Rising Storm has released on Steam

[TotalerKrieger]

Has anyone here tried out Rising Storm since it released on Steam yesterday? What are your initial impressions?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about Rising Storm is a mil-sim oriented multiplayer FPS (well...I would say it sits somewhere between ARMA and Battlefield) set on the Pacific Front of WW2. If you have played Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, you will know what to expect as RS is a standalone expansion for this title.

RS has a large assortment of Allied and Axis weaponry rendered in gorgeous detail including flamethrowers, katanas, knee mortars and ridiculously long bayonets. Speaking as someone who regularly shoots WW2 rifles, the game captures the feel and sound of these weapons very well. Notably, a new Banzai mechanic allows the Japanese to storm positions en masse and engage GIs in melee. It is a very unique feature for a multiplayer shooter and can lead to some very tense cinematic moments. The maps are highly detailed, but are unfortunately are only partially destructible. Expect to see most of the major engagements from the US Pacific island campaign, although there are currently only 5-6 maps.

Basically, if you are looking for a FPS that requires a little more thought and is generally less forgiving than the average title, I would highly recommend this game. Fans of HBO's "The Pacific" will enjoy this game, although you unfortunately cannot remove any gold teeth from fallen enemies. Unlike RO2s launch, RS is currently highly polished and relatively bug free. It is available on Steam for $20 which will include all RO2: Heroes of Stalingrad content. Sorry if this seems like a shameless plug, but more people need to know about this game!

RS Trailer:
http://www.gamespot.com/rising-storm/videos/rising-storm-pre-purchase-trailer-6408482/

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Been totally psyched for this one for ages.

I haven't played Rising Storm yet but the sheer amount of effort that seems to have been put into the thing is insane. What I find most awesome is that they didn't just essentially reskin Heroes of Stalingrad and throw in a bunch of uninspired, cosmetically-different-but-otherwise-identical-to-the-base-game stuff. This looks like it was made to look, feel and play quite different from RO2 from the beginning, and that they tried really hard to make the asymmetrical aspects feel interesting and work well rather than just going 'Americans have semi-automatics so lets give the Japanese mortars and leave it at that'. The weapons and voicing are great and while it's not the best game in terms of flat-out visual quality the game is so ridiculously detailed that it looks a hell of lot better than many big huge, latest and greatest graphics games anyway.

I have however heard over on the RS forums that the Japanese seem to win around 2/3rds of matches. Maybe banzai charging works better than it should or they just dominate a particular map or two or something, and players with more experience points get not quite gamebreaking but still unfair bonuses to their weapons. Aside from that there doesn't seem to be any noteworthy problems with it. Like you said the launch appears to have gone quite well, especially considering that the many new additions and changes would seemingly cause a lot of problems.
All in all it looks like a very well done expansion and you don't even need to pay extra for it if you have the base game. This is the kind of thing that restores faith in the game industry to me after hearing about the latest, crappy overpriced EA game DLC pack or stupid ass preorder bonuses for one game or another.
It's simply just shit done well that doesn't screw over the players. This is how this stuff should be made and marketed.