My Review
I was recently invited into the Rising Storm beta by a friend, much to my excitement. I was hoping that the Rising Storm team would be able to make RO:2 into what it should have been, the successor to the fantastic RO:1. I couldn't have been more wrong. The moment I entered the beta, the similarities have astounded me. This is essentially the same game, the same vile dismemberment of realism that was RO:2. Everything about the game is designed to make money.
When the game started, I decided spawn in as a normal Japanese rifleman and to my immediate disgust, even in realism mode, I see that he is equipped with a sidearm. Japanese riflemen were never issued sidearms during WWII, what I am seeing here is some kind of balancing crap that the RS team initially promised not to pull off and design the maps to get around it. I decided to ignore it begrudgingly and try to continue to play even with this blasphemous ignoration of reality. As I continued to play I eventually switched over the American team on Iwo Jima and once again I am disgusted. Fairly early in the round, I am charged by three katana wielding Japanese infantrymen and proceed to shoot them with my Thompson. I understand the banzai mechanics were an attempt to get the Japanese team to use realistic tactics, but this is ridiculous. I empty my magazine into the three of them, killing a single one and despite being full of bullets continue charging me like this is some sort of last samurai shit (probably another on of your references ) and chop me to pieces. After this I immediately decided to stop playing. I was disgusted.
RS appears to be trying to make money off the hype that The Pacific miniseries created and it appears to have been the team's primary reference. I assumed, once again incorrectly, that Rising Storm was a labor of love by a group of developers who were not in it for the money, but to provide the world with a realistic interpretation of the Pacific War, a gap that has never been filled. I recognized a few of the developers and researchers from various community modifications I have played in the past, but I suppose money can drive people to do anything. I have no problem with hard working devs asking for money in return for there work, but they went beyond that by adding an unlocking system similar to RO2's and I thought we had already figured out what the original RO community thought about that shit, but I suppose that you are all too blind to see it. Once again, Tripwire (I think it is safe to refer to the RS developers as being on and the same) will appeal to neither the arcade community or the original RO/DH realism community, trying to find a middle ground between realism and arcadishness.