Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad has its moments of brilliance and its rough spots, but is there more of the former than the latter?

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is a tactical first-person shooter set in World War 2 with a heavy emphasis on multiplayer. The game revolves around the battle for Stalingrad (remember Jude Law as the sniper in Enemy at the Gates?). Players can choose to fight as either the German invaders or the Soviet defenders and each side has their own single player campaign, weapons and look.

The two campaigns won’t win any awards by any stretch of the imagination. While the historic movie clips, detailed briefings and great AI chatter help sell that you are engaged in a legendary conflict, single player at its core boils down to battles against AI bots on multiplayer maps. The campaigns are not short either, taking about 8 to 10 hours to complete, and while they may not represent the true strengths of the game, they are the single best way to learn how to play Red Orchestra 2. The game is rife with abilities, commands and tactics that you cannot just wing by when diving into multiplayer, as many a shooter fan is likely to attempt. The reason the bot experience is so uneven is that the game is simply too complex and the options are so varied; the AI bots simply cannot take full advantage of the game’s possibilities the way real humans can. The heart of Red Orchestra 2 is therefore its multiplayer.

Multiplayer in Red Orchestra 2 is a high pressure, 64 player, lethal experience that rewards teams that work together and ruthlessly punishes Rambo wannabees. The differences between the infantry roles for the most part come down to what weapon they are using. This is a game built on realism so you can’t just sprint around the map spraying lead and cutting down anything that moves. Recoil, stability, dialing in range, cover, breathing and more play a huge role, changing the usual shooter dynamic of “respawn, run back into the fray, die, respawn” into something more like “respawn, check the map, advance slowly under cover, coordinate with the team, then attack.”

The assortment of weapons are time period appropriate and beautifully realized. They look, feel and sound like the real deal. Don’t expect to regain health after taking a burst of sub-machine gun fire. This is usually a one-shot-one-kill kind of game, though the possibility to patch yourself up before you bleed to death does exist.

One of the most impressive, and at the same time most difficult to master aspects of Red Orchestra 2, are the tanks. These are not just cars with cannons, they’re  lumbering war machines that require an entire crew to control. Players can take the driver, main gunner, machine gunner or commander seat in the tank and must work together in order to survive. When you have a good crew, wreaking havoc in a tank is one of the highlights of the game. When you have a bad crew, or more likely, a terrible driver, it can be one of the most frustrating and boring aspects.

While the game has a number of modes, Territory is the one where the magic happens. Each team gets a commander who can order aerial reconnaissance, call down mortar or artillery strikes and force teammates to respawn. Each team also gets a certain number of squad leaders depending on how many players are involved. Squad leaders can mark targets for the commander’s strikes, and throw incredibly useful smoke grenades. Players do need to keep in mind that if they choose a leadership position, and are terrible at it, they can be removed by vote.

As players progress they will level up, unlocking new weapons, upgrades and Steam achievements (for single player and multiplayer). The setup is still a bit buggy. Achievements are also a bit wonky in that sometimes they get triggered for no reason at all. Depending on their individual system specs, players may encounter others bugs too.

Red Orchestra 2 is not problem free by any means. It’s a huge game made by a small team with a working man’s budget. Texture popping, clipping and sporadic crashes are to be expected. The server browser could also use a serious overhaul. However, Tripwire has been very aggressive with their patches (a new one was just released) and I expect most of the prominent bugs to be addressed before too long, if they have not been already.

Cover mechanics in first-person shooters are typically a bare bones affair, with the truly robust cover mechanics left to the top-tier third-person shooters. Red Orchestra 2 not only includes a cover system, it does a better job of it than most third-person shooters do, and makes a mockery of similar attempts in the FPS genre. Players can sprint, dive, crouch, go prone, lean around corners, and leap over walls and through windows. The setup is fluid and easy to use. A single button press and you’ll take cover behind a wall or sandbag. Players can blind fire from cover (most effective with a machine gun obviously) as well as look over and around cover to aim.

Players just need to keep in mind that cover in Red Orchestra 2 does not make you invincible. You can still be shot or pinned down by heavy machine gun suppression fire and take the subsequent morale loss.

Did I mention this game has a full blown “suppression” system? Weapons fire, artillery strikes and more will affect players morale, lowering their accuracy and turning the screen grey. This suppression/morale system is backed up by amazing players who get elevated to “hero” status for their actions in-game, boosting the morale of troops near them.

Red Orchestra 2 is not a graphical powerhouse, though it does look at least competitive when run on the highest settings. The character models, for me, stand out as the weak link. Certain things though, like the weapons and the tank interiors, are really a testament to Tripwire’s attention to detail. The musical score is solid, if unsurprising. The voice work however, as weird as it is to say when discussing a shooter, is top notch. I’m not talking about briefings or campaign movies; I’m talking about the the massive litany of quips, observations and taunts available to the soldiers on the battlefield. Wow.

There are plans for more vehicles and, of course, new maps. Tripwire is also planing to add co-op and a multiplayer campaign some time in the future.  The mod “Rising Storm,” which will be set in the Pacific, is also on the horizon and it will be free.

In a genre dominated by twitch console shooters that sacrifice realism for intensity and are backed by mammoth publishers like EA and Activision, what the small team over at Tripwire Interactive have done with Red Orchestra 2 – Heroes of Stalingrad, crafting a WW2 shooter that embraces realism and tactics in a way few developers would even consider attempting, deserves to be applauded.  If you are looking for something deeper than COD but are not willing to take the hardcore Arma II simulation plunge, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is a solid purchase that will continue to expand in value months after you purchase it.

Tripwire Interactive provided a Steam copy of this game for review.