It's time to start reviewing again! At this point I'm finally done with school for about 40 days or so and I can get to some things I wanted to do for some time on ModDB. Today I did one of those things: Write a mini-review for Romanov's Vengeance!
I honestly haven't been a fan of OpenRA for some time because it seems too clunky - bogged down by both its default settings and by its logic in general. That doesn't mean though that there aren't some great mods for it. I've been a fan of MustaphaTR's work ever since I joined BR Studios (the makers of Yuri's Revenge: CnCD2K, one of Mustapha's old mods) and this is his current and most recent project. And I'm delighted to say: So far, I love it! Balanced gameplay coupled with some fresh new assets and command point system, this mod has it all, and I can't think of a fitting way to utilize all of OpenRA's features. Now, for the specifics.
1) Gameplay
OpenRA in general suffers from slow and clunky gameplay, both because of the defualt settings for every match and the fact that it's still being implemented with new features that seem to bog it down even more. Unfortunately RV suffers from this too, although it's not as prevailent. Once you set that aside, the gameplay's actually pretty fun. Good to see some old RA2 logic back and familiar sights like Prism logic and reworked SpySat. It's great fighting the AI as well, even if it is still flawed. My main concern is the way the AI builds, like, 4 refineries at any given time and not silos. I think it could do without that logic, but eh, what do I know. Both the Allieds and the Soviets are fun to play anyhow. Now let me hurl my rockets at the enemy's base like a TRUE boss!
2) Detail
I wish I could say the same about the detail level of the game but... it's OpenRA, and I just don't like the way RA2/RV looks (or any 2.5D OpenRA mod for that matter). The voxels just look... off, like some of the shadows went missing during implementation. I also think the beta RA2 mod for OpenRA still needs a bit of work before a proper RA2 mod can be made for it. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's RV's fault. It ultimately falls on the OpenRA devs to make it work. For now, though, I can't agree with the lack of attention to detail. I would probably choose YR over OpenRA if I cared about detail that much, but I really don't. Just got to rant about it for 5 minutes, I guess...
Overall...
If you think I'm just peeving on the OpenRA devs for making mods look terrible, I'm not. I'm saying that the idea of "2.5D" mods for OpenRA is still high in the sky, and it needs a lot of work to be considered complete. RV just shows us the progress that was made so far, and I think that Mustapha has done very well with the resources he and his team had. Basically, the mod is great, but the platform isn't. It will some day, though, and I wish Mustapha and his team the best as they continue the development of Romanov's Vengeance.
One mission, one purpose.
Review Rise of the east.