SimHQ.com - Land Combat Zone - Review: Red Orchestra

You can watch the bolt cycle on submachine guns like the PPSh-41, PPD-40, and MP-40, and you have to be careful with those bullet-hoses… because the RO team has factored in recoil. Watch the PPSh-41 reach for the sky during a long burst and you'll see what I mean. Control is the name of the game. You can deploy squad-automatic weapons like the MG-34 and Degtyarev DP-28, and they all have realistic reloading routines too. The DP is faster, I think, because of the flat pie-pan magazine. The MG-34 has an assault drum and you can even do the Rambo thing from the hip with it, though it won't be real accurate when you do. In RO 3.2, the feared MG-42 will be on the battlefield. Hand grenades such as the German Stielhandgranate "potato-masher" and the Russian F1 are in game. You can "cook" them off! All you do is click the right mouse key, which pulls the F1's pin or unscrews the cap from the "potato masher." The fuse is burning, so don't hold it long before you throw! If you get shot, the grenade'll wipe out YOUR pals too, so throw it! One of the most detailed animations in the game happens with the "potato masher," where you see the hands on screen unscrew the cap and pull out the bead that lights the fuse inside. These guys don't miss a trick.

Speaking of realistic, forget crosshairs. If you want to draw a bead on that target, hit the "shift" key to crouch (you're harder to hit that way) and click your middle mouse button or the "i" key to put that weapon to your shoulder. Use the iron sights, just like with a real gun! And look out… even crouching you're not going to be rock steady. The sights will wander, as when you're aiming a real gun. In the prone, you're even harder to hit and your weapon is more stable, but it's harder to get up and run. And you will need to be able to get up and run, too. Cover is important, and if you stand around in the open you will get very dead.

You CAN fire from the hip, but it's hard to aim. It is handy to be able to do that for snapshots, especially with submachine guns. One of the kills I got in an online game happened this way. I was part of a Waffen SS squad tasked to assault a mortar pit. I was armed with an MP-40 and was first in. Inside the mortar pit itself, a Russian soldier armed with a Moisin rifle bounced me. He was kneeling by the exit into a trench network, and I just saw his upper body. He missed with the first shot, and hearing the Moisin's flat bark — distinguishable from the Mauser if you listen — I spun, spraying the area where he was with 9mm fire. He pulled back, and as he concentrated on me he didn't see another SS soldier sneak up above him, with his Sturmgewehr 44 rifle. I kept the Russian pinned down by peppering his hiding place with my MP-40. While he was immobilized, my teammate got the drop on him, and blasted him with 7.92mm "kurz" rounds. I suppose I could have tossed over a Stielhandgranate, but if I'd done that I'd have had to sling the MP-40 and opened myself up. RO rewards teamwork and use of cover, and it punishes recklessness with a vengeance.

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