RisingStorm
Posted: 5/12/2013 12:00:00 AM
By: analogfight

        I am a day late righting this review, and I think I may have to buy a new keyboard, because I played Rising Storm  all day instead of playing for an hour or so and then writing about it. I said screw it and I closed my notes and I went back to sitting on top of the building and sniping like camper I am. Yes, I camp... but this isn't a story about me camping this is a review of an amazingly beautiful war game that takes place in the Pacific theater from '42 - '45. 

         When the beta key came in I was skeptical, games about WW II and combat have well... been done a few times. This is the first games of the Red Orchestra games I have played, so I set my thoughts aside and just played the game. The very first thing I noticed was the rich and deep environments, especially the jungle. It stood out and you could almost smell the fresh rain on the leaves. YOU WERE THERE, I soon remembered that I was in a war and not on a search for toucan Sam when I heard "BANZAIIIIIIIIIII" and saw someone coming at me. You can play as different classes and those have different weapons attached to them, nothing to see here really. It is the same old song and dance, but what is amazing is how the weapons respond when fired and also the aiming mechanics for rifles.

         As I mentioned above the environments of Rising Storm really put you there, the sounds, the visuals... it is all really captivating. What really rounded out the gameplay was the weapons, oh those sweet sweet bullet flingers. The weapons not only looked amazing, and sounded amazing...they also acted amazing. What I mean by that is they recoiled the way they should have recoiled, and the rifle doesn't have the same kickback as a machine gun... Well played Tripwire . Aiming was another thing that was subtle yet really added to the whole experience. When you were using a rifle you could adjust your aim to sight in correctly for different distances. For example is you were 900m away you could adjust your sights to aim for 900m and me more accurate and know where your bullet is headed. It was clever and it made me think about some other games the aiming was spot on no matter the distance. Just a subtle way that immersed me in the idea I was in the war, and that I had to think about how I would attack the enemy. 

        In the beta I played all the different game types, they were the standard things you would find in versus multiplayer. Territory, Countdown, and Fire Fight, nothing groundbreaking here but I really enjoyed territory, and fire fight especially with the play style set to realism. Realism is great, and it’s just like it sounds, its real… you can’t take 50 bullets, charge forward and stab your would be killer. It made me again feel more like I was there, and not playing a game. I am not sure if I ever hit the player limit of 64 players while online, but I can tell you that the maps although felt very large and expansive there was always action. The maps were also really well arranged, and balanced so it wasn’t a “melee”, or “sniper” map. Even with my love of camping, there was never a spot that I felt safe, I hated and loved that. It really made for a better game play experience. 

        Rising Storm is visually stunning and extremely immersive, and to be fair I kinda expected that. It was built on the Unreal engine and that thing is a powerhouse of awesome! What stood out to me most was the water physics. It looks awesome in gameplay and you can see it in the trailer on Steam  also. Rising Storm is set to release this summer, and I really can’t wait. In addition to the game you also get access to the steam workshop which gives you a ton of community mods. Head over to Steam and add this puppy to your wish list, and check out the website for all the latest news.

Hope to see all of ya on the battlefield!