Hey there and welcome to ZZreviews episode 69: Red Orchestra.
Red Orchestra is unique in the sence that it focuses much more on realism and tactics than fast paced running and gunning. It may well be the most realistic shooter to date but can such a realistic game really be fun? Or does the realism ruin the enjoyment? Let's find out!
In Red Orchestra you are slow, you can barely jump and doing anything but lying on the ground as hidden as possible firing well aimed shots is pretty much suicide. There is no crosshair and the barrel of your gun almost never points exactly where you want it too. Therefor it is vital to use the iron sights but even that fails at times as animations are slow and more often than not you'll be dead before you have your gun ready. The HUD doesn't even show the ammount of bullets you have in your gun, it only shows the number of clips you have. The game doesn't reload for you either, all of a sudden your gun will start clicking meaning you're out of bullets and reloading before a clip is empty results in a loss of ammo. You have next to no life, one or two well aimed bullets will take you down. If you by chance get hit in the leg and survive, you'll run even slower and getting hit in the arms will make you drop your weapon. All these factors works against the player making for an extremely hard yet satisfying expirience.
The game's maps range from close quarters infantry based cities to big, open tank friendly areas. About the tanks, they are VERY powerful in this game. Now you might start complaining that they are overpowered but really, they're supposed to be. This is a realistic game after all and there's no way a simple marine can stand a chance against one. Instead you better hide or better yet use the ingame commands to tell your team that you've spotted one. That way they might be able to help you. Being in a tank feels awesome, you can either fire armor piercing shells which are effective against other vechiles or explosive shells that deals with footsoldiers. You'll also have to aim above the enemy because of gravity and distance.
Red Orchestra looks outdated and it doesn't even support that high resolutions. Textures are undetailed and models are crappy but when it comes to older games like this I feel that you have to look past things like that and see the game for what it really is cause Red Orchestra really has a nice realistic style both gameplay and graphics wise, and the animations are very nicely done. To put it simply, for a game released in 06 you could've done better but you could also have done ALOT worse.
In the audio department Red Orchestra doesn't disappoint. The gunshots are of good quality, voice acting is great and the soundtrack which, like in many war games, consists of epic orchestral music is quite frankly nice to listen to.
The game is set during World War 2, 1941-42, in Ostfront and the battle plays out between Germany and Sovjet. We don't get much more information than that. There is a singleplayer mode but it's just a tutorial so I can't really judge the game's "story".
Thanks to a great community, a bunch of classes including Rifleman, Machinegunner, Tank officer and Sniper AND a big variaty of maps Red Orchestra delivers when it comes to replay value as well.
Scoreboard time!
Gameplay: 9/10 If you enjoy running and gunning and cant stand lying still, planning your next move carefully and occasionaly getting into firefights where you can't spray everywhere and hope to hit this game ISN'T for you. Now you can be more aggressive but being effective at this game requires teamwork and actual skill so if that seems like fun then you'll enjoy Red Orchestra very much!
Graphics: 6/10 Not the game's strongest point and no matter how much of a fan you are you MUST agree that it looks kind of outdated, still it has great animations and overall if you can look past the undetailed textures it DOES look okay.
Story: 0/0 This is a multiplayer game and therefor I don't care much about story. You may argue that it DOES have a story but I don't care what you say, "It's set in World War 2" is not a storyline.
Sound/Music: 7/10 Nice quality of both sounds and voice acting and I really liked the music too!
Replay value: 8/10 Many classes, maps and a great community. Need I say any more?
Total: 30/40 Red Orchestra is a great quality title. It's realistic yet fun and whilst the realism might put some of you off, I enjoyed it very much and I think that most people will like it if you just give it some time. If you like the sence of realism in mods like Project Reality you'll dig this game!
Cya in the next ZZreviews. Bye!
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It's realistic in that the guns are more advanced that most other FPS shooters with their bullet drop and other physics, but the maps are not realistic and are still in the old Counterstrike/Day of Defeat 'deathmatch' arena format.
sgibson808 4 months ago
@sgibson808 Indeed.
ZayanuZaroc 4 months ago
Amazing review!
sandj777 5 months ago
@sandj777 Thanks, man! :)
ZayanuZaroc 5 months ago
Nice review! :D Are you getting the second one?
Ilikefrogsandmonkeys 8 months ago
@Ilikefrogsandmonkeys Thank you, I might if it's cheap. ;)
ZayanuZaroc 8 months ago