Well I've been playing Red Orchestra since it was a Mod on Unreal Tournament 2004.... so I might be able to shed some light on this game.
Yes, RO2 was released with a number of bugs, but what game these days doesn't?
Tripwire Interactive was originally just a bunch of game players like the rest of us who decided to create a mod for Unreal Tournament 2003. Back then it was just infantry combat. When it was ported over to UT2004, they started introducing Tanks, Half-Tracks, Trucks and other transports, along with artillery and a pile of other elements that make RO was it is today.
Red Orchestra: Combined Arms, the mod for UT2004, won the "Make Something Unreal" Contest, which gave the guys at Tripwire a pile of money to start up their own business, as well as exclusive use of the Unreal 2.0 and 3.0 Engines for their game.
They then released Red Orchestra: Ostfornt 41-45 (RO1) and although they had very little resources towards marketing, they got a lot of sales and a decent sized community..... two free mods are available for RO1 and are found in Steam:
• Darkest Hour: Europe 44-45
• Mare Nostrum
Darkest Hour is basically the same game, physics, etc. as Red Orchestra Ostfront, but it takes place in Europe between the Allies (US / British/Canadian Forces) and Axis (German)
Mare Nostrum is again, the same style as DH and RO1, but focuses on Africa - Italy, British/Australian Forces, etc.
Mare Nostrum is pretty well dead, but RO1 and DH still have a number of available servers and players to play with.
Personally, I felt something changed between the Mod and RO1.... Many of the weapons physics changed to excessive levels, where recoil, weapon sway and movement was very unrealistic... and the tank physics went to hell.
Panzer's were actually pretty decent in the mod, yet in RO1, just about any tank in the game could take them out in one shot and was so bad, nobody drove them unless there wasn't anything else to choose.
Maps in RO1 were much larger than many found in the Mod, and player counts were larger than 32.... but because of the size of most of these maps, it seemed the artistic quality of the maps dropped, and due to being so large, it just didn't seem like a real battle anymore, as everything was spread out too far..... where in the Mod, the maps were very artistic, very detailed and designed to almost perfection.
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Now to RO2:
I have been looking forward to RO2 since RO1 came out and it changed a lot of things around I didn't like.
I pre-ordered RO2 and was in the Beta. It had a lot of issues and bugs to be worked out, which 90% of them have already been addressed now and the game runs very stable for most.
I explained a lot about Tripwire/RO's history for a reason..... In order to understand RO and Tripwire as a game developer, one needs to understand where they came from.
With all of their games before RO2 (Red Orchestra: Combined Arms, Red Orchestra: Ostfront, Killing Floor).... they've all come out with one bug or another, and the amount of content in the game at first release is limited, however, there are only two Game Developers I have ever seen who showed such devotion and continued support for their games for years after first release..... Valve and Tripwire.
The Mod, Ostfront and Killing Floor all started out buggy and had only a fraction of the weapons, maps, vehicles, content that they have now.... Once they fix up the bugs and glitches in their games (usually a span of a few months), they then focus on adding a pile of content.....
FOR FREE.Most other game devs out there these days will usually release one or two patches to fix some issues, they then release one or two DLC's you have to pay for, and then they're off working on their next game, even if bugs still exist..... I've spent over a week trying to get Battlefield: BC2 to run properly and had to ping pong back and forth with EA Support just to get the extras I paid for in the game. That game has been out for a while now and still has issues setting up for new players, yet EA went off to work on BF3 instead while leaving BC2 as it is. BC2 tied me over for a month and then I kind of got sick of it..... I never liked BF2, and BC2 kind of disappointed me, so I have no interest in getting involved with BF3.
Tripwire continually works on bugs & patches and releases them as soon as they are available..... and then they unload more weapons, tanks, game modes, maps, etc..... which are updated into their games automatically (via Steam) and are all free.
They also release SDK's so that the community can make their own maps, weapons & mods, which Tripwire sometimes adapts to their games as official addons if they're really good.
There are also a number of mods already in the works for RO2. Rising Storm is the main mod everybody is looking forward to. I'm looking forward to Iron Europe, which is based in WWI.
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Gameplay:
For me, RO2 brings the franchise back to what I enjoyed in the Mod. The Maps are detailed and very immersive..... the maps are a little bit smaller to help keep the fighting more intensive...... the weapons are easier to use, without drunken sways or string-arm recoil.
No Crosshairs.... you either try and hip shoot and hope for the best, which isn't very easy due to free-aim being in the game (aim is free from the locked position of the screen).... you also bring up the actual iron sights or scopes of the weapon in your hand and aim like you would in real life.... which most FPS's today now adapted to their games.... using the iron sights in RO have existed since the 2003 mod, so whether or not other games introduced this beforehand, I am not sure, but RO was my first experience with real Iron Sights.
BF2 had Iron Sights, but it was a quick shift from the 3D model to a 2D texture floating on your screen. Red Orchestra was also the first FPS to use 3D sniper scopes, which means you don't use a 2D Texture to aim with, you use the actual in-game scope to aim with.
You can also adjust your sights for longer/shorter ranges.
Cold/Hot weather also has an affect on ballistics, as well as how fast the barrels of machine guns will over heat.
You can "Mantle" many objects and use them for cover. All you do is run up to a wall or sandbags, hit your use button and your character automatically takes cover along the cover. As you move left and right, the character will stay along the cover. If you push forward, you can peak over the cover to quickly see what's going on, and if you use your iron sights, you will pop over the cover and take aim. When you come out of iron sights, your character automatically drops back down behind the cover.
And of course you can climb over, around or through windows, ledges, objects, etc.... where in previous RO's, you had to walk around objects, which was a pain in the butt often.
There is no such thing as health or health packs in RO. One good shot in the head or chest from any weapon will kill almost every time. If you are hit in the leg, arm or in a non-vital area of your body, you will start to bleed out, which means you need to find cover and bandage your wound(s) before you bleed out completely and die. Bandaging doesn't restore your health, it only prevents you from dying faster than normal. Chances are, if you're shot a second time, even if it's in a non-lethal area of the body, you're going to die, but sometimes you can still place your second bandage and keep going.... but anything beyond that, even if someone silly-slaps you, you're going down.
You can also have a critical shot, which stops you in your tracks and everything fades to black before you drop dead. This, while sucks, can also be a benefit, as you can squeeze off a few rounds towards your attacker and possibly take him down with you before you die.
There is also a suppression system in the game, where if shells, bullets or other things explode near by you, you become suppressed, in that your vision reduces focus, your heart rate increases and your accuracy isn't so great. In order to gain it back you need to either wait a while or find cover to hide behind to get your wits back.
Tanks have much better physics to them. In past Red Orchestras, no tank ever had health points, much like the troops.... but depending on where you hit the tank, you'll either blow out their tracks, or engine, or suspension, you can end up killing tank crewmen depending on where you hit the tank with a shell..... as an example, if you shoot a round at the turret of an enemy tank, you can end up killing the gunner, thus if you're the driver, you need to crawl through the tank to the gunner's position to take over.
If you hit the engine from behind, or if you shoot a tank round into the areas where the ammo is stored, the entire tank will blow up real good. Of course on some angles, rounds can and will deflect off the armour and cause no damage.
There are also Anti-Tank Class troops in the game, where you have Anti-Tank Rifles, satchels and AT-Grenades. Satchels are good for blowing up road blocks, doors and other objects blocking the way.... AT-Grenades are great if you can sneak up behind a tank..... lob a couple at the engine and they blow up real quick.
The AT-Rifle is something that requires some skill. You can shoot down enemy troops with it easily as one round will kill any troop, due to the size of the rounds, but blowing up a tank is more tricky. Depending on how far away you are from the tank and where you aim on the tank, your round will either bounce off the tank, or pass through the armour and do some damage. Certain areas of the tanks have weaker or stronger armour than another..... it takes practice to know where to hit.
There are also Recon Planes for both teams, which the team's Commander can call on a radio. They will make 2-3 passes over the battlefield and show the location of enemy troops and vehicles. Any enemies inside buildings or under trees/cover will not show up, as the guy in the plane can't see them. This information is then passed to the Commander with a delay of a couple of seconds, which is then relayed to the squad leaders and then to the rest of the troops, all with a delay of additional seconds to simulate how long it would really take to relay that info via Radio and Voice back in WWII.
As a bonus, recon planes fly low enough to the ground that you can shoot them down.... but it's not easy.
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Game Modes:
There are three different game modes to play:
FireFight - A Team DeathMatch Style Game Mode (No Objectives)
CountDown - A Counter-Strike Style Game Mode (Objectives, 1 Life)
and my Fav: Territory - An Objective Style Battle Game Mode. One Team Defends, the other Team Attacks.
There is also two different game styles:
Relaxed Realism - A lot of Icons and Information on your screen, team mates identified, etc.
Realism - Very little, if anything is on your screen while playing.
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Single Player:
Single Player Campaign is basically a practice mode for players to get used to the various classes and maps in the game before they go online. You are one of many troops either defending or attacking an objective. When you die, you take over an available bot and its class..... which I'm not fond of, but you get used to it.
Many say the Bots in the game are pretty stupid..... but Tripwire never bothered to put much work in the bots of previous RO's because RO was always meant to be an Online Game. The Bots in the Mod and RO1 were far..... FAR worse. Comparing the bots in RO2 to the past Bots they used, it's like night and day, and I find the bots in RO2 actually put up a very good fight. They now use cover, they will run away from grenades and other attacks... they stay together and they follow orders.
In Past RO's, the bots just walked in a straight line and shot from the hip... they were more for target practice than anything.
If you feel the RO2 bots are not very challenging.... increase their skill.
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Reception:
Following the Game's progress in the Tripwire forums and Steam Forums, many new players really enjoy the game and have been addicted to it, as it takes a different FPS approach than Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 heads in.
I love it.... however many players who's first Red Orchestra experience was RO1 haven't liked it much because they feel it's too "Run&Gun" compared to what I consider as robotic, clunky movement, with drunken weapon sway and ridiculous recoil. Most who don't like it, simply don't like it because it wasn't a carbon copy of RO1 with better graphics.
Everybody has their own opinion and preference of the game.
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The Future:
Tripwire will be releasing the full version SDK in the next few weeks, which means piles of maps and addons made by the community will be unloaded into the game shortly after. They are also going to be adding in more tanks, as well has armoured personnel carriers like the Half-Track.... more weapons too.
There are also a couple of maps they say are almost complete and ready to be added into the game.
In my opinion, Tripwire's support for their games is un-matched by any other game dev out there..... excluding Valve of course, who supported Half-Life 1 for around a decade.
Red Orchestra Ostfront came out in 2005 and they patched & added to it right up until a couple of months ago when RO2 was released..... so 6 years of steady support for a game is pretty damn good, especially when new content added in is free.
People are still experiencing issues with the game, and content-wise, there's not much in the game right now.... but from my own past experience with Tripwire and their games, as well as their well-known history of long-term support for their games, I have no doubt Red Orchestra 2 will be a very nasty beast in a year's time.
For those interested, here's some gameplay footage:
My suggestion would be to pick it up and give it a play.... it's not as expensive as say CoDMW3 or BF3, and the amount of content planned to be added into the game will make it very worth your buck.
Added:Additional Gameplay Video:
I also forgot to mention Bullet Penetration:
In past RO's it was a common annoyance how you'd shoot at an enemy who was hiding behind a picket fence, and yet the picket fence would protect them from bullets, grenades and tank shells and didn't help with the realism.
In RO2, certain bullets can go through certain materials. Machine Guns & Rifle Rounds can easily go through fences, wooden walls and some brick, while pistol rounds and SMG's have an easier time with fences and thin walls.
Also in past RO's, when someone called in an arty strike, people just had to hide inside a building and they'd be protected. With the new physics in RO2, most Arty will kill people hiding inside weaker buildings and cover, though if you're in a 2 story building and you're on the bottom floor, you're protected for the most part, but suppression still kicks in.
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