Euro Publisher Set For Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

[hal]

Tripwire Interactive announced today that 1C Company has acquired the European publishing rights for its upcoming Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, which was thrust onto the scene a bit prematurely by PC Gamer. Some new details and screenshots have also emerged.

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad will focus on the Battle of Stalingrad and the surrounding operations, both German and Russian, from July 1942 to February 1943. The game allows the player to experience one of the most brutal battles in all of human history. The game consists out of two campaigns - Red Army and German. Delivering unrivalled accuracy and attention to detail, along with gritty, vicious combat in multiplayer, co-op and solo modes the game will feature everything from quick, brutal firefights to more intricate and challenging simulation modes.

The developers have built upon their huge success with the last title and have added a slew of new features including:

RO multiplayer taken to new heights: In addition to the award winning Territory gametype from RO, all new gametypes such as Firefight and Countdown add greater diversity, replayability and fun.

Persistent Stats Tracking and Player Progression: Grow in rank, earn medals, improve abilities, and become a Hero - all visible to the complete online gaming community and embedded within the game.

Heroes: Obtain the ultimate goal and become a Hero online. Players with hero status inspire troops around them and cause fear in their enemies. Heroes have access to the best and rarest weapons and equipment, and will stand out visually from the rest of the soldiers.

Stalingrad Campaign: The Stalingrad campaign will feature the multiplayer maps used in a campaign layout recreating the battle for Stalingrad from both the German and Russian sides.

First person cover system: Experience the ultimate firefights that a cover system allows, from the immersion of a first person view. Peek or blind fire over and around cover and more.

Squad Command: Command fire teams on the battlefield using an easy to use first person interface.

WWII weaponry redefined: true to life ballistics, bullet penetration, breathing, adjustable sights, free aim, weapon bracing, photo-real graphics and more.

Co-op: Players can connect with their friends and battle the AI in multiple game types including the Stalingrad Campaign, Skirmish Mode, and more.

Morale: Experience what it is like to be a soldier in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history and the importance of a soldier's state of mind and how it can turn the tide of battle.

[Phopojijo]

My god, the characters all look so old o.o

[hal]

Originally Posted by Phopojijo

My god, the characters all look so old o.o

Well duh. They've been fighting for 67 years.

[TheSomian]

hm, looks a bit like the old UE2 game with some new effects. It's ok, but it's absolutely not photo-real.

Also, i don't know if i really want to see a singleplayer campaign in the game. Maybe as some kind of extended tutorial, but I hope it's not going to spoil the multiplayer.

Also hope, the environments are somewhat destructible even if not stated in the press release. This would be a fine use of the new tech.

[r1esG0]

so true, the models are with low polys,
it seems theyre using models that are more suitable for ue 2.5 in the ue3


still, this game has its playability wich is the best it has,
i pray for them to improve their graphics

[SuperDre]

Yeah, the first thing I noticed was the bad charactermodels.. my god, only for bargainbin price is this acceptable...
but I'm not sure which engine they are using for this new entry..

[hal]

It's UE3

[Ramm-Jaeger]

I may a bit biased, but I'd say the ROHOS characters look better than a lot of our competitors in game characters (in-game, not the cutscene characters they always use for PR shots). Take a look at this BIAHH vs ROHOS comparison (same engine):

BIAHH:



ROHOS:

[xMurphyx]

I like the look of your models, Ramm, and I think the main thing that makes them look bad (or 'worse', I should say. they don't look bad at all) is the post processing! The soft glow in places that gives the whole game this typical "UnrealEngine3-look" doesn't do their faces any favors. It's not all too hot on the environment either, in my personal opinion, but people have come to expect and accept it there. So if you want to go for the wow effect with the overdone post-processing instead of the more down-to-earth look that's your choice, really (a good example of what I mean are D!rt and Richard Burns. D!rt wows people with its special effects but doesn't look realistic at all. Richard Burns, although it's technically rather low quality, looks much more realistic. Photo-realistic even, if you don't look at it from up close).
It's really detrimental to the faces though. It makes them look older and less human.

Try to tone it down a good bit and see if it (the faces in particular) looks better then. The base model and skin seems to be very good.

Other things: I'm no expert on war equipment like some folks at the RO forums to my eyes the boots look too grainy. If they were less grainy but about as shiny as they are now they might look better too. The ones the soldier in the back is wearing look better to me because due to the distance the graininess is less pronounced. If it's supposed to be dirt, that's fine then but it should look a bit more like dirt then, rather than seemingly arbitrary grain. The helmets should be less shiny too.
I don't know how shadows are done on your models. Can they self-shadow? If yes, why doesn't the helmet cast a shadow? Can the helmets be shot off? If not you could have your art-team paint some fake shadows of the helmet on the foreheads of the soldiers. It would certainly help the 1st screenshot up there.

In short: post processing is nice and dandy but in my personal uneducated opinion it makes your environments and models look worse at the moment. They seem to look rather fantastic but the "Gears knockoff" look takes a lot away from it all.

Haha, everyone's a critic, right? Don't take me too serious.

[elmuerte]

hell yeah!
Boxes and crates; no FPS can live without them.
Now where are the barrels?

[TheSomian]

u mean the red ones that explode when u shoot them and that are scattered all over the game world, just waiting to be shot? :>

anyway, the bad gfx may also be based on the bad lighting in the maps. everything looks like they didnt even click "render" in the editor at all. note that nothing except the characters themselves is casting shadows anywhere. the wall is also looking somewhat flat.

[Dest]

I agree with murphy, the faces don't look as sharp as the uniforms, which do look very sharp!..

Originally Posted by TheSomian

anyway, the bad gfx may also be based on the bad lighting in the maps. everything looks like they didnt even click "render" in the editor at all. note that nothing except the characters themselves is casting shadows anywhere. the wall is also looking somewhat flat.

The walls seem to be all static meshes and they're not really good at casting sharp shadows. Only player shadows are projected on all surfaces. Compare it to Gears of War, same story. http://www.megatonik.com/wp-content/...r-assault2.jpg

[TomWithTheWeather]

Originally Posted by Ramm-Jaeger

I may a bit biased, but I'd say the ROHOS characters look better than a lot of our competitors in game characters (in-game, not the cutscene characters they always use for PR shots). Take a look at this BIAHH vs ROHOS comparison (same engine):

Our BiA:HH characters were the same for in-game and cut-scene. You did however pick one of the most unflattering BiA screenshots to make your comparison, not to mention you're comparing a German character model to an American character model in a level that uses a much different lighting scheme than the rest of the game for performance reasons.

Here's a few screens that are a little better if you want to compare.

http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2008/1...aneuver_hd.jpg
http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/scre...Hells-Highway/

[Ramm-Jaeger]

Originally Posted by TomWithTheWeather

Our BiA:HH characters were the same for in-game and cut-scene. You did however pick one of the most unflattering BiA screenshots to make your comparison, not to mention you're comparing a German character model to an American character model in a level that uses a much different lighting scheme than the rest of the game for performance reasons.

Here's a few screens that are a little better if you want to compare.

http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2008/1...aneuver_hd.jpg
http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/scre...Hells-Highway/

Tom, wasn't meaning to slag you guys. I really like BIAHH. The point wasn't to say that you characters were bad, just that I thought ours were on the same level We don't have any Americans in our game so I couldn't do a comparison like that. But for an apples to apples comparison:

BIAHH German Characters:



ROHOS German Characters:



BIA had some really nice self shadowing on the players that is really nice. Which model actually looks nicer is for the fans to decide I think they both look good.

[elmuerte]

Yay!!!! barrels!!!

thank you Ramm-Jaeger

[TomWithTheWeather]

Originally Posted by Ramm-Jaeger

Tom, wasn't meaning to slag you guys. I really like BIAHH. The point wasn't to say that you characters were bad, just that I thought ours were on the same level We don't have any Americans in our game so I couldn't do a comparison like that.

Oh I know, it's all good. I was just pointing out a few screens that would make for a better comparison.

[SuperDre]

Let's not forget that BIAHH is already out for a long time, and the UE3 engine has also evolved, also people know how to better use the engine by now...

[Unknown Target]

Seems cool enough I guess. That full screen bloom really needs to be toned down IMO.

[Phopojijo]

Originally Posted by elmuerte

Yay!!!! barrels!!!

thank you Ramm-Jaeger

Do a barrel roll!!!!

[TomWithTheWeather]

Originally Posted by SuperDre

Let's not forget that BIAHH is already out for a long time, and the UE3 engine has also evolved, also people know how to better use the engine by now...

How does that matter?