Recent reviews by SoF{GR}

waste of bandwidth and disk space

Game is being developed by the Antimatter studio actually, known for Rising Storm 1.

RS1 started off as a free total conversion for RO2, then tripwire reached out to the devs and offered them a deal so that they can make money out of their work. ( are you taking notes EA ?? )

AFAIK tripwire employed some very talented guys from the IOM team as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OzhcC9KCuc

gameplay wise, RS2 is a more refined/hardcore experience when compared to the default "realistic" setting of RO2/RS1

some key differences

1) RO2/RS1 had weapon attachment unlocks, in RS2 every tool is avalable from the get go, higher levels give more cosmectics to the player and nothing else !!


2) player tags and killfeed are now set client side ! this means that you can remove player name that appears when you aim at a friendly soldier (medium-close range) and/or customize the kill feed for extra immersion ( this setting seems to be still buggy atm :/ )

3) weapon recoil and sway are much more pronounced here , they can really mess your aim when you ADS

check out my commander video you tube.com/watch?v=r7bzR99aGZ4&t=27m22s
as you can see, it is very difficult to align the sights properly after a long sprint because you're out of breath.

4) RS2 has only slight zoom when you ADS, RO2/RS1 had extra ADS zoom everytime you held the shift button (provided you were not suppressed)
in RS2 you can only get extra "ADS zoom" if you man a MG ( for balance reasons I suppose )


5) RS1 had unbalanced sides, devs tried to mantain balance by tinkering with the level design.
RS2 has proper asymmetric warfare that feels enganging and intense to the core player no matter if he has american weapons or not.

you don't need one sided maps in order to even the odds for the "gimped" team, there's no weak team in RS2. Sometimes I can't help but compare my in-game experiences to this particular scene from Area 88 ( old japanese animation )


you tube.com/watch?v=KFrYW12Z1_o&t=7m17s

excuse the language barrier, this is the only related video in YT where the GI death scenes are uncut.

translation in spoiler



- Shin, do u really want to back to your home in Japan ??

- what about you Mickey ? what brought you here, so far way from your own home ?

- who me ? well, there was a time when I really felt homesick, that was back in Vietnam ....

it was pure hell !!!

god ... I wanted to go home so bad .... that was my only thought.

Eventually I got discharged, but something started to feel different ...

My father, my brother and my fiancee (Tracy) they all welcomed me in such a hearty manner ....

but somehow, I couldn't give any of their love back .....

I was fighting in a war for so long, killing people just to stay alive ...

Maybe this peaceful way of living was not my thing after all.

We have become professional killers, the scent of blood and gunpowder that covers our body is the evidence, it was a mistake thinking that a killer like me could go back and live a normal life again, in a society full of innocent people ....

I don't know about your memories back in Tokyo Shin, but the fact remains that you are now one top notch killer !! anyway .. good night to ya, and try to get some sleep ... so that you won't be a mess in the morning !

- one top notch killer ?? You didn't have to bring that up Mickey ... that's why I'm trying to get out of here !!!




6) despite the jungle setting and the distinct presense of automatic weapons, it still plays very different from your typical BF/COD game while RO2 suffered a serious identity crisis back in the day, it was too "hardcore" for the BF fans while the RO1 vets felt alienated by all those realism "tweaks"

personally speaking, the most hated tweak was the implementation of "peripheral view indicators"

not that it's a bad feature, cold war rearmed ( arma 2 total conversion ) made it feel very realistic because those blobs where discreet and fully functional, you could even use those "green blobs" to stay in formation with the rest of of your squad instead of turning your virtual ahead around all the time.

in RO2/RS1 the same indicators were something like a visual aid for noobs with poor game sense and/or bad positional audio, this screenshot says it all i think

http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=191664052

^

grey blobs that appear only when there are enemies moving outside of your FoV (medium-close range) they also get bigger once you get closer, making you feel like a cyborg lol.



anyway, my final statement is that despite the low price tag and the sheer amount of polish, this game needs proper post launch support with content updates rendering optimizations and bug fixes, the launch was definately smoother than RO2's (that thing was almost unplayable before the GOTY patch, "INB4 achievement" anyone ? :) ) but the game still feels and plays like a beta.

UPDATE : killfeed settings are now functional :)

so many primitive emotions with this one ! both sides feel balanced and fun to play, beating 4 hunters with a lvl1 monster is so satisfying. makes me wanna roar @ the screen and give it the fingers .I. .I. :p

the usual chit chat before drop off cracks me up most of the time, most real L4D fans should give this game a fair chance now that it's no more B2P.


I've only played a few hours of "big alpha" before joining the F2P horde ( almost 50k players right now - w0w ) , but it looks like the game has seen a lot of polish - optimization and rebalancing since then. devs even added " minimum " settings for lower end PCs , current major issues are the bugged party system and a bit of stuttering here and there during cutscenes and/or actual gameplay.

rounds usually last 8-11 minutes, game has no steam achievements atm but there's still a lot of "staying power"

you can complete daily, periodic challenges and/or just login everyday to get enough bonuses so that you will unlock most things in a reasonable amount of playtime without paying a single cent.

I'm curious what will happen when MTs get implemented in the game, personally I don't mind P2LG ( pay 2 look good ) nor timed silver key boosters so we'll just have to wait and see.

THE NUMBERS

:

Graphics 9/10

honestly they look really good ! especially when you have been through many UE 3 and "heavily modified" 3.5 games where the engine limitations are so obvious, characters look like they're made out of clay and the contanst texture streaming makes you feel like a console pleb :p

gameplay 8/10

there's a fine balance between individual skill / team work / RNG that makes most rounds very intense and involving, there's no way to check your ping atm

edit : classes and pings are displayed when holding down "T"

replay value 6.5/10

only 4 maps and 1 mode so far, but you get tons of perks, monsters and hunters to upgrade and unlock :)

controls 8/10

they're fairly intuitive, although clunky at the very beggining, there's a bit of mouse smoothing and accel but you can easily disable it with a little bit of google fu. most abilities have a "cooldown" factor , by the moment you get familiar with the timers it will be smooth sailing from now on.

final score 7.5/10 would buy again - oh wait ..... :steammocking:

this is not going to give you an edge over more experienced and/or better aimers in the server

this is not going to help you ace a full team of perfectly coordinated enemy players

this is not is not going to give gameplay traits that are otherwise not obtainable

there is NO difference whatsover between a bronze card and a cobalt one, save for a different merc skin !

as long as you complete the small side quests that refresh every 3 hours, you can earn those 50K within a reasonable amount of time, "trade up" programs and random case drops are 100% free and fun to do.

bought this DLC so the devs would get some money for their hard work, game's been under development for quite some time now, that's all !!

Enemy Territory and ETQW vets look no further !! this isn't RTCW 2.0 but it is the next best thing !! download it, check out these 2 guides in the meantime and get ready to pwn some BF/cod/csgo kiddies.


http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=456941775

http://www.crossfire.nu/articles/view/id/990%C2%A0


V44

feels like paying for a ut3 mod ... EXCEPT IT FAKING OWNSSSSS !!!

download it - play it - love it !

Damn that was a REALLY long single player campaign by today's standards, it lasted around ~ 11 hrs while most of the fights were pretty easy to get through on first try (must stop playing multiplayer FPSs lol ) heck even the final boss fight was VERY easy to beat ! i remembered this game 10 years ago to be hard as hell, maybe the good old 6800gt was not very fast, it only gave me sub-60fps and lots of mouselag, higher systems specs = higher skill ceiling :p

Anyway it still holds up REALLY well, the lighting the sound system ( don't get the BFG version, those greedy Bethesda bastards replaced openAL + EAX support with a sub-bar software accelerated audio engine :S ) the gunplay, EVERYTHING looks and feels so smooth ! ,you can even use sound mods for that extra "oopmh" added to gunfire and/or get the total package with the absolute HD mod, which replaces 90% of the game's textures adds DOF HDR etc.

Played the vanilla version from start to finish with no mods whatosever, GOTY 2004 if you ask me, sorry HL2 kids !

I was very pesimistic about it when I first saw it on kickstarter, but some very nice user videos came out recently so i became more and more interested into trying this game.

Just got it during the steam sale, only 5 hrs played so far but i really like it, wish there were more FPSs with 3D VOIP, it's such an awesome feature ! graphics and sound are very high quality, so immersive, the gunfire the soundscape the bullet cracks .... you name it ! razer surround + 5.1 audio setting works excellent on a pair of quality stereo headphones, you can soundwh()re people so easily in this game, it's not even funny !

Plays like a nice mix of America's Army 2.x , counter-strike mixed with RO2's "classic mode" or should I just say ... Paintball !!!! Did I also mention that the graphics are very good for a 9yr old engine ?? :D

There is no peristent weapon unlocks / attachments bullcrap, all you have to do it is take it slow and use the terrain to your advantage.

Spawn camping is very not effective anymore because the game forces you to lower your weapons when you approach the attacker's zone, plus it's very easy to supress the enemy so he can't see ♥♥♥♥ :D

I don't remember the mod to feature supression nor crouch sliding ( really cool ! ) here's the very first steam player guide http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=199171016

Since TWI won't implement troop transports any time soon ( essential for maps like Rakowice and Arad 2 ) nor have I the intention of giving money this year to EA / any other bunch of greedy bastards who like to ship half-finished games so they can maximize their profits, this gem will be my multiplayer FPS of choice utill Contagion gets more content and/or save up enough money to buy a 4770k so I can run Planetside 2 properly.

edit : 10 months later - 120hrs in already, BUY IT !! what are you waiting for ??? :D