CingularDuality

I'll join with Wolfseven in saying that if you don't like this review, you're free to write your own.

Keep in mind that a review is NOT an objective report, it's a critical evaluation. That means that it must contain criticism!

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Mateo

Actually, I was entertaining, wining, and dining the idea of a CounterPoint review. If someone with some l33t writing skills wants to take the counter position, then PM me.

Turbo

I agree with Perry ,Cing, and Wolf. Write your own if you dont agree with him.

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TG_PolishBoogieman

For me, this game combines a lot of the best features from other games into one great (but not perfect) package.

-Iron sights only and no crosshair (Vietcong)
-Ability to pop up and shoot from behind cover (Vietcong)
-Reinforcement in waves (DoD)
-One shot/one kill (DoD)
-Rifle butt/bayonet kills (DoD)

Not to mention features that we've rarely or never had before:

-Team/Local VOIP channels
-Ability to hear the other team's VOIP if they are close - how cool is this?
-Authentic tank simulation - not perfect but the best you'll see outside of a full-blown sim

I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's very, very good. The fact that it isn't well-supported here at TG is a surprise and a shame. Much like Operation Flashpoint, it's a perfect fit yet the player base just doesn't see it that way.

And as far as teamwork aspects, those points have been made very eloquently by Tycho and anything I could add would be redundant. The players make the teamwork, not the game. Isn't that half the fun of what we do here - take great games and play them tactically among like minded folks? RO may not be any better than any other game as far as tools provided to elicit teamwork, but it's certainly no worse. There was life before BF2, you know?

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Strag

I think the concern is that the review was posted on the front page of Tactical Gamer, so to the public it looks like this is Tactical Gamer's official opinion of Red Orchestra. If you were an RO player who had heard great things about Tactical Gamer, and the first thing you saw when you came here was this negative review, would you consider TG as a friendly place to play RO? Personally, I'd pass this site up and move on to another, more receptive place. So for those of us who must actually promote this game outside of TG, having a negative review presented as the official position of Tactical Gamer (and having it be the FIRST THING people see when they come here) does not help us at all.

I did not request that the review be pulled from the front page, but I'm glad it was. I don't feel this should represent the official opinion of Tactical Gamer when it comes to RO, especially when we're trying to recruit a larger RO playerbase.

Mateo

Actually, the Game Review section link to the front has been servered (Magnum's post is gone too, if you check). Not an editorial decision, but something to do with the Google feeds, I surmise.

|Pz505|Heinz

true, but overly subjective, or worse, uninformed criticism is near useless. Tycho correctly pointed out that several of the "faults" the "reviewer" described were due to a lack of knowledge of some simple in-game mechanics.

again, people have not given adequate time to learn this complex game.

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xTYBALTx

Would you care to elaborate? Please cite my errors of fact.

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Mateo

Not a single reviewer, anywhere, on the web, is required to address every single piece of minuta about a game. It's up to the reviewer to decide what, and how, they cover the game.

The fact is, many games in the wake of BF2 will be compared to that, justified or not. You can disagree with that, but that's a fact of the marketplace.

RO, for all it's good points, also has some significant issues, some of which are covered in TYBALT's review. I don't see anything "uninformed" about the stance in the review, and the game is not as complex as you wish it to be.

Mateo

I bristle at this, as leader of Content Dev, and chief game reviewer.

If a game sucks, we should be allowed to express it, regardless of the politics-we can make games like CoD2, CS:S and DoD work for us-and those are not what I would say have the level of tactical depth that other titles here exhibit (see Tactical Mod, AA, OFP, Ghost Recon, etc.). Most of those have serious detractors in the wider gaming community, if I recall correctly.

If I have to be obsessively positive about every game, then reviews serve no function. Unceasingly positive reviews are just background noise, propaganda at best, and pandering at worst.

Mateo

I'm going to keep this thread open a while longer, but we are veering into personal attacks pretty quickly.

Keep the dialogue open, and civil, and the thread won't be pruned. By me anyway.

Strag

I understand that, and I agree.

What I'm saying is that, on one hand, Tactical Gamer currently has folks trying to recruit new members into the community to play RO (and hopefully other games, once they see what we have to offer). On the other hand, Tactical Gamer currently has folks who are providing a negative review of RO that represents the community's official opinion. I say the review "represents the community's official opinion" because it is posted on the site's front page. For someone outside of TG coming to the site for the first time, this is the first impression they'll get; it appears to be coming from the site as a whole, not from one particular reviewer. If an RO player new to TG sees this negative review right of the bat, it could certainly give him cause to move on to another site. This does not help us recruit, and, in my opinion, is a case of Tactical Gamer shooting Tactical Gamer in the foot.

As an example, when the BF2 crowd was recruiting players from outside of TG, they did not post links back to negative feedback here on TG. This would have been counterproductive. Instead, they posted links back to positive feedback and experiences here on TG, to better promote our community to those unfamiliar with it. In the same vein, I would prefer to have positive content facing outward regarding RO, to help with promotion and recruiting. I don't have any problem with reviews (either negative or positive). I'm saying maybe one person's opinion shouldn't be put on the front page as a representation of the entire community's opinion.

WhiskeySix

I see two types here at TG: those that love RO and those that want to love RO.


As one of the latter, I'm just having trouble cozying up to RO. Mostly because "teamwork" in RO isn't easy to achieve (nor should it be perhaps, as it attempts to accurately recreate the conditions on the eastern front in WWII.) As to why it isn't easy: some limitations are intentional and good - while others I view as "mistakes" that I'd like to see "corrected".


Heh, RO plays hard to get - but I assume that once you do "get some", it's very satisfying! Unfortunately our other love (BF2), doesn't play hard to get... it's "easy" So if I'm looking for some instant gratification during my limited gaming time - teamwork, action, excitement (read: not what I get here at my day job), I'm likely to dial "old faithful" since I know I'm going to score - rather than take my chances w/ RO... where I've yet to find any satisfaction in my 8 or so separate attempts.


Now then - Tzefania and others are doing some GREAT work to make RO a little more friendly and aproachable! I think once a lot that work wraps up, and once the SOPs become a little more.. well.. standard, there will be a lot more people that "for a good time, call RO"!

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Apophis

Personally. I think most of the review was good. It's only failing it the comparison to BF2. Red Orchestra the same as any other game, should be reviewed on it's own merits.

Games like RO don't have a Battlefield-esque minimap because they're trying to create a more realistic game that relies on a players own capability for situational awareness to determine where they are and what they are doing. OFP (the one with the huge forests) does this as well.

I think if the comparison and expectation that RO be just like BF2 but in a WWII setting was removed, it would make this review both good AND fair.

This is just my opinion though, it doesn't make the review style used here right or wrong.

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TychoCelchuuu

Like when you said there's no way to know if an objective is being taken, or when you said Kaukasus was a bad map

(I'm just kidding about Kaukasus. Obviously that's an opinion, hehe)

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|TG-Irr|TychoCelchuuu