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This game is a bit of a disappointment imo.
I liked Dragon Rising, it was a fun co-op military based combat game. While RR looks similar (updated same graphics engine) and has the same general feel it's let down in numerous ways.
For some reason the developers decided that it was a problem that Dragon Rising's characters had no personality or commentary other than the brief mission description/clarification in missions, leaving the player to actually just play the game and concentrate on the missions.
To solve this apparent 'problem', it seems the developers decided that what would be best is to give every character a personality. Unfortunately, every single one of them was given the personality of a smack-talking retard.
Each mission starts with a video briefing as per normal and that's fine. But then you either start the mission in the back of a helicopter or on the back of a Humvee and have to sit through 5mins of inane rants, unintelligible bs, racial slurs, purile language which does nothing but make you hate your team members and having to start a new level. Or finish one, as yes, there is the same 5min rant/bs at the end of each mission as you drive/fly off out of the combat area.
But dont think you're safe while you're playing the missions either, there is so much bloody radio chatter (filled with the same colourful language) you never have time to think. It doesn't contribute or even make the game feel realistic/immersive or fun.
I would think (and hope) that real military combat units don't have this lack of discipline and that these types of people aren't given weapons of any type. If they did, I expect the life expectancies to be very, very short.
The amount of unimportant chatter also gets in the way of the actual mission objectives when things go south. With so much useless banter, you tend to start tuning it out (or at least try to) and suddenly, woops, mission failed. Because in amongst all of the noise, there was a message to withdraw a few hundred meters back or take out a certain target etc.
But BS aside, the gameplay has also suffered in the 'mainstreaming' (ie: make the game more like COD) of the level design. In my opinion, the free roaming element of Dragon Rising is what made the levels interesting.
EG: Having 3 mission objectives 3km, 5km and 7km away with a description on how you 'should' think about doing it and being dropped off and told to think for yourselves. Destroying the furthest waypoint away would give you an advantage, but also take more time leaving you less time to finish the main objective etc etc.. You had to think (and discuss with other players) what would be the best strategy to do.
Red River's approach is the hand-holding, linear level approach. Dropping you into a level (after having your ears verbally assaulted by the after-briefing blabber) and then only giving you a waypoint to each objective as you finish each one. With sub-waypoints in case you're unable to negotiate a flat field without getting lost, which would have been incredibly hard to do given that within the huge environmental settings, you cant really stray far without getting a 'you're leaving the combat area, return or die' warning.
Co-op itself is very easy to setup and use, however there isnt much (if anything) in the way of configuration leaving the rules of the game to be decided by a pre-determined (and unspecified) rules. I think the strictness of the multi-play co-op rules are a bit tough.
Accidents happen, but after you kill 2 human players, you're booted and unable to re-join the session until it is completely disbanded and re-created. While yes, it shouldn't happen, it does happen by accident. If you're driving a Humvee and one of your passengers gets out while at speed, your fault they died (it counts). Someone walks into your line of sight while you're shooting at oncoming enemies, your fault. etc etc. It's annoying to not be able to re-invite the player without having to re-form the whole multi-player session.
Other things I haven't mentioned, but think are worthy mentions.
* Tracer fire on enemies - You can now locate who's shooting at you from the tracer rounds that everyone is using at all hours of the day. Not sure if that's good or bad, makes it easier though.
* No more medics - Everyone has a never-ending First-Aid kit. Again, makes things a bit easier. I personally didn't like it, but you get wounded enough to appreciate that this game would be way, way more difficult if you only had 1 medic in the team.
* Skill level ups - Accuracy and perks etc, didn't really have a big impact other than to return the character to reasonable skill levels. Almost all of the the team stuck 90% into accuracy because you start off with bullets spraying all directions from the side of your crosshair even when crouched & using the sights.
* Customizable weapon/item selections and basic weapon mods - I liked this. You can pick what weapons every mission and what accessories etc
Overall Summary
After starting and finishing the game yesterday, all of the guys I co-op'ed with were of the opinion that it isn't a bad game, it's just not as good as Dragon Rising. A step in the wrong direction. Which is unfortunate.
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