little time, provided you can keep it from being destroyed, as it is a frail thing. And the tank, where the 3-4 people in it each have their purpose… drive, use the cannon(that turns slowly and noisily, reloads over a couple of seconds, and where every shot has to count, so keep in mind weak points of other iron beasts, and take penetration and angle into account when trying to pry open that armor), man the MG or command it. That last one can literally order, in detail, where to go and/or attack, and that goes for on foot, as well. Heck, put him in front of a radio, and he can call in strikes of artillery, mortar and rockets(provided he, or someone else with binoculars, have painted a target for it), reinforcements, and aerial recon, which will show any enemy unit on the map, making him one of the two players in the game of chess that this is. Using the widget, you can give other specific orders, and all of these are easy to use.

There is a lot of bloody, violent, disturbing, at times brutal and gory, content in this, and some will switch some of it off – I very nearly did. I recommend this to anyone who wants to "disappear" into the horrifying reality that was inescapable for those millions of troops. 9/10

I have played this game longer than any other. This is because this game has the best multiplayer if you want the ultimate realistic hardcore FPS experience.

The soundscape is excellent. Weapons sound very realistic, whether near, far, or inside a building. Weapon handling (accuracy etc) are still the best I have ever seen in any game (much better than ARMA series in my opinion). There are some neat gameplay mechanics that simulate suppression, and reward teamwork and discourage camper score-whoring. This is probably the only game that really models suppression. Don't bother with the single-player though, its rubbish and the AI is dumb.

When it was released back in 2011, it was rough around the edges with lots of bugs, but now in 2014, with continuous support from the devs, virtually all the problems have been ironed out, and it now runs very stable.

Being realistic and brutal, this is very unforgiving to noobs (and CoD players). Only 1 rifle bullet is needed to kill. Noobs spawn, run forward, and get killed by enemy artillery, or a tank 300m away, or a sniper 200m away, or a machine gunner 150m away, or a maxed out assault trooper 5m away, and never see it coming. Being realistic, machine guns are almost just as accurate as sniper rifles, but it is slightly harder to spot prone enemies without the scope. I am usually the machine gunner, and by a round's end (20min) I may have killed over 80 of them and only died 5 times. That's how ruthless this game is. This is arguably both the game's biggest strengh, and its biggest problem.

This game uses a leveling and unlock system, but it is still quite fair on new players. While fully levelled guns will help (with slightly reduced weapon sway, recoil, reload time, magazine size etc) it is still only 20% of your effectiveness and the remaining 80% is down to your tactical awareness, teamwork, and most of all, your individual skill. That is the most important thing. If you are naturally good, you will start out quite well and only get better as you level up, but if you are not so good at aiming with a mouse, you might always struggle.

The online community is more mature than in most other shooter games. We still get the occasional 12 year old, but not too often. As of Dec-2014 there are still a good range of servers and a good volume of players online (about 1500 Sunday night, 300 Monday morning). At peak times there are about 5-10 servers with 64 players, and some servers occasionally go over the 64 player limit. The most I have seen is 85, that was epic. In 800 hours of gameplay I have only seen 1 incident of hacking (the artillery hack), and that one was patched out by the devs within days. So, this game has a virtually hack-free environment.

So, this game is too brutal and realistic for many, but if CoD or Battlefield is not cutting it for you, I recommend you try this.