Red Orchestra

http://www.redorchestragame.com/

Red Orchestra, a total conversion mod for Unreal, is now available on the Unreal 2.0 engine and is packaged as a standalone game. More importantly it a bargain at about £13 bought and downloaded over Steam. This is close to the game I've always wanted. A World War II FPS game that holds more weight as a 'war simulation' than a 'war game'.

When I fired it up, I was immediately thrust into a world where I had no cross hairs, I had to reload my rifle manually, where just to relocate involved a lot of use of cover and terrain. In order to fire back, you have to be very observant and spot slight movement, or muzzle flashes from weapons being fired. I died a lot, in the early acclimatisation period. You learn pretty quickly not to pop your head too high, or to run without cover for too long. Death is instant. Wounding is a rare occurrence.

The graphics are adequate, they're not state of the art, but they do the job, and look very authentic. Theres no gleam and glint of Battlefield or Call of Duty here. The sound is tremendous and really adds to the whole ensemble. You will hear enemy movement, reloading rifles, gun shot cracks from somewhere to your left. The ambient war noise in the background, isn't just a fluff track running on a loop, its actual combat, and machines, and men breathing too hard.

The weapons themselves are awkward, without a cross hair to use, firing from the hip feels very haphazard and actually is very inaccurate. Unless you are shoulder to shoulder with your enemy, buzzing an MP40 at them doesn't necessarily make the kill. To shoot with more accuracy you need to use the 'Iron Sights' where you draw the weapon up to your eye line. This slows you down, both movement and turning. It obscures your view, but it does make the weapon more accurate in its use. Taking a crouch or prone position also helps, as well setting up near a window ledge or sandbag. You gain an accuracy bonus for anchoring your weapon at these sort of points. You have to re-load your rifle, manually. This basically means clicking fire once to shoot the gun, and then click fire again to reload it. However reloading does take a chunk of time, time when you're very vulnerable, so timing your shots and making them count is the order of the day with any of the single shot rifles. Adopting the Iron Sights when crouched or prone also brings you slightly out of cover to shoot at the enemy, so flicking back and forth from the Iron Sight is a valuable technique to get used to. It gives you the ability to nod out and lay some fire down, then quickly take cover when return fire arrives. On most guns you can attach bayonets for the moments when close combat are required. Its a small price in accuracy to pay for a good stab in the enemies heart, rather than a pregnant pause trying to stick another round in the barrel.

The armoured vehicles are authentic, and you cannot drive one unless you have the appropriate qualifications. At the start of a round, there are a list of troop types you can pick from, and a number of these are tank orientated, tank commanders, gunners and drivers. Pick one of these and you can enter the tanks available. To successfully use a tank in combat you need at least a driver/commander and a gunner. Its tricky to solo a heavy tank driving and then switching into the gun position. There are vehicles such as half track transports and jeeps that your average rifleman or machine gunner can drive, usually with a gun position attached, so you can wait at the spawn point and take a few troops in with you. The views from inside the vehicles tend to be very restrictive and its difficult to land specific kills because you just can't see much from within, you end up laying down mostly suppressing fire. A brief not no suppressing fire, which is worth a mention here, is that whilst a troop is pinned by suppressing fire, his view becomes blurred, and shaken, and its quite tricky to make an accurate target. Another feature that emphasizes the games attention to detail and realism. Driving the vehicles isn't like the arcade pursuits of games like Battlefield, instant turning circles, fast reverse out of trouble, the vehicles in RO require gear management almost. They feel sluggish, and they take a while to master.

Basically, in RO, if you go off solo, you're likely to die, quickly. Sticking together and providing cover and support is the only way forward. The troop selection at the beginning of the scenario ensures that there is an equal mix of troop types. No legions of snipers or tank commanders, there is a place for everyone, and its in the squad as a team player. This game promotes good team play, there are no apparent scores for killing or head shots, no ranks or leader boards as such, the win is decided on base capture alone. And to do that you have to suppress and overpower the enemy to gain the ground.

Some of the maps are expansive, where a number of large tank battles can take place, with infantry supplying the base capture element. Some of them are close quarter battles in war torn Stalingrad, building to building combat with fierce consequences if you pop a "cooked" grenade too close to yourself or your troops. There was even a very small novelty scenario, where the Russians in a POW camp had managed to overcome the guards in the cells, and take their pistols, and the German troops in the guardroom had to suppress the uprising. Cue lots of Soviet troops providing crossfire support with stolen Lugers against Machine gunning Nazi guards.

The thing I like about RO, is its attention to detail, everything is geared towards making you feel like you are in the war, warts and all. There are no punches pulled. Bring your usual FPS skills here and you'll probably take a good few in the head before you realise that staying alive is an achievement in itself. You have to know what the other side looks like in its uniform to be able to tell friend from foe. And often you have to be able to distinguish this from a long distance away. Since you'll be kicked from the server for too much team killing, you have to be cautious in your gunning. Even the VOIP that it supports is only available locationally (I believe). On the public servers there can be a lot of death and a lot of confusion, but get a decent clan together where people know how to cover each other and it starts falling into place.

RO has a big thumbs up from me, this is what I first tasted in the original Operation Flashpoint, combat realism over arcade gaming. Fulfilling a man's dream to experience proper World War II combat without the risk to his own life. To taste a little of what it might have been like to follow in my Grandfathers hobnail boots... albeit this is on the Eastern Front.