Red Orchestra 2: Free Weekend on Steam and GotY Edition

Outstanding!

GOTY update went live as of 2023 Eastern time (0023 GMT). I recommend anyone who owns the game to install this update and see for themselves how much TWI has tweaked this title...

Also, for those that don't own RO2 already, as Mindkill mentioned it is a free weekend to play and also the game is currently on sale thru Steam for US $9.99.

Yea, I have 2MB Download speed at the moment, and found out the the file is 5GB :P

I grabbed the Digital Deluxe edition for $13.00.. For that Why the heck not!??

Itty bitty AAR and instructional video for the game.

BigGaayAl and I had some pretty intense rounds this weekend. There were 7,500 players online simultaneously, and it looks like many of the people who tried the game for free ended up buying it...

Up until this update, this game was seriously flawed. Now it is offering everything a game could need to enable tg style play:
-squads with command structure
-voip with
-very realistic weapon physics and handling
-mod-ability of most aspects of the game, inculding letting your mods be approved for whitelisting so you can use them on ranked servers

This is totally a tg game, and to see so little people playing this makes me think TG has lost it's way. We were all over BF3, a commercial release totally unadaptable to proper tg gameplay, and then that predictably died off despite an energetic 6 months hype.

If you haven't taken a look at this game, do it.
If you own the game and haven't played after the update, update it and have a look.

The game is at release level now, granted a year after release. It is the only game that could possibly be an heir to bf2 imo, as it is the only game since then that offers a similar structure for teamwork.

I wanted to add some of the nice moments that RO2 has.

-charging a hallway with 15 russians, failure irrelevant, awesomeness given
-Me and Risting of Aimed last weekend getting headshot... by a single lonely bullet LoL.
-Seeing your friends fly at you with the bones sticking out of their detached limbs. (gruesome but something that adds to the game for me)
-Hit an enemy, watch him slowly collapse while choking very audibly in his own blood.

-footsteps are fixed; hear an enemy talking/walking/making any other sound near you and take him out when he comes to stab you in the back.
-Bullet penetration; trough people as mentioned earlier, trough mostly any material you would think can be penetrated, with penetration differing depending on the physics of your round (kaliber/power/distnace from material afaik). I see an enemy at a window? I aim for the wall first as he mistakes cover for concealement.
-A, german mg with 100 bullet-belt; Just because I prefer to kill the enemy indirectly with lead poisoning over direct hits .
-More severe suppression effects (still not enough imo, but decent)
-Epic bayonet killstreaks... Less tactical than panic mode, no killstreak bonusses whatsoever, but it is seriously gratifying if you are forced into a 7 bayo kill frenzy behind enemy lines as happened to me this weekend.
-Squadleader spawn that works differently from BF2, but now works reliably which was not at all the case before the update.

-The very few times we were able to get a full squad working together using voip...like TG bread and butter.

From the main page of RO2:

http://www.heroesofstalingrad.com/20...-your-friends/

"Red Orchestra 2 Price Drop and Guest Passes For Your Friends!
by Alan Wilson on Friday, June 8, 2012, under News
With the success of the recent free weekend on Steam and lots of new players enjoying the Red Orchestra 2 Game of the Year Edition, we’ve decided to do a couple of things to make it even easier to get into the game. First, we have decided to cut the price in half to $19.99 (14.99 GBP/17.99 EUR/299 RUB) for the game. Second, we’re giving everyone that owns Red Orchestra 2 a guest pass that they can hand off to a friend for them to check out the game free of charge.
This is the game that won PC Gamer’s “Multiplayer FPS of the Year” and has recently been updated with new game modes, a new map, a wide range of gameplay refinements and performance improvements – all for free to everyone who owns the game. Tripwire Interactive is committed to supporting our games with free additional content for many years after initial release and Red Orchestra 2 is no exception to that rule! There is more content already in the works for the game, as well as a new add-on for the game: Rising Storm, that will bring the Pacific Theater alive for Red Orchestra 2 players."

So, guest passes available, and a permanent 50% price cut? Ballsy move, bet it will work out economically.